(Photos by Ellen Cedergreen for WSB)
A few hours of work, with potentially centuries of benefits. That’s what Explorer West Middle School students contributed on Friday at the Community Orchard of West Seattle site on the northeast side of the South Seattle Community College campus. COWS’s Laura Sweeney told them the orchard will be around for 200 years – so their grandkids, and their grandkids’ grandkids, will be able to come to it.

Students worked on the orchard’s blueberry bog, as well as planting apple trees from varieties including Elstar, Jonagold, Liberty, Williams Pride, and Hudson’s Golden Gem. The orchard also eventually will grow pears and may bear fruit as son as next year, with a ton and a half of fruit expected as soon as three to five years from now.

The orchard site was one of several stops for Explorer West students on Friday morning; other groups worked in the Seola greenbelt on the south end of West Seattle (with Roxhill Elementary students joining them), and at the White Center Food Bank.