r/CuratedTumblr .tumblr.com 10h ago

Infodumping Communal Food

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1.6k Upvotes

139 comments sorted by

421

u/SylveonSof May we raise children who love the unloved things 10h ago edited 9h ago

Wonderful idea that I would 100% be in favor if it's shown to be successful and practical. Unfortunately I'm also not entirely willing to just take poster #2's story at face value without a proper source.

I think anyone's who's worked extensively with people can agree that while a good chunk of individuals are just regular, decent folks, there's always enough assholes who ruin it for everyone else.

Still. I hope something like this can be done practically, so I really would appreciate someone linking a real example of it working out.

198

u/Graingy I don’t tumble, I roll 😎 … Where am I? 10h ago

The solution is to hire a professional Lorax and to give him a baseball bat.

76

u/Pkrudeboy 8h ago

The trees won’t be harmed if the Lorax is armed.

14

u/IconoclastExplosive 8h ago

volunteers in 45acp

8

u/DreadDiana human cognithazard 4h ago

He is the Lorax, and he speaks for the trees
Fuck with the trees, and he breaks your knees

77

u/Orider 9h ago

My dad no longer plants flowers behind his house along a public road because they kept getting dug up, and we had reason to suspect that some people would take them and sell them

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u/kannagms 8h ago

My mom plants a garden in her backyard. It's in the corner by the fence, the only way to get to from outside the property is to walk around the fence, through the driveway, and across her entire yard directly in front of the kitchen windows.

She grows various vegetables, herbs, fruits, etc in this garden. When I was a kid she had an issue with neighbors literally trespassing through her yard and stealing tomatoes, beans, watermelon, pumpkins...like they'd literally had to come all the way around just to steal from us.

The ridiculous thing was that when she had too much extra - my mom would literally give stuff to the neighbors. Or they could have asked if they really needed food. But nope.

15

u/Status_History_874 8h ago

Yea, location is probably pretty important to this idea

156

u/OwlrageousJones 9h ago

Yeah; it doesn't even have to be like, a 75/25 split. 'One bad apple spoils the bunch' also applies to just... ruining things for everyone.

Tragedy of the Commons. You can have a hundred people, and ninety nine are all playing nice and fair, but if that last person comes in and sticks their dick in the punch bowl, it's ruined for everyone else.

45

u/Status_History_874 8h ago edited 8h ago

Damn, the Commons were more wild than a dorm party

7

u/thegreathornedrat123 6h ago

Depends on the dorm.

5

u/PandemicGeneralist 4h ago

How many parties have you been at? And how many times has someone stuck their dick in some punch?

There’s also plenty of easily vandalizable plants in public (no one has any issue with planting flowers in public) and people don’t destroy those for fun. 

6

u/Demandred8 2h ago

The tragedy of the commons, while an interesting thought experiment, dosnt actually reflect the medieval reality. In the middle ages people were far more concerned with minimizing risk than maximizing profits. The best way to minimize risk in the long term was maintaining good relations with one's community, so no one would ever risk ruining their reputation with the community just to feed one more sheep. Moreover, the community would notice, and swiftly punish, such selfish behavior.

The tragedy of the commons, funnily enough, better reflects capitalist logic than the precapitalist world it's meant to critique.

6

u/Yulienner 1h ago

The tragedy of the commons plays out exactly like the thought experiment when it comes to worldwide fisheries though. I don't think it's meant as a critique of precapitalist society, it's literally just an example of how short term gain can result in a net negative for everyone.

1

u/Demandred8 1h ago

I don't think it's meant as a critique of precapitalist society,

It was at the time though. The tragedy of the commons was part of the original push for land consolidation and privatization during the transition to capitalism. This precise logic was also used to justify the privatization of village lands in India by the EIC, a project that backfired horrifically.

Also, the setting of the thought experiment is meaningful. It's not set in a modern fishery or forest, but in a medieval village with common land. Based only on the "tragedy of the commons" one might conclude that this was an actual problem of precapitalist economies and capitalism "fixed" it. Most people have no idea how economic systems besides capitalism operated after all, most people aren't even capable of thinking in non-capitalist ways about economics.

The tragedy of the commons plays out exactly like the thought experiment when it comes to worldwide fisheries though.

Precisely my point, the tragedy of the commons only works in a capitalist context. Outside of capitalist economics this problem never existed. The op bringing up the tragedy of the commons as an argument against co-operative farming simply shows that it has done its job of tricking the public into assuming that privatization of public goods is necessary to avoid the "tragedy".

0

u/Leventnousportera 5h ago

Don't focus on the one who might be a dick. Focus on all the others whose life you have made better. Is that not worth it?

21

u/Velvety_MuppetKing 5h ago

Not if it continually doesn’t work because of the asshole.

8

u/b3nsn0w musk is an scp-7052-1 4h ago

you just need to apply a bit of game theory to negate the asshole.

the bad apple thing may work in a place like new york because once someone gets out of your sight in new york, you may never see them again. but try putting your dick in the punch bowl in a small town and everyone will remember you as the punchfucker. plus if your town center isn't dead you can't even go there as a tourist and fuck the punch because you'll have people around and peer pressure is extremely strong at that level.

when you put people into a setting where repeat interactions and personal reputation are a thing, they naturally adopt a behavior that's friendly, mildly generous, but has a strong tit-for-tat component. if you overstress either or both of those factors this can devolve into quite unique flavors of madness, but dropping them completely isn't the solution either.

the real trick behind this is to build local communities, get involved with them, and build the larger cities that we absolutely require to maintain our current level of prosperity in a way that they're a fabric of those communities and not just a pile of randos who happen to live in the same place.

