A few years ago, I saw my friend Ian outside of where I work, picking apples from a tree that I parked near every day. I had never noticed that this small tree was an apple tree. Later that week I went biking with Ian, and we went to several other locations where Ian gathered apples from trees around Cleveland. He used the apples to make apple butter. Urban unharvested and neglected fruit trees exist in lots of cities, and in larger amounts in cities in warm climates.
In 2009, Craig Durkin and Aubrey Daniels had noticed a large amount of apples growing on neglected trees all over Atlanta, GA. The group decided to create an annual gathering, nicknamed “Ciderfest,” to pick these apples and turn them into apple cider.
After several years of larger and larger apple harvests, Durkin and Daniels started Concrete Jungle, a non-profit, which after its third year has documented nearly 1,000 fruit-bearing trees across the city, and has donated over 6,000 lbs of produce to local homeless shelters and charitable organizations.
They organize group harvest events, and harvest hundreds of fruit and nut trees in the Atlanta area that are by the side of the road or by buildings. Before going out to harvest, the group documents the tree to make sure that it will yield healthy fruit. They also get verbal permission if the trees are on private land, and work with the land/business owners to get access to the trees.
Concrete Jungle sorts the fruit once picked, and checks for worms and bruised spots. They wash the fruit and donate to organizations that include churches, homeless shelters, and food banks.
The food map that they made on their site indicates over 573 locations in Atlanta which include apples, peaches, blackberries, blueberries, figs, and other fruits and nuts. If you live in the area, you can volunteer to help pick and the group uses Twitter and Facebook to list picking and community events.
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Concrete Jungle
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