These cities turned parks into orchards where anyone can pick for free

October 10, 2022 11:31 AM

In the United States and elsewhere, land is being converted to offer free fruits and vegetables, "no questions asked" (archive.today link)
posted by Etrigan (66 comments total)

Everywhere I've lived in Germany there's been free fruit to pick in city parks and on public land for a third to a half of the year: cherries, plums, apples, pears. Some berries as well, which are also a regular roadside treat where I live now in the eastern US. Public vegetable gardens look fantastic, but planting fruit trees in climate- and pest-appropriate places is really the most wonderful and literal low-hanging fruit.
posted by sy at 11:54 AM on October 10, 2022 [18 favorites]

Thanks for this FPP, Etrigan! Reading it made me so happy. There are fruit trees in a few parks I visit in Sweden but I haven't yet run across a Swedish Edible City, at least not officially. I would love something like this.

“Anyone can get whatever they want, when they want it,” said Bergdahl, 33. “This is about taking away as many barriers as possible to create public food access, whether somebody wants a single apple or an entire basket.”

I have been looking for a similar project here. Food for thought, indeed!
posted by Bella Donna at 11:58 AM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

The first time I encountered this was in Tunis, in early 2007. I was visiting my sister, who was living there on a Fulbright, and I'm pretty sure her hobby was bringing American friends into the city and pointing out the blood orange trees lining the public ways, then letting us stew in our self-inflicted neurosis.

Should I... can we pick the oranges? Like, I can just walk up to the tree and grab some? Don't they belong to somebody? Will we get in trouble? I don't want to end up in prison because of some dumbass faux pas I make in a country I don't know very well. I just saw that guy stuff a bunch into a bag, and I'm pretty sure that stand over there selling fresh-squeezed OJ for 35 cents a glass is using oranges from these trees, but... there's no such thing as a free lunch, who's paying for this?

Repeat ad nauseum, while the locals just laughed.
posted by Mayor West at 12:07 PM on October 10, 2022 [16 favorites]

That's pretty cool, I wish that was a thing here. Alas, all the green space around me is occupied by people experiencing homelessness, or fences specifically to prevent the former.
posted by meowzilla at 12:13 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've seen people plant brassicas in the old tree planters in downtown San Diego, along with some mulberry trees in the outlying neighborhoods. My yard has no grass, but it does have multiple fruit trees apropos to the climate. We regularly give away citrus in the gardening group we are a part of.

Turing city parks into Co-Ops is one of the best ways forward. I am very happy to be made aware of this.
posted by The Power Nap at 12:15 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Newtown, CT, has been doing this since 2016 (they have an annual "Fruit Trail Awakening" day for volunteers to plant and clean up). I'm always happy to see the town get press for something good.
posted by dlugoczaj at 12:29 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I wish that municipal tree planting programs required the trees to produce edible goods. Municipal food production ASAP please.

One of my most treasured memories is commuting home by bike with my kid after daycare. He has a natural predilection for finding fruit out in the world and he could spot plum trees, blackberries, grapes (persimmons too, but he's not a huge fan) from blocks away; I'd just hear "GRAPES!" or "PLUMS!" yelled out from his seat on the bike, and we'd be forced to stop for some snacks. Late summer into fall, the normal 30m commute would drag on for at least an hour, as we stopped to glean on our way, hitting up all our favorite alleyways and off-the-quickest-path trees we knew of. We'd bring home buckets of plums and quarts of blackberries everyday.

The tastiest plums are the free ones.
posted by furnace.heart at 12:51 PM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]

One quick point to add about the Beacon Food Forest in Seattle:

The land used for this was not park space, but land owned by the City of Seattle that was adjacent to a park which was (and still is) zoned for lowrise residential development^†. For as much as the city and residents like to whine about a lack of dense housing, I find it frustrating when they use what few resources are available for something for which we, quite honetly, didn't have as great a need for.

