Fallen Fruit

Homegrown Revolution tagged along on a neighborhood tour with the beige jump-suit clad fruit foraging collective known as Fallen Fruit. Our capable guides, David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, led a group of well over fifty folks through a hilly part of Silver Lake just above the 99 cent store in search of street grown loquats, (in great abundance right now) kumquats, oranges, lemons, bananas, carob trees and more. We all ended up back at LA’s non-profit du jour, Machine Project for banjo music and samples of the evening’s harvest.

At times our tour group, resembled a sort of pedestrian critical mass as startled motorists gawked at the sight of people actually walking in LA. Along the way Fallen Fruit eloquently stated the case for public edible plantings and a plea for a neighborhood dynamic based on sharing a street-grown harvest. Like the folks behind Rebar, who turn parking spaces into temporary parks, Fallen Fruit’s mission ultimately is to get us to profoundly reconsider our neglected and underutilized public spaces. And these citrus revolutionaries have issued a manifesto:

A SPECTER is haunting our cities: barren landscapes with foliage and flowers, but nothing to eat. Fruit can grow almost anywhere, and can be harvested by everyone. Our cities are planted with frivolous and ugly landscaping, sad shrubs and neglected trees, whereas they should burst with ripe produce. Great sums of money are spent on young trees, water and maintenance. While these trees are beautiful, they could be healthy, fruitful and beautiful.

WE ASK all of you to petition your cities and towns to support community gardens and only plant fruit-bearing trees in public parks. Let our streets be lined with apples and pears! Demand that all parking lots be landscaped with fruit trees which provide shade, clean the air and feed the people.

FALLEN FRUIT is a mapping and manifesto for all the free fruit we can find. Every day there is food somewhere going to waste. We encourage you to find it, tend and harvest it. If you own property, plant food on your perimeter. Share with the world and the world will share with you. Barter, don’t buy! Give things away! You have nothing to lose but your hunger

They also have a set of handy maps of publicly accessible fruit in a couple of neighborhoods and a video for those who missed the fun last night. Rumor has it they will be doing a jam making session sometime this summer and SurviveLA will be there.

Now we just need another collective of clever revolutionaries to deal with LA’s other great street resource–abandoned mattresses and couches.

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2 Comments

  1. I would have loved to come along but the outing conflicted with the IAALMAF’s invitational bike ride that night. I did look for fruit rolling through Vernon, though. There is none.

  2. Here is my suggestion re the mattress and sofa problem. Recruit hi-level Hollywood celebrities to autograph the mattresses and sofas then sell them on eBay to their fans in the midwest etc. It’s win-win. After my 20% the profits can go to replenishing the ozone layer or whatever it is you people do.

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