Public fruit - social warming

About one year ago I gleaned some early season cherry plums with my friend Pete in Castlemaine, which is a forty minute drive from here. My friend Jason had initially supplied us with a map of where to find them. Cherry plums are probably the first stone fruits to come into season in this region, and we've just discovered a tree about a four minute walk from here. As this lovely specimen is doing so well, survives only on intermittent water from the gods and its own self humus for nourishment, bears delicious fruit free of charge and pesticides, and is growing in the same micro-climate as our own we reckon it's probably a good idea to dry some seeds and attempt to propagate them for future produce.


Until recently our south boundary has bordered a vacant lot, however it has been sold and our new neighbours are getting ready to build. A food producing screen or fence that both sides can harvest could be a nice idea, so I'm going to grow these seeds and suggest this as another type of social warming fence.

Abundance

We've been eating locally gleaned fruit since January and this week marks the end of the season; apples, plums, blackberries quinces and pears have been in abundance in these parts and we have had free fresh fruit for almost six months.



After eating this food it is not possible to eat supermarket fruit again. In the meantime our own fruit trees are growing up.

That which is possible

Several years ago Jason Workman and Esther Buder carried out a small food project in the Castlemaine district that filled their larder with bottled preserves and generated relations of sharing that continue today. The project was called That which is possible, and one of the gifts to come from it (that wasn't food-based) was a hand-made postcard series which contained pictures of claimed roadside food, recipes for preserving and a map of where the various plums, pears, apples, blackberries, and quince are and when, approximately, they bare fruit. The postcards were sent to friends but also to random strangers, not necessarily in the area, to promote a poetic of resourcefulness.

Today I had to go to Castlemaine to choose some stone for a small wall I'm building. I asked PO if he wanted to test Jason and Esther's 2005 map. Bingo! Early season cherry plums. We picked together a bag full for Meg's pancake breakfast on Sunday.