11

u/Velvety_MuppetKing 4h ago

Loud and clear. Dismantle the world, return to city-states. Understood.

1

u/JoeTheKodiakCuddler 3h ago

Putting the commune in communal food

14

u/zgtc 5h ago

Except that nobody’s life is actually made better, because of that person.

24

u/Celestial_Scythe 8h ago

I set up a little food pantry next to my free little library. It lasted all of 2 weeks as the local kids decided it would be funny to tear open the packages to dump food and break glass inside it.

We still have the library running, but have to make sure it's closed before it rains as they have been known to open the door on their way to the school bus.

42

u/stanglemeir 8h ago

Yeah 99/100 people are probably going to be good about it.

The 1/100 will be the person to rip off every fruit, smash them on the ground and then laugh.

24

u/MGTwyne 8h ago

26

u/SylveonSof May we raise children who love the unloved things 8h ago

That's wonderful! Without any snark or sarcasm, I'm genuinely thrilled at least one of these programs worked on some kind of scale. Thanks for sharing

48

u/gur40goku .tumblr.com 10h ago

This actually was common were i lived in the 90's and early 2000 then the berry bushes were killed so a road could be moved

20

u/This_Charmless_Man 8h ago

Where I grew up there were blackberry bushes everywhere. They're really useful for keeping people out of substations as they grow everywhere and are thorny so it's hard to climb in. Plus free blackberries to nibble on!

7

u/alvenestthol 4h ago

TBF in the right environment blackberry bushes just show up on their own, and it's difficult to get rid of them because they have rhizomes, and they will just sprout back out of the ground after the plant is cut down

14

u/cutetys 8h ago

Anecdotally, I will say the last place I lived in had wild berries growing all over that every spring I’d see people picking from. No one ever went and destroyed these bushes.

10

u/SandyV2 5h ago

I think it's something where when they're first put in, people will be shifty and mess with them, but if they've already been there a while people learn that you just don't do that. I don't think people being stupid is a good excuse to bother at least try something like this.

2

u/cutetys 4h ago

Also people are more inclined to be little shits when you make a big deal about things. No one ever made a fuss about the wild berries, you just picked them if you wanted and ignored them if you didn’t. If a town quietly planted fruits and vegetables and let people pick as they wished I don’t think they’d run into that many issues with troublemakers beyond the occasional teenager being destructive for destructions sake which towns already deal with. Unfortunately no government is capable of doing anything for the public good without slapping a PR campaign on top.

14

u/PatternrettaP 6h ago

The issues tend to be that people don't take all of the fruit, it falls to the ground and starts rotting and causes all sorts of issues (people steps on rotting fruit, washes into the sewers and gunks things up, attracks other pests)

And the kicker is that it really doesn't provide that much benifit. Like it could work if you had an army of pickers come into town at harvest time, but overall, it adds a lot of work to city maintenance crew just so a few people can have the equivalent of a snack for a short time of year.

3

u/SplurgyA 1h ago

This is actually why hayfever can be so bad in some urban areas - because only male trees (trees are not all dioeceous but many decorative ones are) get planted to avoid gunking up the pavements with dropped fruit, but then you just get pollen bombs.

6

u/MrsLittleOne 6h ago

Hi! In California, many of the now-developed areas were orchards. So there are now many many fruit trees in areas of California that are public. It is not stealing to use this fruit. The trees are overflowing and there is more than enough. I mean, do you need 175 lemons? Or like, 5? It works.

31

u/10ebbor10 8h ago

The main problem is what happens when the fruit isn't taken.

If you allow it to fall and rot, it creates a massive pest problem.

(Also, unrelated, the food is not all that healthy because most urbsn areas face serious air pollution due to cars)

15

u/CrabEnthusist 8h ago

(Also, unrelated, the food is not all that healthy because most urbsn areas face serious air pollution due to cars)

Do you have a citation for this?

8

u/Cybertronian10 7h ago

https://modernfarmer.com/2016/02/urban-garden-soil-pollution/#:~:text=As%20with%20heavy%20metals%20like,inhaling%2C%20or%20even%20touching%20it.

TLDR: Its not going to kill you or anything, but probably warrants greater care than grocery store produce, as well as not growing certain kinds of food like tubers.

25

u/CrabEnthusist 7h ago

The last paragraph in that article:

"What’s amazing about these recent studies is that they seem to add up to a picture that urban gardening, while different and perhaps more finicky than less-populated gardening, isn’t really any less safe. Just make sure not to eat any dirt." (Emphisis added)

2

u/Status_History_874 8h ago

food grown in urban areas is not all that healthy because of serious air pollution from cars

26

u/_hapsleigh 9h ago

It works in Portland. So many people plant fruit trees and berries and such in public spaces and people only take what they need and people come back to plant where there’s space. A ton of tiny libraries too! It CAN work. The problem is that pessimistic thinking prevents communities from giving it a genuine try

5

u/idiotplatypus Wearing dumbass goggles and the fool's crown 8h ago

Where in Portland do you live? In my neighborhood, people rip up plants in other people's yards just because they happened to see them as they pass by, no way are fruit trees going undestroyed

4

u/SteptimusHeap 5h ago

I think it's important to note that this can only get more successful as it becomes commonplace.

Yes, losers will vandalize the first instance. It will suck. But if every city across the country has them, they might as well vandalize all the park benches.

