Sharing Fruit and Reducing Waste During the Fruit Fly Quarantine

If you have fruit trees and want help picking them, as well as learning how to comply with California's fruit fly quarantine rules, there is a local meeting Saturday that will help answer your questions.

Several local organizations, including the Residential In-Season Produce Exchange of Altadena (RIPE) and Altadena Heritage, are sponsoring Saturday's meeting, which will include officials from the California and federal departments of agriculture.

At the meeting, there will also be a discussion of setting up a fruit harvesting labor exchange through the Arroyo Time Bank, a group that works to set up ways for local neighbors to freely help each other out by volunteering their own time and use the time of others.

Those who have excess citrus or other quarantined fruit they would like to share are encouraged to this meeting to learn how to do so while complying with the quarantine regulations.

Those who have fruit and do not know about quarantine regulations are encouraged to come and learn.

The meeting is at a private residence.  Interested parties should enter the property through the pedestrian gate out front.