Helena Moncrieff - The Fruitful City

Francescos fig tree is on life support.

It squats behind a pale stuccoed house on a corner lot in Torontos St. Clair West. It owns the space. No room to swing a bat or toss a ball here. The tree tucks in tight to a brick garage, stubby trunk shooting out sturdy branches that billow above the roof.

Decades ago, this Toronto neighbourhood drew European immigrants moving beyond their countrymens first stop in the citys original Little Italy, a few kilometres south. It had slightly larger houses with room for a bigger garden a step closer to settling in, away from the identity of newcomer. When I visit on a July morning, the tree looks lush with life, onion-shaped orbs of fruit showing the first blushes of aubergine on pale green. This most natural of conditions, a fruit tree bearing fruit, has taken a lot of human intervention.

Every fall for the past 20 years, before the frost set in, Francesco and the men of the neighbourhood sweated together to bind the tree branches upward. They lassoed the giant, pulling ropes toward the trunk until it stood rigid. They covered it in layers of plastic and tarps and more ropes. It took an afternoon of struggle followed by homemade grappa, shared after a good job done, glasses held in calloused hands.

Fig trees need heat. Canada doesnt have much of that. So men like Francesco, immigrants determined to make the New World their own, improvise. Some dig trenches as long as their trees are high and, also with the help of friends, grab hold of the trunk and rock the tree back and forth, patiently watching until the root ball is loose enough to tip the well-wrapped plant into a temporary grave. Francesco, with a tree grown tall and a small yard, didnt have room for that. So he improvised again. Deep inside the shrouds, he set four cinder blocks around the trunk, building a tiny room for the trees base. He dropped a line of plastic piping into the centre, teepee-like to let the moisture escape. Then, to ensure the tree would survive another winter, he installed a thermostat and a space heater.

This fig tree is known in the neighbourhood as the mother. Francesco had been generous in sharing not only the bounty of the honey-dripping fruit, but cuttings from the tree. Her offspring are in yards and sunrooms many blocks from her home off the back stoop of Francescos house.

Last winter, Francesco died. His family packed up his belongings, his shovels and rakes and pruning shears, and prepared the house for sale, doing their best to showcase the curb appeal by removing the rows and rows of plumbers pipe that held up grapevines and beans. His son didnt have the heart to turn off the heat on the fig tree, so she lived on to see one more spring.

The new owners, a couple with young children, hadnt considered the burden of the legacy and now are faced with a decision: provide perpetual care or pull the plug.

Francescos tree was the source of much more than fruit. It was a private tree, the yard fenced off from interlopers, but Id learn that Francesco was generous with his harvests. Hed share fruit and vegetables, and he involved his neighbours and friends in his garden. It was the source of a lot of sidewalk conversations, providing a summer equivalent to the introductions that snow shovelling makes on a stormy winter evening. He turned on many passersby to city-grown fruit they wouldnt have tried otherwise, and he showed them that a local garden can make a difference in how we think about food, farming and the health of the planet.

Laura Reinsborough introduced me to the fig tree and the little orchard within earshot of the citys streetcars. Laura is the founder of Torontos urban harvest program, Not Far From The Tree. Its the countrys largest in a burgeoning field of not-for-profit city fruit-picking outfits. The model is simple: volunteers clear out unwanted fruit from backyards and share the bounty among the homeowner, the pickers and organizations that help people in need of food.

As she was wrapping up her tenure at Not Far From The Tree in 2015, Laura took me on a tour of the neighbourhood around Not Far From The Trees headquarters. It was also her home territory and ground zero for her career as a community builder, which came about through a late-blooming connection to urban fruit trees. We walked through laneways behind the shops of St. Clair Avenue, a paint store, dry cleaner, animal hospital, small restaurants and nail salons. She encouraged me to peek over the back fences protecting the private homes that back on to the commercial strip. The hoardings offer homeowners and tenants privacy from the recycling bins, parked cars and windswept jumbles of newspapers and empty coffee cups. On the other side of weathered wood, chain-link or latticework, she pointed out cherry and apple trees. Some she knew, others she had her eye on for future seasons. On a May afternoon they were promises of the bounty to come. Overgrown, mostly, but a big part of each yards allure as a green oasis in the middle of the city wooden Muskoka chairs and a hammock in one, a green plastic turtle sandbox in another. I imagined swinging in that hammock on a lazy Saturday, reaching up and picking cherries without having to put down the book Id be reading. On the day of our walk, schools were still in session; the yards were deserted. We popped out of the lane and headed north across St. Clair, Laura offering to show me something very special.

Up one street and down another she had a memory of each fruit tree her team had picked and others that she was watching. I had seen Lauras TEDx talk about her project. She strode into the spotlight and pointed to a projected screen image of downtown skyscrapers and the CN Tower. I live in an orchard, she told the audience. It looks like a city, but I kid you not, it is an orchard. As we continued our tour, Laura showing me how to identify the trees by their bark and shape and which streets were more likely to have crabapples or cherries, I started to see things her way.

We headed back toward St. Clair and slowed down as we approached a barn-shaped house in pale beige stucco. OK, so heres the property, she said. She had walked past this house for years and knew the friendly man who shared his fruits. A few weeks earlier, Not Far From The Tree had a message from someone requesting help with their newly purchased home and its 12 fruit trees. Laura recognized the address. It was Francescos house.

The house had been sold, and the new owners had moved in, all before the growing season had started again.

It did have a lot of fruit trees, carefully pruned to keep the fruits in reach for picking. I could see that there wasnt much room for anything else. It wouldnt be a place to have a barbecue in the summer. Laura had gone with a crew to check it out. We dont actually do site visits in advance, but I felt like this was a part of me getting closure on the project and also us being able to get 12 trees, she said.

We walked along the sidewalk looking through the chain-link fence that marks the perimeter. I hope they dont mind if we take a little look, she said. She told me that in her brief reconnaissance visit several people had come by asking what had happened to the man who had cared for the trees. When home ownership changes, its an adjustment for the whole neighbourhood. Can you still walk across the grass? Are you still sharing tools? Who shovels the shared driveway? Perhaps the new owners dont want to be on display all the time.