History
May 9th, 2008 by Laura Reinsborough
Project coordinator Laura Reinsborough had been dreaming of harvesting public fruit in the city after learning about Fallen Fruit, a fruit tree project in Los Angeles, California. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, a beautiful orchard lay in her neighbourhood right here in Toronto, teeming with fruit grown mostly for show. When a new farmers’ market started up just around the corner, all of these things came together when Laura was asked to harvest those apples that would otherwise have fallen to the ground and rotted.
The result is not far from the tree, an urban fruit scavenging collective. In 2007 an ad hoc group of volunteers harvested apples from Spadina Museum to sell at the Green Barn Farmers’ Market. For 2008, we are expanding to include all manner of fruit trees in the Ward 21/St. Clair West neighbourhood. Our primary goals will be to map the harvestable fruit trees in the neighbourhood, solicit participation from fruit tree owners, and harvest as much fruit as we can to donate to local food banks and shelters. We will maintain our presence at the local farmers’ market and we plan on hosting a number of small events for the purposes of education and celebration. Once the cherries, peaches, plums, pears, and apples are ripe for the picking, we’ll be there to make sure they are eaten and enjoyed!
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