† Zoning map of the area (middle right, south of S Spokane St and north of S Dakota St, east of 15th Ave S), per the map legend, documented as approved for cottage housing, rowhouses, townhouses & apartments.
posted by neuracnu at 1:07 PM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

There are plum trees lining the public right of way on a few streets in my neighborhood, and a conversation with an urban forester for the DC government made me think he'd actually prefer it if people picked the fruit for the health of the trees. But I don't know if that's an official government position, and I never think to look for the fruit when it should be picked.
posted by fedward at 1:07 PM on October 10, 2022

I had never heard about the Beacon Food Forest, nor any of these projects.

It is a wonderful idea.

But, Capitalism... As in the Blood Orange tree mention above. I doubt their trees can support a bunch of folks harvesting 100 oranges a day to make OJ. And you know that will happen if there is any money to be made. Tragedy of the Commons and all that?

Let's all just start planting fruit trees in people's front lawns in the middle of the night.
posted by Windopaene at 1:28 PM on October 10, 2022

I doubt their trees can support a bunch of folks harvesting 100 oranges a day to make OJ. And you know that will happen if there is any money to be made. Tragedy of the Commons and all that?

....This is what I was wondering too, I'm afraid.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:43 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

I doubt their trees can support a bunch of folks harvesting 100 oranges a day to make OJ

Depending on environment, citrus can be year round producers. Here in SoCal you get "3" seasons a year. Orange Juice was a way to deal with surplus oranges from Florida, not the best way to maximize orange usage. Maybe nobody will get to chug a gallon of OJ daily, but nobody should get scurvy.

Tragedy of the Commons is a graver concern. Part of that might be social engineering, another might be requirements of direct support for the effort. For me at this point it has been just coordinating with like minded folk to barter produce.
posted by The Power Nap at 1:53 PM on October 10, 2022

Which sucks. Because it is such a great idea.

There was a "Rant and Rave" in the Seattle Times in the last couple of days, someone ranting about how every time they have a ripe tomato, someone is stealing it out of their backyard. My first thought was "animals", but... Here in most of the US, someone would get their undies in a bunch about tax dollars being used for such things.

We (humans) are just the worst
posted by Windopaene at 1:58 PM on October 10, 2022

This has been a thing in California for a while right? They have rules about picking even fruit trees on private property, as long as the fruit overhangs a public walkway you're allowed.
posted by subdee at 2:06 PM on October 10, 2022

This is reminding me of how plentiful food trees and plants on common land in El Salvador supported egalitarian societies up until the early 1800s, when liberal reformers privatized the land, destroyed the food plants so that people would be forced to work on coffee plantations, and even scoured the world to find a poisonous species of bean so that they could add nitrogen to coffee-growing soil without providing any potentially pickable food.
posted by clawsoon at 2:07 PM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

I read somewhere recently that this is illegal in Toronto, but I was never able to find out when or why it became illegal.
posted by clawsoon at 2:07 PM on October 10, 2022

I have a fuyu persimmon tree right next to a sidewalk. People constantly ask me about it, most have never heard of persimmons and they often think they're little pumpkins somehow (like, everyone knows about the mini pumpkin trees, right?). I practically beg people to take some home if they ask me about them when I'm out in the yard. I have another tree that's struggled to produce that's right on the parking strip, but when it produces I hope people will pick them. I give fruit to friends (well, at least when the goddamn stomachs with legs let some ripen enough) and when I was more physically able, to the food bank, but it's weird how hard it is to get people to trust that they can take some fruit on offer. Everyone acts like they're committing some kind of unthinkable act--your fruit belongs only to you, it must not be shared, or something. I even bought a membership and tried to have City Fruit help me out with harvest, but it's so late in the season it's hard to get anyone who's more abled than I am to come by.

A lot of people around me have more traditional fruit trees, which City Fruit is more equipped to harvest. Their apples and pears fall on the ground and attract rats, and the tree owners seem completely uninterested in sharing. No one walking by ever seems to try to pick anything, and when I've mentioned City Fruit to the tree owners, they are uninterested as well. I find it completely depressing--there's such a closed-off mindset in the U.S. around all this that it makes me feel really discouraged. Even when someone's begging you to share their harvest, people just...won't let themselves.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 2:13 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

This has been a thing in California for a while right? They have rules about picking even fruit trees on private property, as long as the fruit overhangs a public walkway you're allowed.

