Fairfield Community Orchard

04/17/2026

Happening tomorrow!

09/11/2025

Have you ever walked by the Fairfield Community Orchard and thought I wish there was a giant pile of groundfalls on a tarp marked by yellow flags? That would be great, I could get 1 or 2 buckets filled in 45 seconds.
If so, it's your lucky day! There is a giant pile of groundfalls on a tarp marked by yellow flags. There are some yucky apples but plenty of good ones for making sauce pies and drying.
Take as many as you like, If you want to sort for good ones just throw the yucky ones into the long grass.
Have fun!

09/07/2025

Howdy! Apples are ripe and ripening. It’s time to harvest one of the season's greatest treasures. Below is a harvest guide for visiting the community orchard picking the varieties that are currently ripe.

Stay tuned as we are planning for orchard projects. Volunteers are needed to help harvest apples for the Lords Cupboard and Golden Magnolia, as well as getting the trees ready for winter by weeding and making sure cages are secure. These events will be coming up over the next few weekends.

There are currently 3 varieties of apples ready to pick - Cortland, Liberty, and Whitney Crab.
Cortland & Liberty are great for fresh eating or baking, the Whitney Crabapple is wonderful applesauce, jams or cider.
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Harvest Guidelines:
Fruit will ripen over a 4-6 week season. Trees that are currently ripe are marked with small yellow flags.
Feel free to harvest from the abundance of fruit, however, be mindful of the amount of fruit available on the tree and be sure to leave some for others.
One strategy is to harvest a few handfuls or a grocery bag every few days or once a week.
When picking fruit be gentle on the limbs. To prevent breakage don't pull down on the branches.

Please only harvest the ripest fruit from the trees. For those inclined, picking up ground falls is a good way to find the ripest fruit. It also helps the orchard look tidy. Bruised or damaged fruit generally still has good portions that can be cut up and eaten or used for cooking. If you have chickens or livestock, feel free to pick up ground falls for them.

09/21/2024

What's that clip-clopping sound? Why, it's chestnuts falling to the earth, drumming the ground to call you to the harvest.

Here are a few tips:

-Harvest from the ground, not the tree. If you see some in the tree that look like they're ready to fall, please don't shake the tree: One, it's not very effective. Two, it can break branches. Three, it can result in entire burs falling, which are very sharp. No impalements, please! Speaking of impalement...
-Wear close-toe shoes. Again, the burs are quite sharp. Protect your feet, and if you find some nuts still inside a bur you can easily break up the bur with your (protected) feet to get at the nut.
-As always, be mindful that others may also want to try some. A general guideline would be harvest no more than you can fit in a couple pockets or a baseball hat.

Once you've got your chestnuts:

First, they need to be cured. This is as simple as leaving them out in ventilated area, maybe in a colander or mesh bag or basket, for several days to dry. The curing is complete when you squeeze a nut and there's give - an air pocket has formed between the shell and the nut, due to the nut drying and shrinking. Skipping this step will mean the nut won't have that trademark sweetness you get from roasted chestnuts. Once the curing is done it's best to store them in the fridge in a ziplock bag if not eating right away (chestnuts are not as shelf-stable as other nuts). If you roast them, first cut an 'X' through the shell before putting in the oven (lets steam escape and prevents explosions). Generally 375 for 20-30 minutes, depending on the size and age, does it.

10/30/2023

https://www.southeastiowaunion.com/news/fruit-harvested-early-at-fairfield-community-orchard/

FAIRFIELD – The fruit at the Fairfield Community Orchard ripened early this year because of the long summer drought. In …

09/09/2023

Hi friends! We invite you to join us tomorrow (Sunday September 10th) from 10 am - noon for an apple harvest. We will be picking from the 2 or 3 ripest apple trees at the Community Orchard. The apples will be sorted and distributed to the Lord's Cupboard and/or Golden Magnolia Sanctuary. Bring some bags or small boxes to take home a share of the harvest!

08/24/2023

Dear Friends,

It's the fabulous time of year when the pomme fruits begin to ripen. As many of you may have noticed there is a good fruit set on the apples and a decent number of pears. The apples won't be fully ripe for another few weeks but the pears, both European and Asian, are ready to harvest. European pears (typical pear shape) are best picked while still hard and allowed to fully ripen off the tree.

Asian Pears (rounder) should ripen on the tree, but can be eaten slightly green.

The pear trees are all on the west (downhill) side of the orchard, close to the Eastman Wetlands.

A few guidelines to keep in mind:
When picking fruit be gentle on the limbs. To prevent breakage don't pull down on the branches.

When harvesting be mindful of the amount of fruit available on the tree and be sure to leave some for others. Limit your harvest to a few handfuls per day.

Please only pick the ripest fruit.

Share the abundance!

06/10/2023

Orchard clean up day happening tomorrow! We'll be prepping an area to plant black raspberries, weeding/mulching, and planting out two new trees. 10- noon and 1pm-3pm, Sunday June 11th. Come volunteer for a couple hours and get some fresh air!

09/26/2022

Hey all, hoping we might get some help solving a mystery. We noticed a few days ago that someone(s) had harvested a pretty large number of apples - a couple trees were almost totally stripped. We're wondering if there was a community group that harvested for donation. It's important for us that we keep track of any donations for any future funding, so we'd like to get a hold of this group to get this info and go over best practices for the future. Any help would be appreciated!

And as a piece of general guidance, if you and your organization would like to do a larger harvest for broad distribution, please get a hold of us first. We have organizations we donate to, primarily the Lord's Cupboard, but we're definitely open to other avenues. The more fruit in more hands the better! And if you're harvesting for yourself and family, a good guideline is to pick no more than for an apple pie or two.

Thanks!

09/16/2022

If your pears or apples are getting fire blight, check out Fairfield's own Soil Tech Corp!

Our broad spectrum fungicide, Fungastop, can help control Erwinia amylovora in pear trees. In a field trial that observed pear trees with a severe Erwinia, the trees developed new leaves and flowers two weeks following the second application. The untreated control pear trees did not recuperate from the seasonal damaging effects of the severe pathology.

Read the full report here: https://www.soiltechcorp.com/images/uploads/product_PDFs/Erwinia_in_Pear_Trees_-_Fungastop.pdf

Learn more about Fungastop: https://www.soiltechcorp.com/product/fungastop

09/08/2022

It's harvest time! In our neighborhoods! Who you gonna call? Fruit lovers!

As you walk by the orchard these days you undoubtedly notice the lovely green, yellow, orange, and red dots among the tree branches. And maybe you wonder if you're allowed to sample (you certainly can). Or maybe you know you can but wonder when, or how much, or what you're eating. Well, we've put together this guide to try and answer some of those questions.

To start, the Fairfield Community Orchard was begun under the guiding principle of building and sharing abundance through edible foodscapes. Sheared endeavors and shared rewards help build stronger, more resilient communities. To that end, the orchard is volunteer run and the fruit is freely available to all community members. The orchard committee and volunteers do large harvests to donate to The Lord's Cupboard of Jefferson County (50 lbs of pears so far this year), but community members and families are welcome to come with hands or a grocery bag to harvest for themselves. People have shown themselves to have pretty good common sense in this regard so far, so much appreciation to all.

Below you'll find some photos with some info about the different things available for harvest. Hopefully this will be helpful in the orchard, as well as in your own garden.

Feel free to comment or ask questions, and let us know if you'd like to be on our volunteer list, have suggestions, or even want to make a donation.