THE CENTRAL COAST CHAPTER

The Central Coast Chapter meets on the second Saturday of every month, including the summer months. The meetings start at 1:30 p.m. and rotate to a different location nearly every month. We visit members’ homes, gardens, and orchards. We also tour commercial operations. We learn from a wide variety of speakers and programs. We enjoy eating lots of fresh fruits and nuts!! Guests and visitors are always welcome at our meetings. Our typical attendance at monthly meetings is between 50 and 60 people.

The Central Coast Chapter is developing a small “Community Orchard” at Cal Poly with a wide variety of “low-chill” fruit trees donated by Dave Wilson Nursery and Burchell Nursery. We all prune the orchard at our January meeting and enjoy the fruit all summer and fall!! Our orchard is an instructional tool for the Chapter and community!!!

The Central Coast Chapter has been conducting a unique “High School Apple Grafting Project” for the past 5 years. We visit local high schools and teach the students how to graft an apple tree and to stimulate their interest in growing fruit trees.

The February meeting of our Chapter is probably the biggest single event of the year with a “Grafting Party and Scion Exchange.” We have a different guest speaker each year to help improve our grafting skills. We also sell rootstock to members and guests at this meeting.

This past spring we purchased a half mile of high quality bird net and sold it to our members. It sold like hotcakes!!

Our definition of “Rare Fruit” is rather liberal. Some of our members have only one or two fruit trees and are trying to get more fruit from these trees!!! We have inexpensive plant raffles at several of our meetings and this is a great way to get started or add to your collection of fruit trees.

We elect officers at our January meeting and often elect “Co-Chairs” to share the leadership responsibilities for our chapter. We have our own Board of Directors where long range planning and much of the business of our Chapter is conducted. We have a newsletter that goes to most members by email and to the rest by U.S. Mail.

We strongly encourage all our members and guests to join the CRFG.