Last year, Wildsight was able to harvest over a ton — 2,695 pounds — of apples from local trees through their Apple Capture program.
The idea is to harvest fruit before it falls off and rots, which attracts wildlife, both deer and bears. While fruit trees are plentiful in Kimberley and Cranbrook, not everyone is able to pick their trees.
Wildsight offers a Tree Share Board service in Kimberley and Cranbrook, where citizens looking for fruit can connect with fruit tree owners unable to keep up with the harvest.
If you have trees you’d like some help with, simply go to wildsight.ca and register on the Tree Share Board. Wildsight volunteers will come and pick your trees.
Wildsight has maps of trees available for picking on the website. Simply find a tree and pick. You can keep the apples.
There will also be Pick and Press events as we get further into fall, where you can make cider with Wildsight’s pressing equipment.
You can use Apple Capture equipment to pick, juice, sauce and dry your harvest or to prune your trees. Wildsight has juicers and grinders, dehydrators, sauce-making kits, and apple peeler / slicer / corers, plus regular ladders, tall orchard ladders, special fruit picking bags, extensions and hand pickers. They also have pruning equipment to keep your trees in good shape: pole pruners and saws, hand saws, and loppers.
