photo by: Elvyn Jones

Volunteers plant fruit trees and cherry bushes Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021, at the Little Prairie Donation Garden in Peterson Park.

As she spread mulch Saturday around a newly planted fruit tree in the Little Prairie Donation Garden in Peterson Park, Yuliya Platkowski said she was happy to lend her green thumb to a task that will help reduce hunger in Lawrence.

“This is a good thing, right?” she asked. “This is the place to be this morning. I love to work in my flower garden, but this is such a good cause.”

photo by: Elvyn Jones

Yuliya Platkowski spreads mulch around the base of a newly planted fruit tree on Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021, in the Little Prairie Donation Garden in Peterson Park.

The Donation Garden got 17 fruit trees — apples, pears and jujubes — from Kansas City-based nonprofit The Giving Grove, as well as 10 cherry bushes. About 20 volunteers showed up at Peterson Park on Saturday to plant them. Sarah Sikich, communications manager for The Giving Grove, said that when the plants mature, they will provide fruit for Just Food and other nonprofits that work to fight hunger in Lawrence.

It will be a few years before the trees start to help feed people, though. Matt Bunch, a horticulturist with the Giving Grove, said the 3-year-old trees planted Saturday wouldn’t produce fruit for another three years, and that they wouldn’t reach their full levels of production until two to three years after that. He said all of the trees and bushes were hardy, drought-resistant varieties that should thrive in the local climate.

Sikich said Saturday’s event was part of an effort by The Giving Grove and the Caterpillar Foundation to plant 100 fruit trees for community orchards in Kansas. According to Bunch, the partnership with the Donation Garden is the first time The Giving Grove has provided trees in Lawrence.

Darin Brunin, one of the organizers with the Donation Garden, said the orchard would fit well with the garden’s other activities that help food-insecure people.

“These trees and bushes are all going to be big producers,” he said. “It’s going to be wonderful.”

Over the next two years, the blossoms on the trees will be pinched off to help stimulate growth, Bunch said. He expects that the apple trees will produce about 100 pounds of fruit three years from now and 280 pounds four years from now.