If you have mature fruit trees around, you know that when the fruit comes in, there is way too much for one household to consume. Up until recently, we had a plum tree that, when it bore fruit, gave us hundreds of plums within a two week period. Even after my husband and I took bags of plums to work to share, there were still hundreds that fell off the tree and rotted. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could all share our surplus produce with others?
This is what Asiya Wadud wants to do in her neighborhood in Oakland, California. Consider that this is about so much more than asking your neighbor to share a few extra apples. Here’s what Asiya has done so far. She biked around her neighborhood, a four by ten block area, and created a rough map of private fruit and nut trees. The available food supply for one neighborhood, most of which goes to waste, was astounding. She saw bushes or trees of raspberries, walnuts, pears, apples, apricots, avocadoes, blackberries, figs, lemons, loquats, oranges, passion fruit, persimmons, guavas, plums, pomegranates, quinces and rosemary. Now she wants to set up an informal fruit and nuts exchange program with her neighbors so they can get to know each other and help the neighborhood provide more of its own food supply.
To learn more about how you can start a friendly foraging project in your neighborhood, check out Asiya’s blog at forageoakland.blogspot.com.
What do you think? Is this something you would be interested in doing in your neighborhood?
Posted by Elizah Leigh - December 03, 2008 03:46 AM
I have a gnarly 50 year old apple tree on my property which produces itsy-bitsy, painfully tart fruit -- absolute heaven for the forest creatures in my hood. I've witnessed adolescent bears climbing/shaking the tree of its apples, white-tailed deer casually munching, raccoons excitedly gobbling, and even chipmunks stowing appley jewels in their cheeks. Remarkably, I have never ever witnessed a solitary apple go to waste (which is typical of wildlife...they are thorough eaters, for sure!) If my tree bore fruit that was palatable to humans, I would be delighted to share it. Oddly enough, however, I have felt a silent sense of pride knowing that my furry neighbors have a high-energy food source right in my own backyard.
The concept of exchanging fruit and nuts with ones neighbors is so simple, and yet so foreign. I think that it's a fantastic way to reach out, more effectively utilize our resources, diversify our diets, and perhaps even make a few new friends in the process. It could also be applied to summertime vegetable gardens, especially when people have bumper crops.
I'm all for it. Who lives near me??