Crazy as a Junebug! Crazy Excited about Fruitfillment! Ciao Amicis de Fruta! We are pleased to announce that Neighborhood Fruit has launched the Fruitfillment service, and is ready to help you share your fruit!! When your tree comes into season and you are overwhelmed with plums (for example), you can now use Fruitfillment to find people who would appreciate your fruit. Use our service to seek and arrange for Fruitfillment by area, schedule, type or quantity of fruit available. Please note that Fruitfillment will be free for a limited time, so come try it today!. If you would like to offer us feedback on the service, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Neighborhood Fruit is still in Beta and we would love to hear from you, even if you report a bug (not a Junebug). If Fruitfillment isn't nearly exciting enough for you (and oh boy are we excited!), we have completely redesigned the website to make it easier to use. So find fruit and share fruit today! In this newsletter, we offer you the information you need to maximize your enjoyment of seasonal fruit – events, recipes and more! Visit us often, new features will be made available all the time! Fruitfully yours, Kaytea and Oriana Take Fruitfillment for a test drive!

Paging the Loquat Locator! In honor of loquat season, and the prevalence of loquats growing on the streets and parks, this month's fruit label features a Loquat Locator. Perhaps you too will resemble him when you go looking for loquats? Every month, Neighborhood Fruit brings you a fruit label to use when you want to demarcate fruit you want to share with others. If you don't have fruit to give away, but feel that fruit labels are cool, you can also download the computer desktop background version. We are actively seeking artists for future fruit labels. If you are interested in submitting artwork, please contact us for design requirements. Download the label now!

From the academic, to the practical and delicious, the Neighborhood Fruit events forum is the place to go to find all the fruit-lovin' events. If you would like to contribute, please contact us. Featured June Events Edible Cities (movie) Benefit The Sharing Solution: How to Save Money, Simplify Your Life & Build Community Locally Grown 3 Music Festival From Healthy Soil to Harvest: a Farming Workshop for Educators CUESA’s Iron Chef Grill Off (you can totally learn how to grill fruit!) Enjoy, we hope to run into you soon! Check out the June Events

If Virginia is for Lovers, then June is for Mulchers! Bark, shredded newsprint, shredded leaves, wood chips and grass clippings can all be excellent as mulch. Mulching reduces weeds, keeps soil moist and full of nutrients on hot summer days. A good mulching can make a yard look dignified, perhaps even "landscaped". In your vegetable garden, shredded leaves and grass clippings are the best mulch. To help plants tolerate dry summer weather, water vegetables deeply once a week rather than light watering daily. Weekly thorough watering encourages deep roots and resistance to drought. Pick strawberries, currents and other berries as soon as they are ripe. Use netting to prevent your bounty from getting eaten by birds. Some immature apples may fall off your tree this month; this is called "June Drop". Thin them to one per cluster for a better harvest later. Check out our Gardening Tips!

What can we say, it’s hot out. The kids are out of school and clamoring for soda because they have been trained to think that water “is yukky”, thanks to sponsorships and advertisements in their classrooms. These summertime beverages will help you (and any kids you know) keep your cool this summer, while packing more fruit into your diet. Strawberry Agua Fresca Other seasonal berries, watermelon or even stone fruits could be substituted for the strawberries in this recipe. 4 C. ripe strawberries, hulled and sliced >1 C. granulated sugar (you may not need any, depends on the fruit) 8 C. Water Ice cubes (optional) Mash strawberries and 1 C. water in a bowl, add sugar to taste. Cover and put in the fridge for 4 hours to macerate. After maceration, put strawberry mixture in a blender and blend smooth. For a smoother agua fresca, strain through a mesh strainer into a pitcher or large jar, discard pulp and seeds. Add the remaining 7 C. water, mix well and chill. Makes 8 cups. Berry Syrup Any other berry can be substituted into this recipe, as long as the proportions remain the same. 3 pounds Currants; white or red 1 pound Raspberries 1 pound Cherries, sour Sugar; see below Mash the fruits together and let them stand in a warm place for a day. Strain the juice and pour it into a nonreactive pan, adding 4 cups of sugar for each 2 1/2 cups of liquid. Heat and stir liquid until sugar has dissolved. Cool the syrup. Skim off any floating scum, and then pour it into tightly capped bottles. Syrup will keep in the fridge for up to a month, but after the bottle is opened, it must be used within two weeks. Add it to seltzer for a fresh and natural Italian soda. Drizzle it over ice cream and other desserts for a one-two punch of flavor. Try our Recipes and Techniques!

Help us with a survey! If you haven't filled out a survey yet, we would love for you to take the time to do it now. Neighborhood Fruit name, branding and identity emerged from your feedback in the first round of surveys. We are committed to using your feedback to develop other features of Neighborhood Fruit. Take survey now

Thanks for reading! If you would like to let us know what you think of The Grapevine, contact us. We love hearing from you. To reward you for reading this far, we'll send you a Neighborhood Fruit sticker if you email us your address!