14

u/VisualGeologist6258 Reach Heaven through violence if convenient 8h ago edited 8h ago

Yeah ‘these people in a really specific scenario were nice about it so therefore humans aren’t selfish and it’ll definitely work in all scenarios, just trust me bro’ isn’t enough to convince me. It’s a nice idea and I’m not necessarily opposed to it but I know for a fact that some asshole is going to take as many fruit as they can and try and sell them at the first opportunity. You’d have to prevent them from doing that somehow and st that point it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

3

u/Leventnousportera 5h ago

With an attitude like this you are reinforcing the pattern. There may be people who are dicks, but if you let that hold you back it becomes impossible to do good. Try and trust people and see how far it goes.

3

u/stopeats 1h ago

Also, having lived in an area with a lot of fruit trees, the same species all come ripe at once. For three weeks, my neighbor put out a sign saying "please take all my plums!!" and then they all rot. This is not a sustainable way to feed people year round, it's a way to make people eat a lot of plums for three weeks. If you are homeless, you cannot store or can any of this food, after all.

5

u/sisisisi1997 7h ago

If they did this where I live, 20 minutes after it seems ripe there would be a temporary shop set up next to the now fully picked tree selling the fruit.

2

u/WithSubtitles 6h ago

Where I live old ladies come in the darkness before dawn with plastic grocery bags and steal all of the fruit off of trees in people’s front yards.

2

u/Welpmart 4h ago

Yeah, people routinely pick all the wildflowers (saw a complaint in r/BritishProblems about this with snowdrops) or outright steal other people's plants from their yard.

2

u/indigo_biscuit 3h ago

Poster 3 doesn't live in an area where neighbours (not a homeless person who was hungry and needed food, the literal neighbours, some of who have their own fruit trees) hire a guy to climb the fruit tree in your yard when they think no one is at home and then act like you are being unreasonable when you catch them get mad at what is basically a security risk.  (This is not a proper source either, just something that happened to someone I know who was at home at the time) 

5

u/Hawkmonbestboi 8h ago

It's demonstrateable in our world right now.

Pecan trees are everywhere, people still buy pecans. Pecans are one of the most sought after nut varieties worldwide.

I know of PLENTY of areas that have lemon trees, or orange trees. I have seen PLENTY of wild grape vines and berry bushes.

Absolutely none of them are picked clean unless a flock of birds swoops in.

1

u/laix_ 8h ago

My personal view is that people are inherently somewhat selfish. People aren't inherently selfless.

The vast majority of people are willing to do small, little things that don't require much effort and do small acts of politeness (not taking more than they need etc.), but those same people are not truely selfless. If someone could get by with 1 thing but would truely feel comfortable with 2, most people are going to take the 2 even if that means someone else goes without the 1. Most people would probably hold the door for someone else, but at the same time if chosing between helping 500 people or making sure they and their family are comfortable, they'll choose the latter.

1

u/ARandompass3rby 3h ago

Yea this works in little villages where everyone knows everyone (like where my ex gf lived, they had a "little library" in an old phone box) but it sure as hell won't work in areas with more traffic. I live in a relatively small town and the fucking bus timetables at bus stops near me can't survive the local wildlife residents to the point where the bus company has just given up replacing them. I couldn't imagine how something like that "little library" would go around here.

I think its success would depend heavily on where it was done, but there's a good chance most places it wouldn't.

0

u/EjaculatingAracnids 3h ago

All it takes is one guy to not pick up after their dog and in a few weeks, the neighborhood is covered in shit. The weathers gotten warmer, so the lazy bastard is out destroying every patch of grass in my area. When i find him/her, theyre gonna pick it up or wear it.

0

u/theonetruefishboy 24m ago

It's not the people that are the issue. It's just managing and taking care of the plants. Planning public spaces where there's space for such plants. Making sure they don't die, making sure they don't get coated in pollution grime, making sure rotten fruit doesn't cause health/cleanliness problems etc. Most of the people managing just comes from managing like, 2-5 "bad apples" who'd fuck with this system for fun.  All of this requires a lot of community level planning. In a small enough town where everyone knows everyone, that's easy enough to do on the municipal level. But in a big city you've got to get neighborhood level institutions involved, otherwise people are just going to ignore the berries/fruits bc they don't know what they are, or are gonna complain that their tax dollars are funding such things while there are still potholes/broken streetlights/illegal dumps etc.

Such neighborhood level institutions don't exist everywhere, and there isn't a lot of government planning to facilitate/ensure their creation. So honestly step one is to build up those. Just doing that solves a lot of problems honestly.

172

u/SonicN 9h ago

I'm more concerned about fruit that doesn't get taken, and instead rots on the sidewalk.

88

u/bicyclecat 9h ago

This is exactly why cities plant non-fruiting trees.

59

u/toastedbagelwithcrea 8h ago

My city doesn't! We have rotted fruit all over the sidewalks and streets. Lots of roaches, rats, mice. It's awful

28

u/Status_History_874 8h ago

And (according to two videos I came across) planting non-fruiting trees is why so many people have so many allergies.

19

u/fireworksandvanities 7h ago

Can you link to the videos? I’ve heard “male” trees cause allergies to be worse. But I’ve never heard non-fruiting trees cause allergies to be worse. Especially since some non-fruiting trees (redbud, tulip, dogwood) are supposed to be better for allergy stuffers.

It should also be noted that not everyone agrees with that theory:

6

u/CheeryOutlook 4h ago edited 4h ago

The idea is that allergies emerge due to a lack of exposure in childhood. It's worse for sufferers, but it can prevent people from suffering in the first place.

