festival of fruit trees now up

The March edition on the Festival of Trees (which I'd mentioned earlier), with its special theme of Fruit Trees and Orchards, is now up at Orchards Forever. It is a great collection of posts on fruit trees and orchards that I'm going to enjoy dipping into over time.

I haven't had a good look at anywhere near all the posts, but I do find the festival is a bit American centric, and heavy on their preoccupation with apples (which I share to some extent), although it does feature a fair few British blog posts, and even a Portuguese blogger (in Portuguese), and a memorial post from a Polish-American writer living in Buenos Aires. Nice. I made it in too – listed as an Australian blogger, even – for my apple tree post.

I've enjoyed writing on a theme and deadline set by someone else. It also inspired another post on fruit trees in suburban Melbourne which I hope to polish off and post here sometime in the future. the other great thing is coming across all these other blogs an bloggers that I wouldn't have otherwise – a great way to break out of my reading habits and hear/read some 'new' voices. Even if I have to get used to unfamiliar accents.

I have to admit, though, that I am inspired to take the family apple picking this autumn. We will have to look for an orchard close enough to Melbourne whose crops haven't been devastated by the drought and where we can pick our own apples. We're going to the Farmers' Market at Collingwood Children's Farm this Saturday. Hopefully we'll get some ideas there!