Do you look out for roadside fruit and flowers as you drive down country lanes?, or do you pop a pair of scissors in your pockets on that leisurely Saturday morning walk?
Well the later is my mum, always an opportunist when it comes to free plants! A good majority of her garden probably came from sneaky snips of cuttings and seeds taken from fence lines around my hometown!
This mostly, embarrassed me tremendously, as a kid joining her on these walks....in my eyes it was stealing back then, but now that I'm older and wiser I see how it actually was rather clever of my mum, after all money was hard to come by being a single parent to three, though despite this she was still able to full fill her passion for gardening without spending a penny.
And that brings me to now, where I find myself searching the roadsides for freebies of my own. Down in the Mt Ruapehu, where we last lived, is where my fruit tree seeking began, I knew every roadside apple tree there was on the country road between home and the boys school, though it took me two years to get over the imagined humiliation I felt for picking the apples! And now up here in the Winterless North, I have done the same thing, I'm always on the lookout for something on my numerous trips on our country roads, I guess you could call it another one of my past times.
Currently there's Peach trees nearly ready for picking, the last of the roadside Roses are finishing their bloom, which means Rosehips come after, and numerous flowers that have naturalized themselves amongst the long grass.....but I never stop unless Mikes with me.
Yesterday however I thought it was about time I changed that, who cares and 'Why not?'
I've said those last words to myself a lot lately, and it made me stop. After all I was on the way home with only one child and I wasn't in a hurry to get back! Slow down Laura!
So I picked some free flowers, and even pulled a few bulbs too! It was so freeing not care about the cars that drove past, and thanks to having plastic bags in the car ( for car sickness ), newspaper from the mailbox that hangs around, and water for the cars leaking radiator! I had just what I needed to keep them alive on the way home! I even had scissors, though I think I'll pack a pair permanently as I don't want to make a habit of using my sewing scissors!
Next on my list, is the Peaches, and then a bunch of Sweetpeas! And maybe I'll pack a spade too?!
So what about you? do you share the same passion for foraged goods?
This mostly, embarrassed me tremendously, as a kid joining her on these walks....in my eyes it was stealing back then, but now that I'm older and wiser I see how it actually was rather clever of my mum, after all money was hard to come by being a single parent to three, though despite this she was still able to full fill her passion for gardening without spending a penny.
And that brings me to now, where I find myself searching the roadsides for freebies of my own. Down in the Mt Ruapehu, where we last lived, is where my fruit tree seeking began, I knew every roadside apple tree there was on the country road between home and the boys school, though it took me two years to get over the imagined humiliation I felt for picking the apples! And now up here in the Winterless North, I have done the same thing, I'm always on the lookout for something on my numerous trips on our country roads, I guess you could call it another one of my past times.
Currently there's Peach trees nearly ready for picking, the last of the roadside Roses are finishing their bloom, which means Rosehips come after, and numerous flowers that have naturalized themselves amongst the long grass.....but I never stop unless Mikes with me.
Yesterday however I thought it was about time I changed that, who cares and 'Why not?'
I've said those last words to myself a lot lately, and it made me stop. After all I was on the way home with only one child and I wasn't in a hurry to get back! Slow down Laura!
So I picked some free flowers, and even pulled a few bulbs too! It was so freeing not care about the cars that drove past, and thanks to having plastic bags in the car ( for car sickness ), newspaper from the mailbox that hangs around, and water for the cars leaking radiator! I had just what I needed to keep them alive on the way home! I even had scissors, though I think I'll pack a pair permanently as I don't want to make a habit of using my sewing scissors!
Next on my list, is the Peaches, and then a bunch of Sweetpeas! And maybe I'll pack a spade too?!
So what about you? do you share the same passion for foraged goods?
8 comments:
We used to do this on walks where we used to live! There were peach, apple and feijoa trees that hung over onto the walkways so we used to just take a bag with us when we walked :)
In Wanaka's Station Park we used to pick plums as no-one else seemed to, and make jam. It was a wonderful tradition of three years for us :P and on our last year we saw other people doing the same. As much as it was nice seeing them, I also had this, hey, that's our tree! in my head. Never said it out loud though :)
There is a map for fruit trees on public land in Nelson, I'll link it here for any Nelson readers you have that might not know. https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?oe=UTF8&ie=UTF8&msa=0&mid=zNOuAmpcNgdw.kf9URXGheOtQ
Rules are simple, just take what you need. If you open the map, zoom in and click on the trees on the map to find details of types of fruit etc
XO
Oh and yeah, when we were kids my mum would make my dad drag home all sorts of things. Huge bits of driftwood, go into the swamp to get bulrushes...lol
I used to pick blackberries as a child, no dramas there! You do make me laugh, fancy having everything you needed on hand! We used to think those families picking some unidentified weed a bit odd , until we discovered wild fennel!!! ........as you can see I have found a free bag of exclamation marks!!!!!
No but suburbia doesn't offer up all that much...love that you have special little treats along your journey. Xxxx
I'll snag a stem here or there to propagate but the opportunities for that kind of thing are a bit limited here in suburbia. I always feel guilty picking fruit that's over a fence, though I used to enjoy watching people trying to get the avocadoes off our neighbour's tree because the fruit hung just out of reach but they'd be jumping up and down like chimps trying to get bananas in some Far Side cartoon. I got very angry at a woman picking my roses one year though, they were over the fence and she was taking them all and making a huge mess. She claimed that since they were on the fence they were "public property". That still ticks me off but I'm not sure if it's any different than picking a few plums on a tree over the sidewalk the other day!
Absolutely - I love a spot of summer scrumping! Nothing like a piece of fruit from a random roadside tree :) and yep I've been know to take a cutting from here and there - I have never met a gardener who wasn't delighted to see someone doing this - generally if I happen to meet someone (like the owner of said plant) on my "missions" I often end up going home with way more as they load you up with cuttings of all descriptions and the stories behind how they came about them. I love the gardening community.
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