On Saturday, March 1st, the hands-on part of the Uncommon Fruits project officially begins!

Together with Philipp and Suzanne and with whomever wants to join, we will meet in the morning to start imagining and creating our new orchard. Through small actions, we will domesticate a part of the landscape hugging Topolove, we will dig holes for new trees, observe existing plants and other creatures, share an outdoor lunch, draw, read and dream of fruits. We will end the day by tasting the cherry leaf tea we prepared last June.

If it rains, we will only meet at Caffè Dora at five o' clock to taste our cherry tea. (We keep you updated!)

If you'd like to join us, please send us a little note at uncommonfruits@gmail.com

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Footnotes to Joining the land.

The weather was uncertain so we moved the beginning of our first collective action to after lunch. There was this beautiful energy of starting something new, of doing a concrete gesture all together and of finally opening this project with a trace, visible in the landscape, and on our hands and bodies. Until March 1st Uncommon Fruits was a lot about dreaming, planning, testing, drawing, writing, designing, coding, and administering. Last spring and early summer, guided by Philipp and Suzanne, we did some small actions, like gathering wild cherry leaves and rolling them to then let them dry for a future wild tea ceremony. But autumn and winter were for dormancy, both for us and for the trees: we met online, all together and in smaller group, to develop methodologies, to write and discuss texts and to organise our year following the fruit trees seasons and our other obligations.

On March 1st we all (1) met in Topolove and, together with some new friends (2), we left the computers and notebooks, which were the main places for Uncommon Fruits in these last month, at home and, finally, joined the land. We gathered on a terrace under the village which we selected to be the place to host the first four new fruit trees, cleaned it a bit pulling out from the soil unwanted plants and planned where to dig the four holes which will host the trees. The soil was soft but full of stones and digging became an exercise of finding ways to remove the stones that would complicate the trees’ growth. Spontaneous couples appeared, Philipp and Vida, Aljaž and Elena, Suzanne and Stephanie, Dora and Franca while Antônio and Karla would help here and there or sometimes do works on their own. We photographed, digged, pruned trees, moved stones, broke stones, weeded, cut robidas. But we also ate a cake made by Dora, drank water from Fudra spring, read the introduction to The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. Titta burned a bundle of sage to infuse the collective hands-on action with some ritual value. At the end of the afternoon we filled the four holes with some wool from Valerio’s sheep and some manure from Maurizio’s horses. One hole received a pear tree on March 9th, the others are still waiting. 

Once he holes were digged, the sun was already behind the mountain. We closed the afternoon walking down to the fallen wild cherry tree (3). After Suzanne has introducedus to the place and to reading the trees as a way to become fluid we were invited to taste three drinks made by Suzanne and Philipp with and around cherries: a distillate, a soda and a tea. The tea was that one made of the those wild cherry leaves of the fallen dead tree that was hosting us there on that moment, welcoming our bodies to rest on it, after an afternoon dedicated to digging nests for future fruit trees.

Looking at this transformation of trees, I want to be more liquid, I want to move with my surroundings, listen to its multiple voices, and let us find direction together. What would this transformation taste like? – Suzanne