BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Underground > Creation >

Urban fruit planting project

  
 
Saturn's nod
08:40 / 19.03.06
Summary

I have an idea for a creative project in the area where I’m living. I'd love input towards moving it into action. It’s an urban area in the U.K. (English West Midlands), not affluent, predominantly “white” with few Black families and some east-asian-origin families and student households. There’s a Sure Start nursery down the road.

I want to see stone fruit (plums etc), top fruit (like apples) and soft fruit bushes (e.g., raspberries, blackcurrants) growing semi-wild on most of the common ground & waste ground areas. The idea is to inspire & remind people how easy it is to grow food in this area. Aesthetically I want the area where I live to be a place where food is not something that's kept locked up. I want fruit and nuts to be free for the taking all around this area. Lots of kinds can potentially grow here with little attention: plums, damsons, apples, pears, hazels, (walnuts too perhaps if it’s a bit elevated above frost), blackcurrants, raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants for example.

I've spotted an almost infinite number of potential sites – a hundred metres of empty park edging could be planted with soft fruit, small empty beds on the streets in the estate could take an apple sapling and some fruits bushes and herbs, planted woodland areas in a park a bit further away could have fruit trees snuck in to replace trees that died, and if I get through all of those there are more acres of wild land next to the railway down the street.

Questions

Has anyone here done anything similar? If so, I'd love to hear about your experience. (Unless it's relentlessly negative, in which case please leave me to find out for myself.)

Any suggestions about sources of funding? I guess a few hundred pounds would actually set it off to a good start, as I hope I will be able to transplant runners and cuttings in subsequent years. I've wondered about raising funds informally (asking family, friends, colleagues for donations), as well as formally (applying for grants from charities and other accessible funds). If I am going to formally apply for funding, how best to measure success for my objectives?

Should I plan & budget for replacing saplings if they are damaged by neighbourhood yoof (who seem particularly prone to random vandalism), or not? I guess there would be some attrition from wildlife and disease as well.

Is ground pollution something to worry about? What if the ground turns out to be polluted with lead or cadmium and people exacerbate their exposure through eating this “wild fruit”?

Would it help to protect the saplings if I make them look “officially planted” – tree stakes, rabbit guards etc? Or would it be better to make them look as unobtrusive as possible?

What else do I need to consider, that I've not yet thought of?

Thanks for any positive contributions!
 
 
hoatzin
08:16 / 20.03.06
I haven't ever been involved with things like this except, like many gardeners, for planting excess bulbs, small plants etc on the hedgerows and roadsides.
If you're going to apply for funding it needs more than you alone; you'd have to show that others are interested, know who the ground belongs to and what their opinion is and so on.
With regard to pollutants, having discussed this on a gardening forum some time ago it was concluded that:
There is no cheap and easy test for these.
Most plants would not survive high levels anyway; if you have suspicions of contamination, do a cress test- grow cress seeds in ordinary and suspect earth. If the seeds come up in ordinary but not suspect earth you have a problem.
You might try this sight for helpful input-
http://www.ng-writtlegroup.ik.com./
Another suggestion is to save fruit stones and seeds, or sweet chestnuts. Take them with you when visiting your sites, and plant them using a small trowel. This way the plants, if they grow, will blend in naturally. Hazel, plums, apples, pears, cherries, blackberries, sloes will grow quite easily and though they may not be the same variety as the parent plants they will, given time, bear useful fruit. This is the other thing to remember- gardening is not instant, even if you have little trees rather than seeds. You have to wait!
Good luck!
 
 
grant
18:44 / 20.03.06
Where I am, similar things have happened, but with native plants donated by local nurseries and/or on land donated by power utilities or the federal government (or similar).

I *think* your first step would be finding out who controls the plots of land. I'm not familiar enough with English law to know if there really is such a thing as "waste ground" -- where I live, there's always someone who owns it.

The only real gardeny advice I could offer is to avoid planting invasive exotics, even if they're pretty fruit trees. Local nurseries will know much more than I about which plants do best with minimal maintenance (and without taking over.)
 
 
Saturn's nod
08:15 / 22.03.06
Hmm, I'm not the only one with these thoughts:

'Guerrilla Gardening' carry out secret planting projects in public space in London.

There's a BBC news article about them.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
15:54 / 22.03.06
on Pacific Coast of Canada:

I've been collecting the seeds from (organic) apples, pears, cherries, plums, apricots, etc...

I've begun this spring (the past new moon) to sprout them. I have a dozen or so planted in pots outside.

My plan is to have an orchard - I plan on giving/selling a good many of these to people to care for on their own property.

there's a group in town (Vancouver) called the fruit tree project. They collect fruit from private property (giving the resident some of the harvest), and the rest goes to feeding people.

You may want to look into them (they have a website), as they could give you ideas about funding.

Personally, I believe that the solution we're seeking requires more labour and less money.

best of luck
--not jack
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
19:06 / 22.03.06
vancouver fruit tree project.

ta
--not jack
 
 
Saturn's nod
05:18 / 23.03.06
Personally, I believe that the solution we're seeking requires more labour and less money.

Yes, I can see your point. (I have a seedling nursery from foodstuffs too, and they will go into this project, but they are small - majority are 1-2 years old). I think there is a usefulness to taking a shortcut by using money to get already-mature saplings in place. I guess that's coming from my sense of urgency.

Thanks for all the links and suggestions so far, interesting stuff.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
14:25 / 23.03.06
agreed - 8 years is a long time to wait for fruit.

may the wheel ever turn in your favour.

looking forward to sharing some apple cider with you in a decade or so.

--not jack
 
 
grant
19:09 / 14.08.08
Tell me tell me tell me one of you is related to this wikihow on "Guerilla Gardening"!
 
  
Add Your Reply