Sidewalk trees are a thing, and there's an informal website; but there's no overarching project of using public open spaces to produce free food. Community gardens are few and far between, and plot sizes and restrictions on height and on watering (including anything automated) make it hard to use them for serious production.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:24 PM on October 10, 2022

The tragedic commons is usually the sidewalk, which is an accessibility minefield of plum ball bearings, plum pulp lubricant, and drunken wasps for spice. Because picking plums twelve feet up in the tree is hard, y'all.

Raccoons have their uses!
posted by away for regrooving at 2:33 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Mr. eirias planted peach trees near our sidewalk (only one productive so far) and has cared for them lovingly for five years. Technically it’s public land — as our entire front yard is, for boring historical reasons — so legally people can take some if they want. I don’t mind browsing. However, of the four harvests we’ve had, in two of them the productive tree has been entirely denuded on a single day, presumably by a single person or team. And this is an incredibly productive tree, so it’s a lot of peaches they took. I think the legal term for this action is “a real dick move.” If I knew whose house to egg, I’d do it.

Unfortunately this kind of thing is what I think I’d expect in a park. Most people won’t do this, but some will. To avoid it, I think you’d want to plant a very large number of productive trees. Which would be great, let’s be clear.
posted by eirias at 2:33 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

Two thoughts on the tragedy of the commons:

First, I think this concern may be abated by the low value of the harvest. You could wander my urban neighborhood filching greens from people's front gardens, emptying the community food pantries that sprang up like mushrooms during the pandemic, and taking all the free books to sell to used bookstores while you're at it. But almost nobody does any of that (with occasional weird exceptions! I once had to shoo somebody who was scooping my freshly applied garden soil into a bucket!). Fruit hanging over the sidewalk which anyone could legitimately take mostly hangs on the trees until it drops and rots on the ground. Independent of the question of shame, foraging is still work, not just the physical labor of picking but also knowing seasons, etc. There are always easier things to do with a bigger return.

Second, it is possible to tend an orchard and not worry about where the fruit goes.
posted by aws17576 at 2:37 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

It’s a very different thing but around here we have the super invasive Himalayan blackberry bushes that are really productive and for one or two months out of the year (on the tail end of it right now). But being invasive, you never know when someone has a mind to try to get rid of them and I’m always paranoid about herbicide.

This mostly just makes me want to pick back up my plans for planting native berry bushes along the front of our lawn.
posted by supercres at 2:40 PM on October 10, 2022

As in the Blood Orange tree mention above. I doubt their trees can support a bunch of folks harvesting 100 oranges a day to make OJ. And you know that will happen if there is any money to be made. Tragedy of the Commons and all that?

To me, this is just an argument to plant more food trees. Plums and pawpaws on every street corner!

I'd personally prefer if all double lane residential streets were converted to one-way streets, where the other lane was converted to green space forming a nearly contiguous city wide orchard. Bonus points for slowing down traffic, walkability, and hey, snacks.

Especially on urban city streets, two way residential lanes are often overkill. Don't get me started on how many fruit trees we could plant if we made private cars park on private property.
posted by furnace.heart at 3:17 PM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

eirias, team of racoons, I'd wager. They can pick my 2 asian pear trees bare in a single night if I try to wait for the pears to fully ripen.
posted by joeyh at 3:19 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I don’t think it’s wildlife. In the only year where we have been able to pick a substantial number of peaches, we caught a pair of teenagers filling their jackets. We then waved them off and harvested the rest ourselves. (The other year where we didn’t have thieves was the first year of fruit and we had a very small harvest, maybe just four or five fruits total.)
posted by eirias at 3:27 PM on October 10, 2022

I have three huge "Irish Strawberry" trees overhanging the street, absolutely burdened down with fruit at various times. Although I often just grab a fruit to snack on as I am walking past them, I have yet to see a single other person do this. I have spoken with other people on the street, who also have various sized versions of the same tree, and not a single one was aware that these were edible. The sidewalks are littered with fallen, ripe fruits. These trees seem to have become somewhat ubiquitous within the SF Bay Area without most people being aware that they are magnificent fruit producers. The fruits themselves bruise and leak incredibly easily when ripe, so I can see why they are rarely found in farmers' markets, etc, but it's a bit of a tragedy that more people don't eat from them. The schools locally teach a "garden foraging" outdoor class so perhaps it will show kids how they could take more culinary delight from their environment.
posted by meehawl at 3:35 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

