i thought this was really neat

a website dedicated to mapping out areas of feral fruit trees in your neighborhood so anyone can pick

imagine if we all add to the resources!

check it out pretty nifty [www.fallenfruit.org]

im gonna start a fruit map of my area this week

i love their manifesto lol !

Quote:
A SPECTER is haunting our cities: barren landscapes with foliage and flowers, but nothing to eat. Fruit can grow almost anywhere, and can be harvested by everyone. Our cities are planted with frivolous and ugly landscaping, sad shrubs and neglected trees, whereas they should burst with ripe produce. Great sums of money are spent on young trees, water and maintenance. While these trees are beautiful, they could be healthy, fruitful and beautiful.

WE ASK all of you to petition your cities and towns to support community gardens and only plant fruit-bearing trees in public parks. Let our streets be lined with apples and pears! Demand that all parking lots be landscaped with fruit trees which provide shade, clean the air and feed the people.

FALLEN FRUIT is a mapping and manifesto for all the free fruit we can find. Every day there is food somewhere going to waste. We encourage you to find it, tend and harvest it. If you own property, plant food on your perimeter. Share with the world and the world will share with you. Barter, don't buy! Give things away! You have nothing to lose but your hunger!

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2007 04:37PM by Jgunn.

that's pretty cool but not very realistic. where i was living in the mountains of BC we had to organize volunteers to pick and pick up fallen fruit (actually, clearing fallen fruit is law there) because bears would come right into town to eat it. the way bears get dealt with when they come into human habitat is to be shot. very, very sad but true. having fruit all over the ground everywhere is not as terrific as it sounds.
there is a HUGE apple tree here in town, i mean really, really enormous. it's covered in gorgeous dark red fruit right now, it looks and smells heavenly. BUT i won't be eating any plants that grow right in town. the soil is contaminated from years of leaded gasoline from the roadways nearby and who knows what else in the soil from construction, sewers, etc.
even community gardens in the city make me wonder. how safe is that food to eat? how about square-foot gardening in my yard, how safe is That food to eat? if it's that polluted does it even count as food anymore?

oh well, at least i can still sprout on my windowsill...

certainly a thought

honestly if i was starving .. i wouldnt care toomuch about wether the apple i just ate had some exhaust fumes on it

i pilfer fruit from all over my neighborhood ... nobody here bothers to spray their fruit trees and i think its probably better quality then some of the stuff sold in stores

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Does anyone know of any research done on such fruits - whether gasoline-polluted soil gets into the tree, fruit or plants growing in it?

baby daddy used to quote the distance from roads that leaded gas pollution affects and the number of years it contaminates the soil for. when he's here next i'll ask him for the numbers and where he got them. wonder if he has a site or source to quote from or if it's info he read and filed in the noggin. betcha a google site turns up something.

yes, if i were that hungry i'm sure i'd eat city/town tree fruit. i've been thirsty enough to drink tap too but not very often!

Notwithstanding the issues of contamination, this is an initiative that is gaining popularity in multi-faceted ways. I wrote a blog post on a similar topic, urban farming, which I'll link to (because it would take too much time to summarise): [www.seabuckthorn.net]. It includes information about global initiatives to harvest fruit from private trees and pass it on to social service organisations for distribution to needy people. Remember: exhaust-contaminated fruit may not be ideal, but it's better than Kraft Dinner!

this is the organization in the town i just moved from

[www.earthmatters.ca]

connected to the peeps in your article.

a few years ago i organized the annual canning bee that happens at year end with the last couple of fruit harvests. through donations of time, space, jars etc from the local community (women's center, church kitchen, local thrift store, and extra produce from the organic health food coop) many people came together to participate in a positive group project, learn how to jar produce, and hear about the fruit tree project and the local bear aware effort. the fruit tree project as well as local backyard gardeners donate produce (mostly organic) to the food bank all season. it's a wonderful model that town, i learned a lot there.

it's certainly an interesting concept, that urban farmland initiative. something anyone could do with some square-foot gardening know-how.

i reemmber reading in a farm journal from the 60's that if you plant alfalfa the first year in your garden it will absorb pollutants from the ground and this was a common thing to do in contaminated soils around the usa .. the alfalfa is then torn up and disposed of

not sure how or why this works im sure alot of plants do this to some extent

coco id be interested in that information ddaddy has .. i did try to google but couldnt find anythign relevent

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

coco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> this is the organization in the town i just moved
> from
>
> [www.earthmatters.ca]

OOOh, that's a great link! I'm going to update my blog post.

on the phone right now, he says:

lead fall out from the road side is at least 30feet/10 meters.
leaded gas has been used into the 80's (1996 in mexico)
lead stays in the soil, plants leach it out
there has been no effort to clean up contaminated soil

here's a link

[orgs.unca.edu]

google 'lead fallout roadways'