These bins were totally filled and I still have another load to grab from the community orchard. I had to pick the ones that were weighing down branches without the potential for growing well. They’re not ripe yet but are usable and I didn’t want to dump any I could save. I also have like 50kg of semi-ripe plums to pickle and turn into wine. The apple butter will go with some homemade bread.

    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      3 months ago

      Goals. When I can afford a bit of land I’m determined to have a hobby farm where the surplus goes to an org like PSL to do a People’s Free Food Programme like the Black Panthers did. An orchard like this where we’ve taken park land and made a free-forage area that donates to the municipal food bank is a close second I’d love to professionally integrate into more parks.

      • ratboy [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        3 months ago

        Ohhhh yeah! Both of those ideas are awesome. More edible parks and things would be so nice! Just gotta get a lot of people on board for upkeep

        There’s this group in my town that does food rescue from a bunch of grocers and they started this free grocery, where people can go and “shop” instead of getting a pre packaged food box. You sign up for a time and get access to a bunch of organic produce, bread, sweets, they have all kinds of perishables both vegan and non too. From what I remember one dream was to be able to rent a space and open a kind of community kitchen where they could do free cooking classes and stuff; I hope they are able to do it one day

        • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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          3 months ago

          Upkeep is definitely the barrier for us planting more. Ideally I’d love to turn every park into some combination of pollinator habitat, wildlife sanctuary, community gardens/food forests, and interpretive/demonstration spaces. It takes a full-time crew of 5 horticulturists to cover what we have though and volunteers are really hit-or-miss for complex plant work. Eventually I’m using that example in some Marxist green urbanist theory once I have a handle on how the economics and public relations side work.