"Tragedy of the Commons" was written by a literal fascist whose white supremacist ideology led him to completely misrepresent the practices around actual commons as they exist in real life.
posted by derrinyet at 3:41 PM on October 10, 2022 [24 favorites]

On the other hand in my neighbourhood there are enough (private) fruit trees and gardens that for the most part you can't give in season fruit and produce away unless you do the harvesting. Apricot and italian plums trees overhanging the sidewalk on the main drag rarely get any substantial harvest at all unless they are right next to a bus stop.
posted by Mitheral at 4:12 PM on October 10, 2022

Meehawl - I live in the SF Bay Area and I pass by so many "Strawberry Trees" everyday. I had no idea they were edible! They do heavily litter the sidewalks.
posted by shoesietart at 4:13 PM on October 10, 2022

derrinyet: Good God, I didn't know that.

Did other Americans grow up being told that fruit outside was probably poisonous, either naturally or from pesticides? Or was it just me being overprotected? (And yet this is pretty good advice to give to a three-year-old when there are hollies and yews around.) Every fall I spend in New England, I find at least one crabapple tree, and sometimes even large apple trees, that is ambiguously or completely on a sidewalk, with fallen fruit all around it. Often I taste one that just fell, and usually it's pretty good, but I never know who to ask about it. I regret that when I found the best of these apples, I was a kid and I was still a little afraid of the fruit. I only took the tiniest bite, but I have never forgotten that bite.

I love the idea of free city fruit, but I don't know how much they would truly do for hunger. They'd beat nothing, to be sure, but the guy selling orange juice in Tunis seems like he would get the best meal out of them, and if there weren't many, he'd have them all.
posted by Countess Elena at 4:15 PM on October 10, 2022

Seems like you've gotta budget for maintenance for the fruit that doesn't get picked. It seems like, since we have a big dehydrator and have started fermenting anything that's tart or has sugar in it, neighbors now plan their vacations with "hey, would you look after our yard while we're gone" around when the fruit trees are gonna come in.

They're super happy when we pick up all of the wildlife food out of their yards (even happier when we return it 3/4 of a year later in bottles, but...).

I suspect that a lot of landscaping is deliberately non edible because the maintenance costs of things that ya don't know whether they're gonna get picked or not are real.

Anyway, gotta move the plum wine to its secondary fermentation to make room for the pindo palm fruit which is starting to come in across the street, is what I'm saying.
posted by straw at 4:26 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

I pass by so many "Strawberry Trees" everyday. I had no idea they were edible! They do heavily litter the sidewalks.

Avoid the unripe ones, they are quite tart. The redder the better.
posted by meehawl at 4:57 PM on October 10, 2022

At the risk of being a downer: if anyone is thinking of putting edible plants into a tree pit or public park I would recommend that you test the soil first. Around these parts decades of leaded gas exhaust have quite literally poisoned the earth. In our case it’s better to stick to raised beds or planters (I use regular pots and grow bags but a lot of people in my neighborhood use 5-gallon buckets with drainage holes drilled in the bottom), and to fill them with store-bought soil or compost.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 5:05 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

I live within a few blocks of a freeway, and I do worry about that some. I grow most of my food in raised beds or pots, but not all of it.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:07 PM on October 10, 2022

From videos I've watched, the secret is to get the neighbourhood involved and tempt the children.
posted by clawsoon at 5:30 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Another video on the same lines.
posted by clawsoon at 5:52 PM on October 10, 2022

We have a food forest across the street from us here in Florida. It isn't as pristine and well-maintained as some of the examples in the OP, but the trees are healthy and turn out a nice amount of mulberries, papayas, starfruit (starfruit trees are remarkably prolific!), coco plums (which taste like nothing), sea-grapes, Jamaican and Sumatran cherries, and occasionally the odd jackfruit or sugar-apple. It's not exactly a resource you can bank on--it's basically a roll of the dice as to what will be ripe whenever you wander through because the seasons are insane here and everything seems to bloom and fruit whenever the heck it feels like it--but it's nice to be able to meander through a public park where almost everything is edible.