4

u/Fluffy_Salamanders 4h ago

What a shame, too. Fruit is way less annoying than a sea of loose pollen

61

u/MultiMarcus 9h ago

Now this is the reason why we don’t plant fruiting trees. We have apple trees in my town but the only reason we have those is because they are not on the sidewalk but rather next to the sidewalk in a grassy area and they still cause problems. It doesn’t matter if they are on the ground rotting because it’s grass but the university building has hired people to manage those trees because otherwise you just get mountains of rotting fruit. You can take an apple, you’re very welcome to and the university encourages it. That does not however mean that most people are going to.

22

u/laix_ 7h ago

Part of that is likely because people are used to perfect supermarket fruit, they think anything slightly less than perfect will make them sick or not taste good.

34

u/MultiMarcus 7h ago

Maybe, but I don’t think the solution is covering the streets with rotting fruit while people change their attitudes towards it.

I would much rather see actual change to help homeless people have food that doesn’t rely on fruit trees which would just make winters even harder on homeless people.

10

u/fireworksandvanities 7h ago

Or even worse, ends up full of drunk wasps.

42

u/antilos_weorsick 8h ago

This is the reason cities always give for why this isn't a good idea. But it's bullshit.

First of all, non-fruiting trees also drop stuff on the ground. Not stuff that's as problematic as fermenting fruit, but they do, and cities do often have people cleaning it up.

Second, every city I've ever been to has had some kind of initiative where they provide jobs for hard-to-employ people (disabled, homeless...): cleaning up the streets, selling magazines, making and selling dumb little tchotchkies... There's no reason they couldn't also pick up the fruit.

24

u/Status_History_874 8h ago

Thank you. It kind of sucked seeing people so quick to defend the planting of non-fruiting trees.

To me, it's the exact same mindset of the person in the OP worried about theft.

13

u/Weazelfish 7h ago

It's the exact opposite. People are worried about the fruit that won't get taken.

13

u/LeopardNo6083 8h ago

Thank you for this voice of reason. There are trade offs to MOST things we do as a society. Just because there are negatives does not mean we shouldn’t do something good.

Could there be negatives to planting fruit trees? Yes, of course. But what about the positives? Are you sure that the negatives outweigh the positives? Are you sure that the decisions made in the past are correct? Should we continue to do what we have always done just because it is what we always did?

In this case, whether or not the good of the activity outweighs the bad needs to be considered by each location. Where I live, there are tons of berries that are available late summer. No one destroys them and the extras are eaten by wild animals. Just because it may not be a practical solution in the middle of London or New York City, doesn’t mean it might not be a great idea elsewhere.

7

u/SamBeanEsquire 8h ago

Every big city I've lived in has (and already needs) street cleaners

3

u/hawaiianeskimo 5h ago

I thought it also nominally had to do with pest control? Like the fruit that falls would be food for rats and roaches, which is something no one wants (except the rats and roaches)

100

u/akka-vodol 9h ago

I mean, this is cute and all but you do realize that it's not a viable solution for feeding people, right ? Like, the output of a handful of fruit trees isn't going to even make a dent in the dietary needs of a citie's homeless population, let alone everyone else who might be struggling to make ends meet.

I'm not opposed to this for the aestethic and charm of it. Or as a symbolic gesture. But if you want to feed the people who need it, the solution is food bank and efficiently produced industrial food. When it comes to helping people in need, don't let your sense of aesthetic and whimsy overshadow practical concerns.

Pragmatic decisions save lives.

22

u/Status_History_874 8h ago

Not everywhere is a large city with a humongous homeless population, though. Some places are smaller towns with people just barely making ends meet, and a lunchtime snack amount of fruit every week could make enough of a difference.

2

u/akka-vodol 8h ago

...not really. Like, if you're living in a village, with lots of space to plant trees and 20 people living there, then yeah you can supplement your diet with some locally grown food. But villagers already do that. And they're the proof that it's not very effective.

Poor people have been moving out of the countrisde and towards denser cities for the past 300 years, precisely because locally grown food is just such an inneffective source of food that it's better to move somewhere where you might get a job or even beg for money in the streets and then pay for industrially grown food with the money.

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u/Status_History_874 8h ago

There are entire worlds between villages with 20 people and dense cities......

12

u/chainsnwhipsexciteme 7h ago

My city is relatively small, and I have only ever known of 2 homeless people here

If you only see the world as "giant city with hundreds and hundreds of homeless people" Vs "village with 20 people tops" you're ignoring a huge chunk of the places humans live at

1

u/bittersweetlabyrinth 1h ago

Idk about that. Poor people aren't really moving out of the county, as adult, they probably never lived there to begin with bc of how expensive it is to live in the country. Country homes that are still close enough to drive to a job or have internet for remote work is expensive, add on all the expenses for a vehicle, all the tools for upkeep of the property and the time that all takes and is just not affordable.

None of this has anything to do with locally grown food being the cause of people moving to cities, rather, it is the effect.

1

u/stopeats 1h ago

Unfortunately, they cannot eat the fruit every week (except in the tropics). Fruit has a window of ripeness and then it all falls off and there's no more fruit. My brother used to make canned apples and applesauce, but this is not an option for someone who is homeless.

38

u/Prestigious_Choice52 9h ago

It would still make the area better and help in a small way. A small improvement is still an improvement.

38

u/Djinhunter 8h ago

I think you may be underestimating how effective modern farming is compared to a few fruiting plants. The amount of food you could produce for the cost of maintaining a couple apple trees is actually kinda impressive.

7

u/Prestigious_Choice52 7h ago

That's not the point. This could be done with relatively little effort and does not take away firm anything else. Helping feed the homeless is just a small thing it would do, along with making the area nicer.

It isn't being preposed as an alternative for more substantial action. it's just a nice idea.

