At Vacant Homes, Foraging for Fruit

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/us/15forage.html?_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=US-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-AVH-081511-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

ATLANTA — As she does every evening, Kelly Callahan walked her dogs through her East Atlanta neighborhood. As in many communities in a city with the 16th-highest foreclosure rate in the nation, there were plenty of empty, bank-owned properties for sale.

She noticed something else. Those forlorn yards were peppered with overgrown gardens and big fruit trees, all bulging with the kind of bounty that comes from the high heat and afternoon thunderstorms that have defined Atlanta’s summer.

So she began picking. First, there was a load of figs, which she intends to make into jam for a cafe that feeds homeless people. Then, for herself, she got five pounds of tomatoes, two kinds of squash and — the real prize — a Sugar Baby watermelon.

“I don’t think of it as stealing,” she said. “These things were planted by a person who was going to harvest them. That person no longer has the ability to. It’s not like the bank people who sit in their offices are going to come out here and pick figs.”

More at the link --

[Luciferous]

1. Good for her. It's better than letting it all be wasted.

[Raven]

2. Abandoned gardens, a real symbol of lost hope. As a gardener

I know that every spring my planting is an act of faith and hope. If nature is good to me and I work hard to keep the weeds down, I'll be rewarded in the late summer, early fall.

[mopinko]

3. i would sure want someone to pick my fruit.

i have berries, fruit trees and grapes.
i long ago figured out that you might as well rustle stuff from foreclosures/vacant buildings. i have seen a lot of plants that i wanted to take but didn't end up bulldozed. the bank does not care. if anything you are doing them a favor.

[morningglory]

4. My son is in the middle of foreclosure and losing his credit

rating. He is renting, and feels he may not be able to buy something (someday) with the ruined credit. I found a Meyer Lemon tree on sale at Lowe's. I asked him to plant it like Johnny Appleseed and visualize that the person who lives on his future home plot is planting something edible for a future harvest for him. Everywhere I have lived I have planted shade trees and fruit trees for future inhabitants. Makes the world a better place.

[mopinko]

5. i hope they are appreciated.

the homes on either side of me had new owners who tore out the entire mature landscaping for grass and wood chips. :(. a third had a 50' cottonwood torn down to make way for townhomes that were never built. vacant lot now.
at least, the raspberries on one side had already crept under the fence!

you never know, tho. i am not the only one who would never tear down a healthy tree.

[amborin]

6. really sad to see the photos of those vacant homes...where are the former occupants? homeless?

surely struggling....

people's lives totally disrupted while the banksters continue to plunder....

and these were not opulent homes, just solidly middle class....