Urban Reclamation Harvesting (or How To Make The Most Of Other Peoples Green Space)

[hsifeng]

This past Sunday, I got a chance to hang out with my friends T&A (this is not a porn joke, I swear) and do a little ‘urban reclamation harvesting’. If you haven’t heard this term before, don’t worry – I just made it up. However, I think I can provide a broad definition:

“Urban Reclamation Harvesting” [ur-buh n rek-luh-mey-shuh n hahr-vist-eng]

–verb (used with object)
1. to gather (a crop or the like) from unused spaces in cities or towns.
2. to gather a crop from an urban environment: to harvest the city.
3. to catch, take, or remove an unused resource for use: Urbanites harvested dozens of lemons from the tree overhanging the sidewalk. 

sBlackberries

Our Target.


We showed up at M’s house around 8:40 AM on Sunday morning. We had coffee in hand, a wide variety of berry picking equipment (including baskets, re-used plastic berry cages, gloves and sunscreen), three dedicated berry pickers and one dedicated Director of operations (A’s three year old son, X – and I think you can figure out his name from there, given that there are only a handful of boy names starting with an X…).

Our initial concern that we wouldn’t be gathering many berries (because we couldn’t see the bush from where we parked the car, and thereby assumed it was *tiny*) were quickly allayed when we got up close and personal with the shrub in question.

The Motherlode
  
 

We set about harvesting berries, and in the course of about two hours we picked the bush clean of everything we could reach that were ripe enough to harvest. There were a few ‘thorn pricks’ to deal with, but overall the undertaking was a complete success.

The Payoff
  
 

Emboldened by our achievement, T and I (that would be “me”, not “I” another coconspirator) decided to drop by the local dance studio and gather poppy seeds.

Poppy Seeds

T already has California poppies in her garden, and I want some. While we both enjoy orange poppies, our target on Sunday were seeds for some of these lovely ladies.

Bloody Mary
  
 

Harvesting poppy seeds is a relatively simple matter. Find yourself a poppy plant, wait for the flowers to mature and fall off, leaving behind their seed pods.

Long Poppy Seed Pods


Wait for the seed pods to dry out.

Dry vs ‘Wet’ Pods
(note: the blurry pod in the foreground of this picture is ready to harvest, the others need a little more time to mature)
  

 

It’s pretty easy to tell when the plant has seed pods that are ready to harvest on it. The ground nearby will be littered with fallen pod-soldiers.

  
 

Dry pods literally burst open, scattering seeds. When you pull a dry pod off the plant, be sure to grasp the pod firmly at the point where it separates from the stem. This will help prevent the pods from Exploding And Shooting Seeds In Your Eyes.

It can happen. Just sayin’…

*twitch twitch*

We harvested for about 30 – 45 minutes. The overall ‘take’ doesn’t look that impressive, but it is a sizeable amount of seeds and should go a long way to helping me populate my front flowerbed with poppies! 
 

Production

With the seeds harvested, T & I headed back to her place to prep the blackberries for the deep freeze. We both know we aren’t going to eat as many berries as we plucked in the next week or so (although we are making a valiant effort; snacking, baking and cordial making) and this means long-term preservation techniques are in order.

First, the washing; for this step we used my salad spinner (thank you forever and ever shadowd1 for the gift of this kitchen tool).



 Then we lined up the berries in a single layer on cookie sheets.

  
 

Once this was all done, the sheets got popped into T’s chest freezer. They will be done freezing in a day or so, and can be moved into storage bags for easier storage. By laying the berries out in a single layer for freezing we avoid getting ‘berry clumps’ in our storage bags, which will make for easier use of the berries later on.

This entire operation was overseen and approved by Brigwin, the Kitchen Commissar.

The Kitchen Commissar Is Judging You

Thankfully, she approved; although she got rather annoyed with us when we insisted that she and her two cat compatriots stay the hell out of the berry baskets when we were trying to prep them for washing.

They didn’t want to eat the berries. They just wanted to smell them. A lot.

Cats are so weird. 

This whole adventure reminded me that I have been meaning to chart an ‘urban harvesting map’ for my neighborhood. It seems that most of the folks that live around me have houses with loads of mature fruit and citrus trees in their yards; trees that never seem to get harvested by anyone. Much like our property, I am sure they are inheriting the garden labor of owners from the early 20^th century who didn’t believe in wasting garden space and wanted plants that they could use for food as well as decoration.

The problem is, most folks these days don’t have the first clue what to do with 40 pounds of lemons.

I do.

Time to start knocking on doors to see I can lend folks a hand, and help ‘clean up’ their yard.

*grin*

EDIT: Sorry guys and gals - LJ is screwing me on the cut function...*sigh*

EDIT 2: Let's see if that fixes it...