“Delicious pear from Charneux”, “Red Boskop”, “Gelber Boskop”, “Rheinischer Bohnapfel” and at the very end of the avenue: the “Red Moon”. All these fruit trees, 53 in number, will once again delight riders and pilgrims, cyclists, walkers and locals this autumn. 30 years ago, Maria and Josef Reitinger planted them for her together with the community. The two look at it every day. The anniversary will now be celebrated this Saturday.
It is a hot summer day, no wind is blowing through the wheat field, no rustling through the treetops when Maria and Josef Reitinger arrive with their bikes at the Obstbaumallee in Haarkirchner Straße in Neufahrn. The apple trees along the right side of the road out of Neufahrn point directly to the forest and the windmill. Hedges, poppies and blue thistles are in bloom. In 1992, on the other hand, Maria Reitinger remembers, none of that happened. After a farm in Neufahrn burned down, the farmers sold it to the city of Munich, which from then on managed the land itself. All around was nothing but flat farmland, describes Maria Reitinger. “So we thought of the birds, the insects.”
This year the trees bear little fruit because of a hailstorm that destroyed the spring blooms.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
The 73-year-old suggested planting trees along the way. The then mayor Erich Rühmer was enthusiastic. The community leased the strip of meadows at the roadside, and the village community planted apples and pears together. Just how difficult it would be for the young trees, probably nobody had thought of that at the beginning.
“We live in an unfavorable weather location, says Josef Reitinger, “nature is very harsh here.” The 77-year-old has been checking the avenue every day since 1992. When it suddenly gets warm in winter, he paints the trees with lime so that they don’t enjoy the sun too early. Together with a landscape gardener friend, he has already taken soil samples and gives the trees natural fertilizer if they need it. And Reitinger also has the biggest challenge so far right at the beginning together mastered with the trees: the plague of mice.
53 pear and apple trees adorn Neufahrn’s Haarkirchner Straße.
(Photo: Hartmut Pöstges)
Mice had destroyed the fine roots of the young trees in such a way that some trees died in the first few years. Josef Reitinger tried all sorts of tips and tricks that the community brought to him. He planted a nut tree to keep mice away because of its bitter aroma. Josef Reitinger stuck bottles in the ground so that when the wind blew over them they would whistle to chase away the mice. In the end it worked. The mice went. But the challenges didn’t stop there.
Many frosts followed early springs, and men roughly tore down the branches to get at the harvest as soon as the trees bore their first fruit. In harvest years, cars with trailers from other counties sometimes came to drive away as many apples as possible. And in other years, like this one, a spring hail destroyed the delicate blossoms so that the trees hardly bear fruit in the fall. Josef Reitinger, however, cannot be stopped. Every spring and fall he cuts the trees so that they grow beautifully. Today, 30 years after it all began, he looks down the avenue and says: “I’m proud that we managed to do it. This perseverance.”
Maria and Josef Reitinger will celebrate together with the community and all their supporters that this is the case and that the avenue is still standing and growing: The celebration begins on Saturday, June 25, at 2 p.m. If you feel like it, you can visit the avenue, followed by food and drink in the Neufahrner fire station. We are also looking for helpers who would like to continue if the Reitinger couple may no longer be able to do it for reasons of age.