The Life of a Fruit Tree The Garden Classroom

FOR THE PAST 40 YEARS, I’ve been teaching people how to grow fruit trees organically at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) Farm and Alan Chadwick Garden. The garden spans about 3 acres, perched on an impossibly steep, south-facing slope on California’s Central Coast, and has been a teaching garden since 1967, when Chadwick, a pioneer of organic French intensive gardening, began it as an experimental teaching garden at the newly founded university. In a sense, he was the Rosetta stone for all that’s unfolded subsequently in the field. His gardens, and those he inspired, exemplify a confluence of technique, science, art, and aesthetics. As organic gardeners, we owe him an extreme debt of gratitude.

For four decades, I’ve been that old guy leaning on a spade, expounding on the merits of cover crops and compost to a group of idealistic, hardworking apprentices. In addition to the apprenticeship program, we sell vegetables, flowers, and fruit through a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, a market cart, and to the cafeterias at UCSC. We also distribute free produce to food pantries on campus, helping to