By Mary-Justine Lanyon
In the early hours of a May morning, a group of hardy volunteers gathered to plan a variety of fruit trees behind the Twin Peaks Community Center.
This project is a partnership between Mountain Provisions Cooperative, Rim of the World Recreation and Park District, Fallen Fruit and the Mountain Sunrise Rotary Club.
David Burns explained how to form the gopher cage.
The volunteers worked under the direction of Crestline resident David Burns. He is known for his Fallen Fruit installations where he has transformed existing parks into community landmarks that provide nutritional organic fruit for everyone to share.
Burns, who trained as an artist, has said that “working with fruit trees and public space has paralleled my art career.”
He instructed the Rotarians who were there to plant the trees to first dig a hole three feet by three feet. Into those holes they inserted gopher cages to keep the rodents from chewing on the trees’ roots.
The gopher cages, Burns said, will last three to five years. From August through October, he noted, the gophers are hungry and thirsty. “They build a condo complex under the fruit trees.”
Burns had purchased the trees with grant funding from Sprouts and Kelly Clarkson. The volunteers planted plum, apple, cherry, pomegranate, nectarine, fig, quince, apricot, pear and pluot trees.
Every year, Burns told the volunteers, the trees will double in size.
Once the holes were dug and the gopher cages in place, the volunteers carefully put the trees into the holes. Because the soil on the mountain is decomposed granite – with no nutrients – they added composted steer manure and garden soil with fertilizer around the trees.
This Twin Peaks garden learning center will serve as an educational hub and will also provide the community with fresh fruit.
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