Baton Rouge Green | City Citrus
City Citrus Expanding access to healthy food sources by planting urban orchards

City Cit­rus began in 2013 with goals to con­vert under­used urban green space into scal­able, sus­tain­ably-man­aged cit­rus orchards that pro­vide healthy food options nat­u­ral­ly and address food equi­ty, while also adding to our canopy.

BRG Picking Event 2021 Web 0080

City Citrus Site establishment

Baton Rouge Green assists vol­un­teer Cit­rus Shep­herds in estab­lish­ing mini cit­rus orchards near busi­ness­es, church­es, schools, libraries, homes, etc. These Shep­herds com­mit to care for the trees and ​“Share the Fruit” in what­ev­er method of shar­ing works best for them and their com­mu­ni­ty. Baton Rouge Green staff is avail­able to assist with pro­fes­sion­al knowl­edge, plan­ning main­te­nance regimes, prac­ti­cal demon­stra­tions and as a gen­er­al resource to the Shepherds.

#ShareTheFruit

City Cit­rus, and its mantra ​“Share the Fruit”, aims to enhance com­mu­ni­ties and neigh­bor­hood expe­ri­ences through the shar­ing of resources (i.e. fruit). The fruit from these orchards is con­sid­ered ​“open-source”, mean­ing that they can be pas­sive­ly shared or pri­vate­ly shared.

We hope to encour­age cit­i­zens to uti­lize resilient edi­ble plants in land­scapes which achieve mul­ti­ple goals and make pro­duc­tive use of green space — improv­ing food equi­ty and the dimin­ish­ing urban canopy of Baton Rouge.

The Pick Event

Each year we part­ner res­i­dents who have well-estab­lished trees pro­duc­ing more fruit than they can con­sume with vol­un­teer pick­ers to har­vest their cit­rus dur­ing win­ter. The fresh local fruit, donat­ed and har­vest­ed entire­ly by vol­un­teers, is giv­en to the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank and dis­trib­uted across their 11-parish net­work to fam­i­lies in need.

Since its incep­tion, the Pick Event has har­vest­ed a total of over 36,000 pounds of fresh fruit that might have oth­er­wise gone to waste!

Pick Event Information

City Citrus Shepherds

We can’t thank our Cit­rus Shep­herds enough for join­ing the move­ment! These com­mu­ni­ty-mind­ed folks have offered up their time and green space to host City Cit­rus sites and share the fruit.

  • Arling­ton Prep Academy
  • Broad­moor Presbyterian
  • City of St. Gabriel
  • Church of the Way
  • Clai­borne Elementary
  • Express­way Park (BREC)
  • Fam­i­ly & Youth Ser­vice Center
  • Giraph­ic Prints
  • Glas­gow Mid­dle School
  • Gray’s Creek Elementary
  • Gulf South Research Corporation
  • High­land Road at South Blvd (Pilot Site)
  • High­land Road Park (BREC)
  • Jew­el J. New­man Com­mu­ni­ty Center
  • LA 1 Truck Stop
  • Louisiana State University
  • Our Father’s Garden
  • Rotary Club of Port Allen
  • Scot­landville Gar­dens Park
  • Shenan­doah Elementary
  • Stu­dio C
  • South­ern Uni­ver­si­ty (2 sites)
  • Tara High School
  • Webb Park Walk­ing Trail

Spe­cial thanks to Lamar for their ongo­ing sup­port of City Citrus!

Raising Cane’s first got involved with Baton Rouge Green in 2007 because I truly believe in what they do to beautify Baton Rouge. I grew up here and over the years, there has been so much growth and development. While that’s great, we’ve lost a lot of our tree cover and natural beauty. Baton Rouge Green has an important role sustaining our community trees and green spaces.
Todd Graves Founder/CEO/Fry Cook/Cashier, Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers
Glasgow Middle School

The Pick Event has led to harvesting over 40,000 lbs. of fruit for families in need since its inception!

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