These green spaces serve another function, too--my son (now six years old) now knows how to identify cranberry hibiscus, mustard greens, arugula, and a whole host of others; he knows how ollas and drip irrigation work; he has a basic knowledge of herbs. These skills are apt to serve him well once society collapses.

To my avaricious mind, the real prizes are the many mango trees in our neighborhood that grow on the margin between the sidewalk and the street; they're technically on city property but also close enough to people's houses that you might conceivably get shouted at for harvesting mangoes. Nothing like a mango right off the tree...
posted by lorddimwit at 6:03 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

"Tragedy of the Commons" was written by a literal fascist whose white supremacist ideology led him to completely misrepresent the practices around actual commons as they exist in real life.

The concept predates Hardin by quite a while. Linking it with fascists would be a significant mistake, the kind of gimmick some people use to decry birth control by tying it with eugenicists.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:15 PM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

I read somewhere recently that this is illegal in Toronto, but I was never able to find out when or why it became illegal.

I hope not, I make crab apple jelly from road allowance trees, we have apple trees and raspberries in our park, and I acquire pears at another park. We’ve consulted the fruit tree map.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:19 PM on October 10, 2022

2N2222: The concept predates Hardin by quite a while.

Sounds like it was based on a hypothetical right from the start, rather than the kind of research that Ostrom and others did to find out how commons work in actual practise?
posted by clawsoon at 6:44 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

warriorqueen: I hope not, I make crab apple jelly from road allowance trees, we have apple trees and raspberries in our park, and I acquire pears at another park. We’ve consulted the fruit tree map.

My information may be outdated or just plain wrong.
posted by clawsoon at 6:47 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

The concept predates Hardin by quite a while. Linking it with fascists would be a significant mistake, the kind of gimmick some people use to decry birth control by tying it with eugenicists.

Yes, it originates in the work of a Malthusian economist who deploys it in a lecture about restricting the population of poor people, which is probably where Hardin stumbled on it. Sometimes the fruit of a poisoned tree really is poisoned.
posted by derrinyet at 6:49 PM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

People keep using the "Tragedy of the Commons" in the GarretHardin-the-big-old-racist way, and not the "tragedy of the lords inventing enclosures to steal the Commons" way, and it's confusing.

Kind of like how the right wing stole the word "performative" to mean the opposite of what it meant.

The earth is a common treasury for all. I mean, have you ever worked an orchard? Picking fruit is work, and helps the tree. Have at it.
posted by eustatic at 6:50 PM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

I doubt their trees can support a bunch of folks harvesting 100 oranges a day to make OJ. And you know that will happen if there is any money to be made. Tragedy of the Commons and all that?

OK, but... so what? If " no questions asked" really is serious.

I tend to think such initiatives can be a problem. For exactly same kind of sentiments expressed here. People tend to resent when they perceive when someone is somehow taking advantage of a "common" resource. Especially when such common resources are funded by the commons. Even when they aren't, you might be surprised ho often people can get a sense of ownership by means of proximity or habit or whatever.

Here in L.A., sidewalk fruit trees are pretty common. They're generally the responsibility of private owners, however. Which is fine. I'm not so sure I'd really like every tree to be producers. In addition to people, there are also rats that will help themselves, sometimes before the food is good for picking. Which leaves you with more rats, and fouled food. I've had this problem before in my own yard, particularly after my old Jack Russel died. But I'm lucky enough to have 6 citrus trees, four of which are very good producers. Two of those are in the front yard, and by all means, help yourself when you walk by.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:54 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

