A Snacking Block .... urban orchard

Grant Street (Victoria BC) between Chambers and Cook is a very tasty example of what happens when trees and shrubs and plants with edible fruit and foliage hang onto the public walkway.

Once a  back alley, this block retains that ambiance which is presently being acknowledged and enhanced by becoming a greenway.

In the spring miner's lettuce offers the first salad leaves.

Now the raspberries are ripening and I recently discovered that the yellow ones are sweet and do not need to be left to get really red which certainly has increased my harvesting on the daily walk to the Polish Deli.  (The Deli and the Bagel Factory are at the end of the street by Cook.)   This is a wonderful epiphany.  I am not the only one to snack;  it seems most people think the berries are not ripe if not red.  Heh heh.

Next comes a Rainier cherry tree - the yellow ones tinged with red.  Very quickly the reachable cherries are picked by passersby but the to'ing and fro'ing of people and cars seems to deter a stripping by the starlings as happens to such trees in more secluded spots.

The crook of an umbrella is very handy with which to hook a branch and lower it down to finger-gripping level.

This elderberry bush (sambucus canadensis) is the edible kind with its black berries (some are not!) and the berries will be ready in a week or so.  I don't think people know what they are or that they are lovely to eat because in past years I seem to have had no competition in the harvest.

And this tree has a special meaning for me now - it is the mother of the two small cuttings I took in the early spring,  which both rooted,  and in a few years I could have elderberry bushes in my own garden bearing fruit.

Next there are pears. 

I don't actually remember snacking on pears from this tree.  Hmmmm...... 

Loaded with ripening  apples, this tree is across the drive from the Bagel Factory and for several weeks in late summer supplies me with an apple a day. 

The apples are mostly high on the tree - but I am not above shaking any reachable branch to release the fruit; the challenge is to try and catch an apple before it hits the ground.  In any case if you eat it right away (and the apples are delicious!) there is no time for it to form a bruise. 

Unless one hits me!

Comments

[Crafty Gardener]

I remember all the reachable fruit while walking in Victoria last summer. My daughter picks lots of berries and makes jam from them. What a sweet walk to take each day.

[karen]

Morning Linda Your daughter is a 'crafty' harvester to extend to jam!

[Kruse]

How coincidental, I walked home today along a path decorated with wild raspberries, and picked a good handful to eat. I love to find apple trees growing wild or overhanging fences too. Also forage for crab apple for jelly and elder berries for wine-making. Free food is the best food!

[karen]

Hi Susan Don't think I've ever had wild raspberries!