I heard a strange story from a neighbor at our block party: she said she was looking out her window earlier this week and saw a mother with four kids, all under the age of 10, stop in front of her plum tree. The mother stopped and gestured and the kids scurried up the tree and proceeded to harvest it, not bare, but heavily. Their job done, they descended and moved on. Obviously, they didn’t ask.
Later, she was out walking her dog and came on the same family deeper in the neighborhood harvesting another tree.
We were both a bit ambivalent about the episode. As she described it, the family didn’t appear to be well off, and her first reaction was that if they needed the food, let them take it. On the other hand, they were taking more fruit than even a family with four small children could reasonably eat (but perhaps they were making jam), and, in any case, need it or not, it would have been better to ring the bell and ask, no?
And it’s not an isolated incident. A couple days ago, I noticed Lisa posted a similar experience to the Fremont/Wallingford Facebook page:
Fruit picking etiquette again. I know we have covered this, but if you are picking from someone’s yard — even where it meets the sidewalk or roadway — please ASK before picking a whole bunch of fruit. We just surprised a person who had picked a LAUNDRY BASKET of blackberries from our vines. I know many consider them weeds, but we are the ones who have to keep those thorny branches pruned all year, so we’d like to get to enjoy some of the berries. We’d also like to enjoy seeing the neighborhood kids get to stop by and pick, or catch up with the neighbors when they gather some. If one person harvests a huge amount the pleasure is spoiled for all. If you need tons for your annual canning, pick from a park or the bike trail or where you have explicit permission.
As I’ve got an apple tree, raspberry bush and raised bed garden all along the sidewalk, I’ve had the opportunity to have this conversation with a number of people, and it’s certainly been raised in this forum before, as well. To remove the ambiguity, I’ve posted a signs in past years (“For Snacking, Help Yourself” by my cherry tomatoes and “Help yourself, but one per visit, thanks!” by my apple tree), but take it as a given that folks will leave the vegetables in the raised bed alone.
And then just west of us there’s a house with raspberry bushes pushing through the chain link fence. Can I get a ruling? The guidance I’ve given my seven-year-old is that the berries on the outside of the fence are fair game, but only one or two per pass, leave some for others. Have I steered him to crime?
And what about those apple and plum trees around the neighborhood that overhang the sidewalk and drop their fruit, overripe and unpicked by indifferent owners? It seems like an affront to decency not to save them from waste, doesn’t it?
Has anyone else seen that family gleaning our neighborhood? Is there a rule we can agree on, when the fruit is fair game and when it is verboten? Obviously, if you ask the owner and get an answer, that’s the best course, but is it otherwise a no?
(Photo by Night Heron)
Two years ago, my neighbor was quite upset and rightly so. They had planted a new plum tree, a special kind, too, and it was the first year it produced fruit. When the plums were ripe, they found that somebody had harvested the entire tree and didn’t leave a single plum! I guess that’s the hazard of having fruit trees in the parking strip, but it’s just plain wrong. I could never pick fruit without asking. Well, I did pick a few grapes off a neighbor’s vine once, but I felt really bad about it and could never do it again.
Our fruit trees are at the back of the house and can’t be seen from the street. We get so many Asian pears from our three trees that I have City Fruit come and pick them each year. Next year, they are also going to harvest from the Japanese plum that seems to be really thriving and producing bumper crops (thanks to my mason bees that I raise). If these trees were along the street, I would probably put up a sign similar to the author of this news story.
In my opinion, it seems like most fruit trees go unharvested and their fruit goes to waste, so it’s understandable that some people would go around picking all the fruit, thinking that no one will care. I suggest that owners of trees put a sign on them stating what they’re comfortable with. If everyone has good intentions this will work out.
Of course, some people have bad intentions. If your fruit is on the parking strip or overhanging onto public property then there is nothing you can do legally to stop harvesting. If the fruit is on your property and you have appropriate signage then you should call the police.
Planting trees? See this guide from the City: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/Planting2004.pdf. Especially the part about which trees are prohibited.
laura please pick up spaghetti from the qfc
woops how can I delete this facebook
Also – City Fruit https://www.cityfruit.org/ – will help with harvest that helps out food banks. They have been a life-saver when I’ve had business trips and couldn’t manage my tree. This is a big harvest year around the city – please share if you have abundance.
So there’s an apple tree on my walk to work that’s dropping it’s apples on the sidewalk and I wanted to pick dome apples since it doesn’t seem to be anyone’s property, but my question is, how can I tell if they are edible? I mean aren’t some fruit trees just ornamental?
Take a bite?
1) Fruit trees are always on someone’s property. Be respectful of homeowners or others who may be taking care of the fruit trees. Best policy is to check with someone in the building across from the planting strip where the fruit tree is located. 2) There are ornamental or “flowering” cherries, plums, and pears that have either zero or tiny fruit. Crabapple trees have a wide variety of fruit sizes and shapes, some more edible than others. If you’re talking standard apples (not crabs), they are all edible, some just taste better or have better uses than fresh eating. I agree with Pork Pie’s advice to take a bite. That is also the best way to tell if an apple is ripe or not.