And I want to be clear that the Hardin thing isn't a derail, it relates directly to the topic of the FPP. If we think about the issues this stuff raises as "People Are Bad and the inherent badness of people will mean that any attempt to create or sustain a commons will fail, so therefore we need to restrict public use by means of gates and access control and monetary costs," we will be trapped in a capitalist framework that has already demonstrably failed to maintain adequate stewardship of common resources. That's because the Malthusian (whether in the 1833 or 1968 version) analysis deliberately elides or distorts the questions about power and class that actually matter for understanding what makes a commons fail.
posted by derrinyet at 6:57 PM on October 10, 2022 [6 favorites]

starfruit trees are remarkably prolific!*

I rented a little house in Sarasota, FL in college, on a little street called Turk’s Cap Place. And a few houses down there was this towering starfruit tree. At least that’s how I remember it (1989ish). Many, many fruits. I should find some, I haven’t had one in ages.

*I tried to link the comment by lorddimwit but posting on an iPad is harder than I thought. Sorry to the phone people for making this small.
posted by Glinn at 7:01 PM on October 10, 2022

Just popped in to say that I love free food everywhere and that your everyday average human is actually not an asshole ruining everything for everyone. How do I know?

I run a free garden full of pick your own vegetables and herbs in my front yard. I live on a busy urban street in a diverse neighborhood.

Y'all. The number of people who have donated their own homegrown veggies, plants and bottles and vases for the free bouquets is astounding.

Yes I have been exposed to the very aggravating and selfish weirdness that people display with free things. But it's a very very small percentage of people who actually behave that way. When pre-picked produce gets put out it's really lovely to see how slowly it disappears. Most people are very thoughtful about not being greedy and go out of their way to leave things for other people.

This was the free garden's third season and it is actual living proof that we can have nice things and we can share them too.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 7:16 PM on October 10, 2022 [21 favorites]

This has been a thing in California for a while right?

Kind of? In California it is legal to pick fruit growing on trees on public property. Of course, in some ways, that is just a cost saving measure since most of that fruit is going to fall and need to be cleaned up if it isn't picked.

They have rules about picking even fruit trees on private property, as long as the fruit overhangs a public walkway you're allowed.

This, on the otherhand, actually isn't a thing. A couple years ago, there was an artist/activist who started a website mapping such "overhanging" fruit trees, and they asserted that picking that fruit was legal because of "common law" and their claim was broadcast without challenge in several national media stories about their project, and as a result I see that claim repeated a lot.

But, the actual law leans more towards the idea that the fruit of the tree belongs to the property owner even if the fruit has fallen to the grown off of their property (because commercial orchards)
posted by 3j0hn at 7:58 PM on October 10, 2022

One of my dreams is to grow food forests. But really I think what we need in a lot of places is more people growing and harvesting on a hyperlocal scale.

- Saratoga Street used to be a street but on this block it was converted to a community garden years ago. The neighbor across the street provides water with a really long hose.

- When I was in college, I tried planting sunflowers in the not-enough-plants commercial landscaping next to a wall but the landscapers pulled them when they started coming up.

- There's geurilla gardening all over downtown Santa Rosa. Scrappy sunflowers that regrow every year in an otherwise all-asphalt parking lot that takes up the block between the library and the post office. A few tomatoes, too. Big, beautiful, intentionally-seeded amaranth coming out of the cracks of the sidewalk (but not in the way) next to a store that does something soil-related.

- Fruit is great and all, but I'd like to see more nut/legume/olive/avocado trees getting love, too. Not a year goes by that me and my partner aren't harvesting and preserving and sharing something from somewhere. We absolutely clean out some of the public walnuts in places where it's pretty clear that the only competition is squirrels or landscaping crew.

- There's gleaners orgs that run around collecting all the unharvested produce and redistributing it. Example.

- There's an apple processing plant out on the bike path an afternoon's ride from where I live. Sometimes they have a huge seconds bin that anyone can take from. Sometimes me and my partner will go out there and fill up, and then put the apples out front. They're good apples! Very fresh. Apples with cracks go slowly, but the ants love them. We try to avoid bringing those home. Apples with scarring are fine. Apples with "belly buttons" go slowly. Apples with rotten cores go quickly because the problem is non-obvious. We avoid bringing home anything with a tiny worm hole. There was one that rattled, it went last. But they all go. They always go.

