In 2016, the City of River Falls Green Team, an internal team dedicated to enhancing sustainability in city operations, found inspiration in a news story out of Seattle. The city had taken an innovative approach to combating food scarcity: creating public orchards.

“Someone brought it to the group, and we talked about how it was a great pipe dream,” City Forester Mike Noreen said. “But as we kept talking about it, it became clear that we could absolutely do it right here, just on a smaller scale.”

Seven years later, the City of River Falls is ready to unveil its own public orchard at Highview Meadows Park. The orchard, which is free and open during park hours, includes a total of 14 trees: one flowering crabapple, nine apple (including Honeycrisp, Sweet 16 and Zestar) and four pear trees.

According to Noreen, the City wanted to wait until to publicly unveil the orchard until several trees were successfully bearing fruit, which typically takes around three years for apple and pear trees.
Placing the orchard at Highview Meadows Park was a deliberate choice, Noreen explained. The park, which was relatively newly established at the time, offered a southwest-facing slope with an abundance of open space and full sunlight.
Rather than enlisting just City staff to plant the trees, Noreen developed a partnership with the River Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, which runs Leadership River Falls. The annual program, which is open to anyone with a passion for bettering the community, aims to cultivate local leaders and connect participants with avenues for community involvement.
"It was important to us to ensure this wasn't just a City project, but something that the wider community could also own and feel proud of," Noreen said. "Connecting with the Leadership River Falls program was the perfect way to do that." Since 2016, each annual cohort has worked with City staff to plant two to three trees.
In addition to bringing in Leadership River Falls participants, Noreen and his team worked closely with Dr. Brian Smith, horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, to learn about best practices for sustainable and organic fruit production. Under Smith's advice, staff do not mow in the orchard, creating a pollinator-friendly environment. They also do not use any chemicals for pest management, relying instead on glue traps.
While this year's bounty is modest, the harvest is expected to become larger each year as the trees continue to grow. Moving forward, at the close of each growing season, the City plans to donate any leftover produce to the River Falls Food Pantry. 
"Creating the orchard was a small and budget-friendly way to widen the community's access to organic produce," Noreen said. "If we can make even a small dent in food insecurity, that's a success."
The orchard is located in Highview Meadows Park, near Meadows Drive.