There is good fruit wasting on the ground while our food bank is crying out for food.
I have been kicking around models for harvesting the citrus,apples, feijoas, plums, persimmon, nuts, figs, grapes, pears guavas and loquats that are in the gardens and neglected orchards around our area.
How about a fruit box scheme?
I thought maybe a box scheme (Ooooby?), say 10 dollars for 4 kilos of fruit. Agree with gardeners to keep their gardens synthetic spray free and we would fertilise and prune trees. Use the funds to buy fruit when supplies are thin. Picking our own from berry gardens or kiwifruit and avo surplus.
How could a small fruit box scheme work?
Kick off with 10 familys=40 kilos of fruit a week. Aim for at least three different fruits a week.
Recompense the local tree owners with fruit that they don't have or by some other method.
Get support from local organisations to push it along.
Picked surpluses to be fed into food banks etc..
Surplus funds (ha ha) used to buy fruit trees to plant.
What to do with the surplus
I guess continuity of supply would be the drama that and gluts.
Well with grapefruit you could juice them at the market, hell maybe you could sell some of the surplus at the local market....Ooooby styles..
I would be interested by your ideas? I am no doubt recklessly naive and simplistic about this, I am about everything else.
Cheers
Replies
You could kick off with everyone getting two or three lemons a week. Meyer fruit all year around and there always seem to be abundant supplies on backyard trees.
Mandarins, Ugli, tangelo, grapefruit seem abundant.
As are feijoa and plums, in their seasons.