- Blackberries all over the everywhere. Lots of fun to pick, less fun to eat, good for making vinegar or accidental wine which, if you don't drink alcohol, you then have to give away and get told that you did a good job making wine. Or was that the raspberries from our community garden.plot.

- Nettles.

- There's a community garden at the Maritime Academy in Vallejo. While me and my partner were taking a break from our bike trip there, someone official from the academy came up to us to let us know that it was ok to harvest. Someone else came and harvested while we were there. I believe I snacked on some mint leaves and we took a tomato.

- There's olive trees on a bike path that the university is responsible for in Davis. For years, some people would harvest lots and the rest would go squish and make the path all oily. The university was going to tear them out. Then someone ran some numbers. The trees are still there. The university is selling olive oil now.

- We chatted with the neighbor of the bunya bunya tree when we went back for more bunya nuts, and apparently most of them end up in the yard waste bin every year! Hopefully fewer will do that now that the neighbor knows you can roast 'em. Lot less work than acorns. Still haven't done anything with acorns, which are everywhere.

- Outside the Davis Food Co-op it's pretty much all edible landscaping. My favorite was the pistachio tree. It was a lot of fun asking people to figure out what the tree produced. Uncertainty. Offer a nut. Uncertainty. Suggest they open the green thing up. Recognition of the pistachio shell. Very rewarding.

I'll stop now!
posted by aniola at 8:02 PM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]

I see landscapers throwing out so much perfectly-good food, or pruning without harvesting in mind, etc. Gleaners orgs and landscaping teams should team up!
posted by aniola at 8:05 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hey, Tragedy of the Commons discussers! Please go look up the work of Elinor Ostrom right now!
posted by amtho at 8:57 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Yet another item on the Gay Agenda.

I mean if we have to be blamed for "stealing the rainbow" then we might as well take "bringing the Queer-nucopia" while it is still available.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 9:01 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

WIkipedia says:

Ostrom studied the interaction of people and ecosystems for many years and showed that the use of exhaustible resources by groups of people (communities, cooperatives, trusts, trade unions) can be rational and prevent depletion of the resource without government intervention.

My favorite bit in the research section of the article was someone's summary of Ostrom's law:

A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory.

posted by aniola at 9:05 PM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

But just looking at that blockquote, aren't communities/cooperatives/trusts/trade unions all just smaller forms of government?
posted by aniola at 9:06 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

There are large patches of long-unoccupied land in southern Vermont which are teeming with these old apple varieties gone wild—because once where there were orchards, now has gone fallow and is woods full of apples. Nobody to pick'em but us deer munchmnch munch
posted by not_on_display at 9:35 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

almost nobody does any of that

I wish. The local street market where they sell the toiletries shoplifted from nearby drug stores is also plainly selling groceries taken en masse from the nearby community fridge. (To be clear! When you take your own share of food from the fridge, it is fine to eat it, sell it, trade it, whatever! It's yours! But when you take armfuls for resale, that is not okay!) It's honestly one of the most dispiriting sights in the city. Breaks my heart every time I walk by. It's not hard to imagine what would happen if one of these orchards were near this market.

Basically, we still need to figure out how to solve the problem of bad actors--if not deterring them without use of coercive methods, then making sure the system functions robustly despite them.
posted by praemunire at 10:05 PM on October 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

aniola: But just looking at that blockquote, aren't communities/cooperatives/trusts/trade unions all just smaller forms of government?

In her work she refers to "the state", a particular form of government with a particular way of expressing its power, as opposed to "the market", and both of them as opposed to the great variety of forms of governance that have been applied to commons.
posted by clawsoon at 10:08 PM on October 10, 2022

There, Wikipedia is better now.
posted by clawsoon at 10:28 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

The royal castle near our place (in the constitutional monarchy of Sweden) has an apple orchard the court uses to make cider. After they pick their 8 tons of fruit we plebes are allowed to glean. This was an extraordinary year for apples in Sweden (last year was abominable) and on the king's dime I have eaten my fill of Åkerös.
posted by St. Oops at 11:08 PM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]

