Urban Fruit Trees

We both live in apartments in wooden houses, and we both have the fortune of having yards with fruit trees. Amir’s yard has three different varieties of apple trees, damson plums and wild raspberries hidden in the back of the yard. Daniel lives surrounded by apple trees, a small but abundant plum tree, red currants and garden raspberries. In the spring we planted strawberries, but lost the fruit to birds (we’re hoping to pick them quicker next summer). We dream of growing all possible trees that bear fruit in this climate. Cherries. Pears.

Fruit trees are rather awesome and reasonable things to have close by: they bloom beautifully in the spring and bear fruit in the autumn. And fruits are delicious. They make a basic porridge, that is a good breakfast as it is, a bit more fancy, joyful and sweet. We gathered plums and some damson plums, apples and red currants to top our morning porridge of local whole grain rye, barley and oats cooked in Swedish oat milk.

For those who do not have fruit trees right outside their door, many people who do have some, get more fruit than they need, and will give some away. Sometimes they leave a bag or a bucket of them by their front gate. We happened to see one bucket full of apples with a sign “free apples” just today. Or you can also simply go ask.

You can also locate public fruit trees and other urban edibles using falling fruit (global) or Satokartta (Helsinki).