This image is of orange trees lining the streets of Seville, Spain.
In other parts of the world Fruit trees lining streets is a common thing. It is also beginning to gain some movement in Berkeley and apparently Boston.
There are also sites like fallenfruit.org that maps fruit trees that hang over private properties into public space which make the fruits available for the public. There is a map for our neighbor Claremont on this site as well.
In the states, this public urban foraging is gaining some footage. It allows people within the community the opportunity to harvest locally grown public food which helps the environment in many ways including the reduction of fuel for shipping.
Let's not forget what Pomona means and the historical relevance of the city. Pomona is the Goddess of Fruit, Pomona was once a great agricultural town and I believe that bringing some of that history back would be great for the city. Ontario has been planting small grape orchards in corporate parks because of the history of Ontario. It helps to distinguish Ontario from other parts of the country and give it some character based on its history. It can be seen along Haven in North Ontario on the West side of the street. There are even some residential complexes with some grape orchards in the area. I think it makes sense for Pomona to bring some of the history back along with the Fox theater and allow Pomona to develop its own character. It'll also put is one step ahead of all the other cities of Los Angeles.
Even in the historic district there are some community members that have taken the initiative to plant some fruiting trees along the street, and their fruit is always harvested by passersby, it never goes to waste and almost never hits the ground.
According to MetroPomona, on July 9th. There is going to be a meeting with the Vehicle Parking District to discuss the three-way partnership developed with the VPD, Public Works Department and the DPOA, to fill the emptry tree wells in the Downtown Area.
With a Farmers market in Downtown, plenty of people living in Downtown (who do not have yards to grow their own food in) and this evolving shift in Urban Planning to provide more publicly available food. It only makes sense for Pomona to consider planting some Street Fruit Trees.
Some other sites that promote Urban Foraging are
Neighborhoodfruit.com
and
veggietrader.com
Here is also a June 9th 2009 article published by the New York Times about Urban Foraging.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
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2 comments:
Edible Landscaping has long been 'my thing'. The original vision for my garden was that most of the plants be food producing, either for humans, or for birds, bees, and butterflies. I have long enjoyed the edible landcape of Pomona. There used to be at least a dozen english walnut trees in Westmont Park (and other parks), a legacy of commercial groves. However, most of those trees have now died, and been replaced (or not) with non food bearing species. It would be great to see more fruit and nut trees return.
Walnut, pecan, citrus, fig, loquat, pineapple guava, and others are all attractive species that grow well here.
Some Pomona edible trees of note: the very large and beautiful black walnut at Towne and Mission, outside a restaurant that used to be a Tastee Freeze (sorry for the used-to-be... I see ghosts of the past wherever I go). Another notable is the row of pink blossomed peach trees which line the creek through Ganesha Park. I don't know if they produce much fruit, but the flowers sure are lovely. The older peach trees were replaced a few year ago with younger peaches... yay!
There surely are more, but I am not recalling them at the moment. I'm glad you too are interested in bringing more edibles to the streets of Pomona.
Riverside has orange trees planted (amidst cement) at various places in their downtown core (including in front of the main jail, where they are at least enjoyed by hungry folks getting out of the slammer each day! I heard somewhere that fruit trees are actually illegal to have in a parkway in Pomona.
I think it would be an excellent idea to have them around town. And thanks Robin, I had no idea that my favorite tree in all of Pomona (the one at Mission and Towne) was a walnut tree.
G of P
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