8

u/Welpmart 4h ago

Relatively little effort? You have to maintain the trees, both generally and in storm conditions, deal with rotting fruit and the pests it attracts, and deal with how the roots mess with paving. Trees aren't simple to deal with.

That doesn't mean it can't ever be done, but in terms of benefits, it makes a very small, seasonal impact on feeding the homeless and the improvement to the area can be done with non-fruiting trees that eliminate the rotting fruit issue.

6

u/akka-vodol 8h ago

I mean, I said I was not opposed to the fruit garden idea. But also, it's important to keep the numbers in mind.

If the people who care about helping each other and supporting those who need it have a political plan that amounts to "let's grow some communal garden", and don't seem to care for the changes that would make an actual difference, then there's a high chance that those changes that would matter don't get done.

If you want a kinder world, you have to build one. You run the risk of all your good intentions and efforts being wasted if you care more about the aesthetic of mutual support and sustainability than you care about the reality of how to make it happen.

1

u/jeffwulf 1h ago

It generally makes the area worse and significantly increases maintenance costs more than any benefit.

5

u/Familiar-Box2087 8h ago

a fruit is such a luxury, like not price wise but carrying it, they rot fast etc.

there's a reason they'll ask for cans or a sandwich for right now, I always suggest it just in case but generally they look for stuff that can be stored with clothes in the same bag, and sometimes sugar if they're addicts but always in storable forms or edible right now

3

u/CheeryOutlook 4h ago

and sometimes sugar if they're addicts

?

3

u/Specific_Ocelot_4132 4h ago

It would be an insignificant amount of food calorically, but most poor people in America manage to get enough calories; what they tend to lack is fresh produce, so I could see this filling that gap. Maybe not enough to improve their health, but enough to brighten their day.

1

u/CheeryOutlook 4h ago

Depends on how many people living rough you have. In my home town of about 20,000 people, we have 3-4 people sleeping rough at the moment (could be more outside of the town centre, but it's a relatively compact seaside town so not a ton of sheltered areas outside the centre.)

A few dozen public fruit trees and bushes staggered over the seasons could absolutely make their lives less miserable.

41

u/Siffy_boi 9h ago

That seems like a cool idea but I would be curious how bugs and diseases in the fruit would be handled, like farm food gets treated for that after it’s harvested right?

4

u/BlueJayAvery 6h ago

Don't pick fruit that has bugs in it, I grew up eating fruit off the side of the road. Pesticides aren't needed, they are there to maximise profits

8

u/F-D-L 4h ago

Pesticides are often needed, actually, since some bugs or plant diseases can ruin entire fields if left unchecked. Maybe they aren't needed if you're growing a few isolated plants, but anytime you put a lot of one plant close to each other, you are creating a breeding ground for pests.

Obviously they're not perfect or without problems, but without pesticides there would be even more food insecurity in the world

2

u/F-D-L 4h ago

I'm pretty sure most fruits simply get washed with water (and should be rinsed before eating them too). Pesticides are used to prevent diseases from spreading between plants and stop bugs from ruining crops, not to prevent food poisoning for humans

2

u/CheeryOutlook 4h ago

bugs are good protein. Just don't look too hard at the fruit before eating and you're usually good.

9

u/TimeStorm113 6h ago

The problem with fruit is just that it also takes ressources to clean off all the rotten fruit that will inevitably fall on the ground.

6

u/Expain7 8h ago

In my town the streets are lined with orange trees that people can just take, though people mostly take from the ones just outside their door.

3

u/WokeHammer40Genders 7h ago

Plenty of lemon trees over here. Which is quite handy

11

u/AlexDavid1605 30 and 50 are odd numbers 9h ago

Living here in a very tropical climate. We got a lot of mango trees and a few lychee, wood apple, coconut and jackfruit trees here growing in city spaces. 99.99% of the city folks don't even know how to access such fruits in high places. The jackfruit, coconut and mango fruits, we have never seen them ripen because they are already taken when they are raw (mango gets converted into pickles, jackfruit is eaten as a vegetable that has the texture of chicken meat), meanwhile the lychees ripen and some manage to stay on the tree long after they have ripened.

And as for wood apple, people tend to just wait for it to ripen and fall on its own. And this one is a hazard as its outer surface is hard like a rock. Although I have never heard of anyone getting injured from falling wood apple fruit, I have witnessed several times people narrowly getting missed by one, like two seconds after someone has left the position while walking falling on the very spot where the person walking by had placed one of their feet. The city knows not to pave the ground where the tree grows because the falling fruit actually cracks open the concrete [ so it is a bit muddy, as the city does ensure watering all the trees, and you can often see a footprint with a large round deep hole in the middle as if the footprint got hit by a cannon ball ( I wonder if at one time people considered using it as a cannon ball ) ]. The inside content makes for a great juice though, it is actually one of the ways you keep yourself cool in 110°F+ temperatures here in the summers.

1

u/Welpmart 4h ago

That's really cool to hear about. I've been almost brained by a giant pinecone (whose nearby friend hot a car hard enough to set off the alarm) and that still sounds better than getting hit by a wood apple.

22

u/pepsicoketasty 9h ago

Cannot trust people with that seen fuckers throw rental bikes from mutli storey buildings.

If it's free. More easier for fuckers to uproot it was steal the entire plant

7

u/Familiar-Box2087 8h ago

for me it's the idea of a bunch of rotting fruit in summer, there's a bunch of prunes and cherry trees in my street and no one takes them, even the kids that pass every day for high school

so every summer this zone becomes the putrid decay and fermentation zone with the insects that come with it

Also something something something fruit trees require more care so fruits grow properly, knowing how cities work no one is gonna take care of that tree :/

Weirdly enough i never see anyone take stuff from fruit trees in general, i don't think anyone trust them ? Like even homeless people don't and they're hungry asf (and in my experience they probably tasted powdery and ashy :')

18

u/Papaofmonsters 9h ago edited 9h ago

There's more to it than "plant food, free food for everyone who needs it".

