Orchard Park

Fresno is the king city of agriculture and the peasant city of parks. The central valley produces the greatest amount of food in the world and Fresno – with past developers and city officials lacking a concise towards building parks along with the track housing and strip malls – has put itself near last in city green space.

A short time ago, the city finally woke-up and signed legislation to encourage builders to think about our air pollution and create more green space. So, it’s safe to assume, there will be some new Fresno parks popping up - eventually. I have a proposal for how the next major park should be built: Place it within an orchard.

I don’t mean take an existing, working orchard, and make a park out of it. Say you’ve got the open land and you’re ready to build a park. Instead of creating a big open space of grass surrounded by some pine trees, why not have almond orchards, grape vineyards and orange groves?

There could be a mini Blossom Trail within the city limits. Mixed into these orchards there could be some paths, jungle gyms and tables. Place some signs that describe what’s growing on the trees. I’m sure some area businesses would be happy to donate the trees. The orchards could have small signs that show what person or business sponsored the trees – free advertising.

This botanical garden of fruit trees could be maintained by city workers, just like a normal park. I’m willing to bet there are some workers that know how to tend fruit or could be easily trained to. As a bonus, the fruit could be picked and sent to the Poverello House.

There’s another reason for a park full of tree food: Fresno needs to distinguish itself.

We need to create more things that are FRESNO. When you’re at Golden Gate Park you know you’re in San Francisco. If I was bopped over the head and had a potato-sack pulled over my melon, then woke-up on the shore of Mission Bay, I would immediately know I was in San Diego. We don’t live on the water so we have to use what we’ve got – “tree food”.

Orchard Park, it has a nice ring to it, Fresno. There is no other city in the world where a park, full of nuts, would fit better.