Welcome to the Urban Foraging Handbook.

Believe it or not, there is free food growing just up the street from you. You only need to know where to look. I will focus on the foods that grow in most areas of the world, aside from the extremes of hot and cold, so that you have the likeliest chance of finding the plant in your area. The #colorchallenge by @kalemandra focuses on the color green for every Thursday and what better way to celebrate this color than by examining the lush, growing, GREEN food that exists all around us.

So, for this week we will focus on some natural growing fruit trees.

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Pear

You all may be familiar with the green fruit that has given us the phrase "pear shaped", but what you may not know is that pears come in different colors. The ones that we have in this part of the world tend to be yellow and there are even a few strains of the tree that ripen to red fruits. These fruits are best harvested when they are turning from green to yellow. If you pick them when they are still firm, then you have a few days to decide what to do with them, as they store well. Wait until the pears have turned softer and the birds will start eating the best of the tree. Don't worry, pear trees are very prolific so even after you get your fill from the tree there will still be plenty left for the wildlife!

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Peach:

Peaches come in a variety of shapes and colors, with the dark yellow peaches having a orangey interior to the fruit and the lighter "white" or "pink" varieties will have lighter to white interior. Peaches also tend to have "peach fuzz" covering the outside of the fruit. This will mostly wash off and is harmless, maybe just add a little fiber to your diet ;) Harvest peaches the same way you would pears, while they still have a few green areas on the fruit and are still firm, but are starting to soften. Any fruits that you want to eat first simply select the ripest of your harvest and place in the windowsill in the sun. They will ripen in a few hours.

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Blackberry:

Blackberries are produced on a thorned vine that will grow just about anywhere wild. The Bramble as well as some varieties of Climbing Rose also look similar to the blackberry vine, but at this time of year your blackberries should start popping out of the leaf coverage. Blackberry vines produce bunches of little white, star-shaped, flowers and once the flower matures it will fall off, leaving a tiny green baby blackberry. The fruits will then turn red and then black/dark purple. You can pick the fruit when it is red, they are very tangy and sour, but do make a great sour jam. I like them dark purple, that way they are plenty sweet, but still firm enough to transport home. Right now, my blackberries are still green/red, but there are a few every now and then that are beginning to turn dark. Homage to the birds, they usually get first pick.

Something to keep in mind:

All wild grown fruit bearing plants must mature first for the fruit to taste "sweet" like we are used to in grocery and mass produced farming. The wild fruit that you can find around your house may or may not have matured yet, and even plants or trees that seem to be large and well may still have "mealy" or "sour" tasting fruit. I have several reliable trees that I go to for fruit that I want to eat raw, but the rest I tend to cook down with a little sugar and cinnamon powder to make preserves, etc with. These go on toast or in yogurt very nicely and you don't have to worry about the flavor.

Well, I hope you all go out and at least look at the weeds differently!

If this information was helpful or interesting to you, please upvote and repost so that we can reach as many people as possible. Ignorance breeds hunger and when there is so much natural food to be eaten in nature it seems a shame that people go hungry.

Did our ancestors go to the grocery store? I think not!

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Until next time my friends,

@jennswall

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