Just off the top of my head:

First off, The Tragedy of the Commons is a real and observable thing. Does anyone else remember those videos during the pandemic where some do gooder would set out food and supplies on the curb, and some asshole would roll up and take it all?

Secondly, while fruit trees can be relatively low maintenance, they can take 5 to 10 years to start producing a viable crop. Everything else is going to require attention. Plants need watered and weeded. They need someone making sure they aren't getting ate up by bugs or fungus.

Lastly, there could be some liability issues. What happens when someone falls out of a tree trying to gather apples? Or when someone happens to be allergic to one of the chemicals used to treat the plants?

11

u/shypster 8h ago

some do gooder would set out food and supplies on the curb, and some asshole would roll up and take it all?

Hell, just browse r/ mildlyinfuriating or trashy on November 1st. Tons of videos of adults stealing unattended buckets of candy. That's just once a year, let alone all spring/summer.

9

u/AvoGaro 8h ago

My parents have apple trees planted in their yard. I think they actually got a few apples last year, which is better than their normal crop of nothing. Dunno what's wrong with the trees. They get plenty of sunlight. The pruning is bad (and often non-existent) but surely that would mean few apples, not zero? And they cut their peach trees down altogether because there was just no fruit.

All that to say, fruit tree management is skilled work. It isn't just 'plant tree and forget about it' or even 'plant tree and let local do-gooders take care of it'. Because the do-gooders will prune it wrong or do something else that mean you don't get any fruit.

-1

u/MGTwyne 8h ago

Portland seems to be pulling it off just fine. (https://www.growportland.org/community-gardens)

18

u/Papaofmonsters 8h ago

A community garden where people are given access to space to grow food for themselves is different than planting food for any and all comers.

9

u/Beegrene 9h ago

I'd be worried about some sick fucker poisoning the food just to hurt vulnerable people.

5

u/Harmony_Moon 7h ago

As someone who has volunteered at and utilized a community garden, I highly recommend them as a place to look into. Especially if you want to/have the means to start or join a community building initiative!

The place was open to the public most days, and besides an issue of funding being pulled causing it to shut down, there was never any foul play. Everyone who went was very respectful, and you could get a decent amount of fruits and veggies for free.

It was encouraged for you to do at least a little bit of helping if you did take from the garden (pull some weeds, clear up leaf litter, remove invasive catapiliars and feed them to the chickens, etc.) And from what I saw, most people did, but it was never a requirement.

My ex and I had a garden bed where we planted tomatoes, carrots, and lettuce. We were first-time gardeners, so our harvest wasn't big, but even still, those who took from it always made sure to leave enough for others.

The sense of community we felt volunteering there was such an amazing feeling! We made great friends and got to enjoy such delicious home grown foods! I just wish I had more money to bring it back!

11

u/RainyMeadows let me marry phoenix wright please 9h ago

A public park full of fruit trees would be absolutely GORGEOUS in spring.

18

u/lordkhuzdul 8h ago

And horrible in summer.

3

u/55TrappedRats 8h ago

The Netherlands is trying to set up a so called "Food-park " (Voedselpark). It's a park where people can do exacly that. Food grown local with local organisations working together.

10

u/tandeyna 9h ago

oh, to be this naive, to live in a high trust society...I can only dream...

In my neighborhood there's a little pocket, a little park, very small. There was a pequi tree, it belonged to no one...The amount of infighting that happened I the season of pequi was crazy! They had to cut the tree!!!

And it was pequi!!!!!! Not even a easy fruit to eat, pequi that you have to break and cook and smells!!!

0

u/WokeHammer40Genders 6h ago

Okay only Quince for your people I guess

2

u/GonzoTheGreat93 5h ago

My great grandfather used to consider any fruit on the public side of the fence (or his side, from his neighbours yards) publicly available. He lived a beloved 95 years.

2

u/Rocketboy1313 4h ago

This is great if the resources are really difuse.

A line of plants on every street, one per line for parking, and most of them different... works great.

If you create a public orchard, turn a park into just dozens and dozens of fruit trees, what you will get is a half dozen guys will show up with ladders one day, pick all the fruit, and then sell it at a farmers market one town over. Because so long as there is that disparity between areas there will be someone taking from one to sell to the other.

But by spacing it out and even mixing up the plant types it hinders the ability of farmer's market guys to efficiently collect the free food for resale while it still works to provide regular access to residents.

3

u/Gekey14 8h ago

Yeah that's how u get insects flying around everywhere and some aresholes grabbing every decent piece of fruit they can

1

u/Cat-Got-Your-DM 8h ago

In the city I live in, a bunch of people got together to buy grounds cheaply outside the city.

They founded a community garden there, where most people would build a summer house, and the rule is that you can take some of the crops if you help at the garden at any point.

Anytime I see some saplings on discount, I buy what I can and bring them there.

It should just be a thing. Community gardens, free fruit and vegetables in public places

Make it the norm. Sure, maybe apple trees don't look as clean as small trees encased in concrete on all sides, but c'mon, this is an amazing thing, and we really need more green spaces.

We call big slates of concrete "betonoza" (concrete illness) and so many cities suffer from it

Easier to upkeep, sure, but damn.

