Backyard Fruit Trees A Barely Tapped Resource For Urban Gleaning
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 08.18.08
Victory gardens have come back ever bigger - garden magazines and home gardening tools sales are good even in this recessionary economy. The harvest season is almost upon us, and an extension of that urban victory garden idea is to glean the fruit (and nuts) on urban trees that doesn't get picked or used (except by birds and animals) for various reasons - some owners are simply overwhelmed when harvest hits. Gleaning the fruit is also a much better way to get some of the produce to people who can't afford to buy - especially organic - on tight budgets.
Gleaners get to eat their fill
Katy Kolker (shown above) quit her job with the Portland Parks Bureau to work full time with the organization she founded in 2006, the Portland Fruit Tree Project. The project has a database of 140 privately-owned fruit trees, and volunteers are gathered when it's time to pick ripe fruit. They keep what they can eat, and shuttle the rest to food banks.
In 2007, volunteers averaged 300 pounds of fruit with each harvest - 3,400 pounds by the end of the season! Kolker has predicted the 2008 harvest will be even larger. Portland Fruit Tree project is also setting up workshops to show tree owners how to prune and urban gleaners how to can and preserve the bounty. Via ::Portland Fruit Tree Project
Read more in our forum:
Grow Vitamins At Your Kitchen Door
Read more about Victory gardens:
Victory Gardens Come To San Francisco Again
National Allotment Week Celebrates Gardens
There are organizations in the SF Bay Area that do this work as well. http://www.villageharvest.org/ and Spiral Gardens Community Harvest Project http://www.spiralgardens.org/
Some municipal codes can cite you for rotted fruit on the ground, as it is an attractant to vermin. A state legislator in Sacrmento got a citation recently for this. So if you cultivate, be sure to harvest! Or grow berries that birds love.
I wish more people liked mulberries. Not only are fruitless mulberries (i.e. the male plants) more annoying with their copious, sinus-jabbing pollen grains, the females produce fruit. I used to work with a couple of older European women at a school with a large fruiting mulberry in the yard. They'd hang out there during harvest season and eat themselves silly, then put down a clean sheet, shake the tree, and bring the fallen mulberries home to make jam with.
Mmmm.
This is inspiring. Do other cities have programs like this?
A lot of times cities have trees on the sidewalks at various intervals. It would be cool if those were fruit or nut trees. Maybe the city could train the poor or homeless people (and in Boston, there are a lot of people without homes) to care for them, then have a program by which those same people can preserve and eat produce they all grew and harvested.
I think this gleaning program is fabulous. A tradition since biblical times it supports the fine art of sharing. Something many of us have long forgotten. One fruit tree can often produce more than one family can consume. Donating the rest to a food bank or homeless shelter will not only benefit those who are without, but also benefit the giver with a sense of joy, caring and a happy heart. Great job Kathy!