My concern with this is that in almost all urban areas the soil is very badly contaminated with lead thanks to the exhaust deposition from the decades of leaded gasoline use which may be taken up into the edible produce. In some parts of cities the ground is also contaminated by earlier industrial uses (There are parts of Chicago where the ground is actually radioactive and any new building work that will disturb soil requires full-on hazardous site denomination). This is why if you have an edible garden in a city you should always use a raised bed and bring in good soil. I have idea if this problem applies to tree fruits though.
posted by srboisvert at 2:25 AM on October 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

When I was in college, I tried planting sunflowers in the not-enough-plants commercial landscaping next to a wall

As part of my work on climate change and the future of higher education, I'm suggesting academics think about the "edible campus" idea.
posted by doctornemo at 7:09 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

My (adult) kids are very enthusiastic gleaners. I made an ask a few days ago about walnuts. In the meantime, not least because of the helpful answers, we have now acquired enough walnuts to feed us, and the rest of the building through a famine. And it is probably not the end of it. We also have apples from public trees and a few weeks ago we had plums. And the ramps in spring, and the sage most of the warm seasons. And mushrooms, all the mushrooms. And all the other stuff. Last weekend we went to an open air museum where the apple harvest was very bountiful, and my 3-yo grandson could pick for himself: a new generation of gleaners was born.

Today I went on a wonderful study trip with our students, and we found a chestnut tree. Three students nearly missed the bus because they were collecting chestnuts.

This is how I grew up as well. I can't recognize a situation where people abuse the bounty of the commons. It is interesting that now when we have immigrants from countries where foraging is even more common, there are more people in the woods where there were formerly only people "in the know". But there is still plenty for all.

The hardest fruit is the sloe, because it needs frost to be edible, and you have to get there before the birds on the first morning after the first night of frost. Or you can go the night before and finish the berries in your freezer. But you can't go like a week before.

(Acorns are technically edible, but the process needed to get there is something I wouldn't want to deal with unless there is a famine, and I'd roast the rats before the acorns. They'll be up from the sewers looking for acorns. Seaweed, on the other hand, is delicious, and I don't think there are any poisonous species).
posted by mumimor at 11:37 AM on October 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

Åkerö was first described by pomologist Olof Eneroth in 1858; parentage is unknown.

Thanks, St. Oops! So delightful to learn the word pomologist thanks to your link. That was new to me.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:01 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

The hardest fruit is the sloe, because it needs frost to be edible
And frost it did last night! I managed to pick a liter of sloe at a bush beside a field before the birds or the court got a chance to claim them. They're going in a liter of vodka purchased at the Riga airport a couple weeks ago expressly for the purpose.
posted by St. Oops at 9:19 AM on October 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

You folks are freaking me out.

LA Department of Public Health - Soil and Water Testing Guidelines for Home and Community Gardens links to this from from University of California Cooperative Extension - Los Angeles County:

Soils in Urban Agriculture: Testing, Remediation and Best Management Practices for California Community Gardens, School Gardens, and Urban Farms [PDF]

Even where there are elevated levels of lead or other metals or contaminants in soil, relatively little is absorbed by plants that can be harmful to humans, although this varies depending on the soil condition and the plant characteristics.

Accidentally swallowing or inhaling contaminated soil and dust is the most likely way urban farmers will be exposed to unsafe levels of lead or other contaminants. This can happen easily, for example, when people put their fingers in their mouths without thinking.

The study suggests avoiding growing "root vegetables" in soils with lead levels over 100 ppm (cut down from the 400 ppm level for recreational uses by children, using 'professional judgment').
posted by snuffleupagus at 4:25 AM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Red Zone (in Christchurch, New Zealand) is an unfortunately large tract of the city that was destroyed by earthquake and the ground found to be geologically unsafe for rebuilding. The remnants of buildings were demolished and removed, then the area left alone. Most of it was residential, and most homes had gardens and trees, including fruit trees of all kinds. The trees remain and the plants grow wild.

This has led to an activity called "Red Zone foraging" where people explore and learn the best places to find their favorite fruits, berries, nuts, etc, and show others, make it a group outing, etc.
posted by Cusp at 1:05 PM on October 13, 2022 [5 favorites]