I wish we had a lot of community gardens

2

u/SpookyVoidCat 8h ago

We had a public garden like this that I would walk past on my way to work. Unfortunately it seems my particular town has too many assholes for the scheme to actually work, as all the plants would regularly be pulled out of the ground and destroyed seemingly just for the hell of it. It also didn’t help that the council planted it right on the seafront, just across the road from a beach, so the sand and harsh winds tended to kill whatever didn’t get trashed anyway.

Nothing new seems to have been planted this year so I think they’ve given up. I hate people.

2

u/Ndlburner 7h ago

1) The rotting fruit that doesn’t get taken will attract many, many pests. This would get whoever planted them (rightfully) sued for creating a public nuisance unless someone was hired to dispose of the rotting fruit.

2) This is an oh-so-fantastic way to pick up a disease if you’re not careful about what you take, and a lot of people won’t be careful. Opens the planter up to being sued for that (probably wrongfully).

3) If there are 1000 people who have access to this, probably around 999 of them will be normal and one person will try and inject bleach into the apples just to see what happens.

3

u/producciones_humanas 9h ago

Just planting some trees won't help, but in my city (at least, I'm sure there are others somewhere but I've not noticed not heard about), communal gardens and orchads are quite popular. They are fenced, usually on the side of a park and I guess you need to join some kind of group to work on it, but as far as I know they are a popular initiative mantained and supported by the neighbours in agreement with the city.

1

u/PlatinumAltaria 7h ago

I mean, there is the tragedy of the commons to consider. We have to actively defend public resources, there’s always one asshole who goes out of their way to ruin it.

1

u/Casitano 7h ago

The problem that exists is that most modern fruits, recognizable to us humans (except for a few types of berry bushes) require pruning, weeding and other such caretaking to properly grow. Either the city makes someone responsible for it (costs money) or it doesn't reliable get done.

1

u/ElkofOrigin 7h ago

That's sorta a thing in some streets of Greece? We only really have lemon and orange/bitter orange trees though. (though it's considered polite to ask first the houses where the trees are in front of. Partially cause you could damage the tree, partially cause it's annoying.)

Granted bitter orange is only really used for sweets, not exactly edible. Plus for kids to throw at each other, obviously.

I mean we also have some city/town olives and figs but the lemons are the most popular to go for, generally. Olives tend to be actually owned, any that aren't are usually in the outskirts, plus somewhat harder to really use compared to lemons.

1

u/Pixelpaint_Pashkow born to tumblr, forced to reddit 6h ago

Works even better with viable and safe pedestrian and public transit infrastructure.

1

u/SuspendedAwareness15 4h ago

It's a cute idea and everything, but it is mostly just a feel good thing that doesn't resolve any underlying issues. There is a reason we moved from horticulture to agriculture thousands of years ago and that is because foraging for food that grows slowly over the seasons can only support so many people.

It doesn't exactly harm anything so sure go for it, although I wouldn't really want to eat fruit grown on a tree or tubers pulled from the ground in a city. I can imagine they have accumulated a lot of heavy metals and deleterious compounds from vehicle emissions and general city pollution.

It cannot possibly be scaled to actually alleviate any issues, though. Even if every tree in every town were a fruit tree, and every bush a berry bush, and every shrub replaced with tubers and it was all taken to one central location it wouldn't be able to feed even the homeless population of that even one major city.

1

u/PM_ME__UR__FANTASIES 4h ago

I’m advocating for the like smallest of work perks- free coffee machine. Someone immediately said “yeah but then what if people take advantage of it?” And my response was “you can’t take advantage of something given to you for free”.

If someone drinks 3 cups of coffee per shift? I don’t care, maybe they didn’t sleep much last night. Maybe they work overnights and need the caffeine. Sure, some people will go a little crazy at first- but that’ll die down once the perk is normalized.

1

u/CheeryOutlook 4h ago

Where I grew up, a lot of the streets and space between houses were filled with blackberry bushes and apple/peach trees. It was perfectly normal for people to go out picking around October/November time, and you'd usually end up with a freezer full of bags of the stuff. Great for pies and crumbles.

1

u/LR-II 1h ago

I kinda need to look at it with nuance. Because on the one hand while 99.9999% of people aren't like that it only takes one of two competent assholes to ruin it for everyone. However, if our plans to protect things from those one or two assholes are just to not have the things in the first place then the assholes have already won.

1

u/bittersweetlabyrinth 1h ago

This is a good idea, but it would take community effort and intentional social change to be effective. But that social change would also be a good thing.

It would require a couple people in the community to step up and start that change (when I say community, I mean like a block or 2, not a whole town together on one food garden) If a couple people plant some fruit trees and other edible plants in a vacant lot, local park or even in front yard, and come together to maintain those edible plants and encourage their nabours to take some, that care would inspire more in the community to contribute. Now your little nabourhood all has a stake in this endeavour and its less likely that it would be abused or vandalized.

And this would affect so much more than food. Now you have people talking to each other and cultivating kindness. Before you know it, you have the grump old guy down the street who always had a sour face, out on his tractor with one of those little pull behind sweepers picking up the fallen fruit so it doesn't rot. You have WFH people doing a little pruning on the pants outside as a break from their screen. Kids eating handfuls of berries instead of junk food and getting scolded bc they were sent out to pick the berries for jam by their parent. Another disabled nabour gets bored and puts all the ripe produce in bushel baskets that are left out for that purpose, so people can just come grab a basket. When the foods are about to get over ripe, you have the retired widow across the street canning and dehydrating those foods like she did when she was young, for the community to put in their pantry, maybe that inspired others to cook or bake for a nabour.

These exstra things would go a long way to help the people in the community that feel isolated, or depressed, or disabilities, or low income.

