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.
I live in the Netherlands but come from South of France. First thing I did when buying a house was to create a "aromatic garden" in front of my house. Oregano, thyme, lavender, ....
No only the smell is amazing in the summer and it reminds me of home, but it's been so cool to see people come and pluck from it for their cooking. It's been my hope all along.
I love this <3
I'm glad to see several fig trees in Crete on the map. Just the other day I was thinking it would be cool to have an app mapping them.
Fig trees located in fields are considered public by tradition in Crete. I.e. it's fair game to stop by and grab some fruit, even if you cross into private property. This tradition originates from older days, where farmers/shepherds were travelling the island on foot or riding donkeys, often sleeping away from home. Fig trees were established as the unofficial roadside snack bars because of the delicious fruit, but more importantly because they thrive on the rough terrain without need for human care.
This feels like it might have unintended consequences. My mom lives in a neighborhood where lots of people have fruit trees and allow neighbors to take some because none of them could eat all of the fruit. But, once in while, some people outside the community drive in an clear out the trees abusing the system. Will a map of public trees increase incidents like that?
Around me I see some people that are very dedicated to exploiting these fruits. They’ll show up with a large group - children, friends, family - and systematically pick everything clean to fill their buckets. It’s really disappointing because they clearly don’t need that much, there’s nothing left for others, and there’s nothing left for wildlife. The worst thing is they usually don’t pay any attention to whether the fruit is ready to be harvested or not - they just grab it all - and that means they’re not likely to get something tasty even for themselves. But there is a mindset to get them before anyone else does, so they take them anyways. Personally I think it is better if these aren’t mapped out, so at least locals who are invested in their community have a chance to pick them responsibly. These maps end up just being used by the exploitative people.
I am always on the lookout for mullberries.
I really like them and you can't just buy them at a grocery store.
Here's a detailed one for Toronto,
Someone brought this up in a child comment: what are the taste/health effects of near-permanent car traffic on fruit trees? The fruit of the public citrus trees in my city is pretty sour, but I don't know how much this is because of not being bred for sweetness, vs absorbing carbon monoxide, lead etc from passing cars.
If you're interested in this kind of thing, inaturalist is another great resource with significantly more activity (at least in the US)
A similar project to http://map.na-ovoce.cz
Oregon is plastered with fruit trees just growing anywhere in public spaces. Most of the time wild trees aren't cared for enough to be useful but there are some exceptions, especially plums.
My best spots are fruits trees in the border of a villa, but you can catch some by climbing a bit. Usually proprietaries are ok, they don't eat them most of time. I'm foraging figs and persimons
Edmonton, Canada: https://data.edmonton.ca/Environmental-Services/Trees-Map/ud...
The city also has some foraging clubs that are quite active. There are many more things to pick in the city's forests and parks: asparagus, strawberries, raspberries, currants, mushrooms, etc.
I have a fruit tree that provides a LOT of fruit. Half of it hangs over a fence. I don't mind if people come up and take some of the "low hanging fruit". However the other day I caught a lady halfway across the top of my fence, her torso was in my yard. This is a 6 foot tall fence. The problem is that if you give an inch, people take a mile.
Does this use OSM? Does anyone understand how to integrate your own data with OSM (like this project does) without having to actually add it to OSM?
This reminds me of the Stanford Gleaning Project
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=15Z25z2IyTYSzH0...
Cool map. But in Copenhagen there are so many toxic lots that I would never take fruit from any tree within the city limits.
I've been thinking something like this is needed whenever I see a tree dropping fruit on the sidewalk.
I knew someone that had a date tree in the far front corner of their yard. when it produced fruit a car would park there and like 4-5 people were picking all the fruit off the tree. they ended up cutting it down.
Just be prepared for someone to pick everything to sell or for their restaurant
Mundraub btw. is a German legal term that literally translates as mouth-robbery.
Very cool and we have similar in Sweden. Have used it several times https://fruktkartan.se/#/
If I had a fruit tree in my front yard, I wouldn't care if someone takes the fruit. Most people don't eat all the fruit in a season anyways.
I covered some of this in a recent blogpost:
[1] https://taylor.town/oh-theft
tl;dr Remember that private plants overhanging public property are not necessarily fair game.
which mapping style do they use? Reminds me of the German maps of my childhood. We have nice forest service maps but the styling isn't as pretty
People will use this to systematically harvest what they can and sell it or its byproducts. Tragedy of the commons, etc.
Not many places in the US.
minor complaint: every single interaction with the map results in a new item pushed into the browser history
Ok.
There seems to be quite the split of opinion on public fruit trees.
I encountered something like this when I planted a row of red currents at the front of our property. My mother-in-law said "You can't plant those there, people will take the fruit" whereas my thinking was "If I plant these here, people can take the fruit"