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

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. 

( In this case, the harvest came from two areas; our friend M’s front-yard blackberry bush, and the poppy’s growing alongside the canal next to one of the neighborhood dance studios. )

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...