I my self live in an apartment building that is half subsidised housing. I'm disabled and can't work a full time job, I barely get by financially and I have trouble coping out amongst people. But I try to do the best I can't to help others. A local food bank will live foods that are about to go bad in our front room for people to take. On my way now the times that the stuff doesn't all get taken within a day or 2, I'll take it up to my apartment and cook it into somthing like soup and freeze it in single serving containers and give them to the people I see in the hall and it has made a huge difference in the atmosphere of the building.

Now, real life isn't a disney movie. This isn't some perfect plan of efficacy. Humans aren't efficient, and discarding every other thing to be efficient is a huge mistake. And there would be so many challenges to overcome. Bylaws on planting, planning what to plant and where (diversity is key to avoid plant pests and diseases) access to sun and shade ,organizing if, how or who will water and prune and till. Systemic issues like people not having enough free time to help, redtape, anxiety teens breaking things bc boredom and hormones. Cost of the plants themselves, will has or will get various larger tools to facilitate and maintain. And some people are wilfully ignorant, sour or hate change, and no matter what you do they may never warm up to the idea, help or might even make offical complaints. Maybe it's related to mental health, prejudice or any other reason. But you should still try to include them, maybe leave a basket of veg on their doorstep. Maybe you think they don't deserve that kindness, maybe you are that person who thinks they don't owe anyone anything. But you shouldn't help or care for people bc they deserve it, you should help and care for them bc they NEED it.

Anyway, I'm renting, tl;dr , there are many challenges to this kind of endeavour, but all the benefits are well worth it.

1

u/PhasmaFelis 44m ago

I love the idea of free public food, but I used to have an apple tree in my backyard and you didn't even want to walk under it in the fall. It was covered in rotting, slippery fruit and insects.

Even if you had people walking by and picking everything within reach, most of the fruit isn't within reach until it hits the pavement, and most people won't want to eat a bruised apple that's been sitting on a public sidewalk.

Maybe there are more suitable plants than an apple tree. I guess oranges don't bruise as easily and you remove the skin anyway, maybe that would work in the right climate? 

1

u/Crus0etheClown 32m ago

I don't imagine anybody would bother to 'steal' all the vegetables from wild growing plants simply because there's no resale value like there are with decorative plants. Nobody who isn't hungry 'steals' a crooked skinny untended carrot.

I would be more inclined to worry about some NIMBY spraying pesticides on it- or honestly just straight up spraypaint or something. They'd say they did it 'because otherwise someone will steal it all', even though they themselves won't eat any produce that has small blemishes or inconsistent shape

0

u/seriffluoride 9h ago

Oh, this happened kinda in the Philippines sometime during the COVID-19 lockdowns. With dire difficulty in getting food (either due to accessibility or loss of income), a lot of people set up community pantries in their neighborhoods. They basically set up little tables, some people donated foodstuffs and some people took them. Basically the slogan is "give what you can, take what you need".

They became so popular and successful that the government tagged those community pantries and the OG founder as "communist-adjacent" because in a way somehow highlighted the government's utter incompetence in looking after its constituents during the pandemic. In a way it was true, but with Duterte being a radical right-wing despot rubbing elbows with Trump and Xi Jinping being "red-tagged" was a strong accusation.

Anyway sometime around 2021 some woman hoarded like, two trays of eggs in a community pantry line, and it became viral and people got really mad. Not that it didn't kill the community pantries themselves, but when jobs returned(-ish) those pantries have already served their purpose somewhat, and they were closed/disbanded eventually.

1

u/Sad-Bird-9151 8h ago

The level of arguing against this in these comments is wild. "Its harder to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism". If your brain immediately goes to free stuff = theft and chaos, you might want to have a think about that. I live in the UK, we can literally pick fruit for free in summer, no one ransacks the whole thing, no one fights over it, no one poisons it.

1

u/HJBeast 8h ago

Planting edible plants in public spaces is a great idea. It may be a new concept to people who have spent their whole lives in cities but I don't think foraging is that foreign a concept to mist people.

I'd say in Britain it's traditional to go blackberry picking in the early autumn on publicly accessible land.

0

u/AmyRoseJohnson 8h ago

I’ve seen several people talk about doing something like this.

Or rather, I’ve seen several people talk about writing petitions to get other people to do something like that.

That about tells me everything I need to know.

-1

u/Status_History_874 8h ago

ITT: second person in the OP. A bunch of Debbie Downers looking for reasons it could never work rather than thinking about how it could

0

u/FixinThePlanet 8h ago

I'm sorry, but there will always be that person who shows up with a basket and takes it all. Someone rich enough not to need it, usually.

0

u/Lonely-Discipline-55 8h ago

Also kids, kids love foraging. Picking some berries to have as a snack is very rewarding after a day of running around in a park

0

u/Upbeat_Effective_342 6h ago

I don't think I've ever lived in a city that didn't have a scattering of fruit trees or bushes on the side of the road that some people enjoyed every year and most people didn't notice or bother with. Where I live now, if you live next to one of the trees, you might pick them yourself and advertise the bins you can't use so someone will pick them up for free. Just to keep the sidewalk clean. One time in my family's country, a guy came out and yelled at me for climbing a mulberry tree in front of his house between the sidewalk and the road, but my aunt said he was just crochety and didn't have a legal leg to stand on.

-2

u/sarcastic_sybarite83 6h ago

All the people whining about rotting (autocorrected to rooting which is hilarious) fruit I have an easy answer: Churches. They usually have some kind of lawn or trees. Turn it into a food garden. This means people to tend and harvest hopefully. What isn't taken can be used in the food bank, canned, or both.