Long before I was interested in urban farming, I was familiar with the concept of urban foraging. Years ago we would harvest wild raspberries along the railroad tracks to make one delicious berry pie in the middle of July. Later, we learned to look carefully along the edges of the rails-to-trails bike paths in our region, carefully timing our bike rides to gather wild berries before the birds ate them all.
In more recent years, we've made wild grape jelly from the grapes found in the woods near our house. It was difficult to harvest the grapes, which bore the most fruit at the top of their vines. My agile teenager made those harvests possible, scrambling up trees to pick grapes.
This year my foraging efforts are more.... middle-aged. I called a neighbor and asked permission to gather the crabapples from her tree. I came home with a bucket full of crabapples, ranging in size from grape to walnut, with varying degrees of scars and bruises. I salvaged enough to make a batch of spicy crabapples, seen the photo above. The crabapples are packed in a sugar syrup with cinnamon, cloves and allspice. We'll use it as dessert over ice cream or pound cake, and perhaps we'll serve it occasionally with pork.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping my eyes open for free urban crops. What have you foraged?
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