6 ms·
A fun coincidence - I saw this link right after jumping off the plane from a trip to Hiiumaa and Saaremaa in Estonia. Public apple trees are everywhere. Additio
by handzhiev 2y ago
A fun coincidence - I saw this link right after jumping off the plane from a trip to Hiiumaa and Saaremaa in Estonia. Public apple trees are everywhere. Additionally, people leave some of their apples in boxes for everyone to take for free - some are in front of houses and shop, others on public bus stops etc. Such a lovely tradition.
- henrikschroder 2y agoWhen I went to high school, I'd walk through an allotment garden to get to school. Always great for a snack on the way home, someone had amazing raspberries! Some lovely cherry trees as well as several varieties of apples. Public? Free? Pschht, everyone knows that what's outside the fence is free for the taking! But there were also tons of fruit trees in nature in the city. Went jogging one time at a jogging trail, saw chanterelles in the forest, came back with my t-shirt full of tasty, tasty mushrooms. If you've grown up with always being able to pick fruits and berries and mushrooms in nature, maps like this are so weird. Why would you need a map? Nature is full of it? Oh, you're not allowed? Oh, you can't access it? Oh, there aren't any around, really? How sad.
- whatshisface 2y agoThere aren't a lot of public fruit trees in US cities because the falling ripe fruit can create a sanitization issue.
- ethbr1 2y agoThat's more of an inefficient allocation issue. Mostly people driving past ripe fruit trees to buy fruit imported across oceans at the grocery store.
- nine_k 2y agoWould you prefer fruit that grew near a city road, after many decades of cars passing by that place while burning leaded fuel?
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y agoBut you can't be sure the imported fruit wasn't grown in the same or worse conditions
- CalRobert 2y agoConsidering that orchards had lead arsenate sprayed on them it might actually be better https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362028X22103212 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362028X2...
- kjkjadksj 2y agoTheres a ton of fig and dates in socal people don’t pick. That being said its hard to pick these trees. They might be located in clumsy areas like by some razor wire in a parking lot. You aren’t sure when its time to harvest unless you know this tree well. Harvesting might not even be practical considering the best fruit is picked not dropped and picked up, and these trees could be huge. Then of course these being unsprayed trees the fruit is going to be full of wasp larvae at least for the figs. Then the rats will eat most of whatever is there thats worth eating anyhow before you realize its there. Commercially its a different story. Trees are planted and pruned to maintain easy harvesting. They are sprayed and rodents managed, as well as being overall outproduced by the yield on the farm. Fruit trees are a lot of work. Even literal money growing on trees would be work, against what the saying might imply.
- ethbr1 2y agoAs a previous owner of a fig tree, figs are also kind of the worst case. Crazy hard keeping those suckers harvestable, compared to citrus et al.
- xsmasher 2y ago> You aren’t sure when it is time to harvest unless you know this tree well. This is a big issue. Every bush and tree I've added to my yard is a learning experience about what "ripe" means and when to harvest. The bright red plums are enticing to the eye but bitter and chalky. Perfect blue blueberries that taste like lemons.
- ClumsyPilot 2y agoSpain has plenty of oranges growing in the middle of a public street, most of them are perfectly edible. If fruit trees are a common presence in the city, people learn when to pick what, it becomes common knowledge, it’s not rocket science.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoThere's a spot in St. Paul, MN that I drive by sometimes that has had treefall apples all over the sidewalk for the last few weeks. I'm surprised they're left on the tree for that long, since it's in a pretty busy area.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoMight have a lot of worms and be poor eating for the casual picker
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoYeah, I guess. People are spoiled by the appearance of grocery store produce. We have a bunch of apple trees that produce delicious fruit. I just eat around the worms and bug-bitten spots.
- timeon 2y agoNot sure if it is really sanitization issue. But certainly perceived one - it can be mess. This was not unique to US. I remember on the other side of the Iron Curtain we planted in cities mostly just male dioecious trees. Finally no fruit ...just pollen everywhere. (Good luck with allergies)
- mananaysiempre 2y agoUnattended apple trees can create rotting apples on the ground, certainly. Those are admittedly not pretty, but in Central Russia (and, presumably, in Estonia, which is not that far off climate- and fauna-wise) they’re just one more layer of soil by spring. Do hotter temperatures or different wildlife make them a bigger problem in the US somehow?
- ok_dad 2y agoProbably a situation with stuck up neighbors most of the time. If you’ve heard of the homeowners association problem in the USA, this could be the cause. Having rotting fruit is fine for the soil and everything, but the stick up the butt neighbors or HOA probably would complain or ban the practice. US Americans are pretty separated from nature in their big suburbs.
- hotspot_one 2y agohornets
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoI don't get it. If I wanted somebody to tell me what choices to make with how I lived, I'd have just continued living with my parents.
- reaperman 2y agoIndeed. But it is difficult to find a house near work that is not already part of an HOA.
- ethbr1 2y agoIt depends on the state. Some seem to love them (coughFloridacough) and others dislike them. Afaik, most of them are vestigial instruments left over from master planned development financing, that gave the developers X years of voting control in order to recoup some part of their investment.
- hulitu 2y ago> because the falling ripe fruit can create a sanitization issue I presume that Americans always take the poo of their beloved pets from the streets. /s
- blooalien 2y ago> "I presume that Americans always take the poo of their beloved pets from the streets." They're supposed to by law (and just good old-fashioned manners), and many do clean up after their pets, but anywhere you go there's always gotta be at least one jerkwad that doesn't care one little bit about anything beyond the tip of their own nose.
- jollyllama 2y agoThey do, more than most countries.
- space_oddity 2y agoI hope you got to enjoy some of those apples during your trip!