Scott Smith is more than familiar with debugging—whether it’s in lines of computer code or amid the rows of his orchard.
The director of graduate studies and a professor in the Department of Computer Science, Smith has been growing fruit in his north Baltimore backyard for more than 20 years, but his love of homegrown produce reaches back to his early childhood when he first plucked cherries from his family’s tree at the age of three.
Smith was inspired to try growing his own fruit in 2002 as a respite from his research on programming languages. “One cold, dismal March day, I got this fruit tree catalog in the mail,” he says. “There were all these beautiful pictures of fruit—such a bounty!—and I said, ‘Okay, I’ll order a couple of things.’”
A “couple” has turned into two full orchards—replete with various types of fruit, from apples to kiwis to persimmons. He now has plans for a vegetable garden to round out his acre of suburban land.
Smith learned most of what he knows about growing online. But he also benefited from the guidance and mentorship provided by local growers—and, like a true scientist, he wanted to give back to the fruit “research” community, too.
“That’s why I started my own fruit-growing forum,” says Smith. “It’s pretty active, with several posts an hour. We even have some young people who are big contributors; it’s all different ages, all different stripes.”
The online forum boasts 5,000 active users and 700,000 posts, and even has a trading post where enthusiasts can trade growing tips and grafting sticks.
When he’s not moderating the forum or directing the Programming Languages Laboratory, Smith can be found outside in his orchard, planting, pruning, harvesting, and, of course, “debugging”—albeit with a low-impact, nontoxic spray regimen.