If a SHTF event hit tomorrow, how long would your family’s food last? The truth is that most of us do not feel confident that our stores could get us through a long-term event. Some of us might not last beyond two weeks. Moreover, even if you do have a storehouse full of beans and rice, fresh fruits and vegetables are always welcome.
The Falling Fruit Map
We’ve discovered a map that helps you find fruit in your neighborhood that might otherwise rot on the ground. It is not the only one, and I’ll give you some other resources below, but Falling Fruit’s goal is to be the most comprehensive map of its kind. Its strength (and potentially its weakness) is that anyone can add information to the map. This allows more data to be added, but it also means that you must verify that the fruit is truly on offer and not added to the site by a passerby with no permission from the owner.
I live in a densely populated area, so I wasn’t sure that the map would have much to offer me. When I typed in my home address, though, I immediately found a loquat tree and several mulberry trees in my neighborhood, with many others within an easy drive of my home.
I started looking through The Lost Book of Remedies and I found so many tinctures and remedies I could make using trees.
Try it for yourself at Falling Fruit. I recommend typing in your zip code or city first, then your actual address. You’ll be able to quickly see whether any fruit is free for the taking in your neighborhood. And don’t forget to add those addresses where you see fruit on the ground going unused. Let’s do all we can to reduce food waste.
Please remember to ask the landowner for permission before gathering fruit. This includes fruit found on public land and in parks. I once waited until the fruit was perfectly ripe before harvesting a mango tree in my front yard. When I went out to gather the fruit, I found that a neighbor had picked the tree clean. He probably thought that I wasn’t going to use the fruit. I won’t tell you what I thought of him. So, please ask first.
As I said, Falling Fruit isn’t the only site that can help you out. The two sites below are good for large areas of the country. There are also many small websites and maps that cover specific local neighborhood. You can find these with a simple search on the internet.
Edible Cities relies on Google Maps, and requires that you allow Google to know your location to bring up the map. It shows the locations of many different plants that can be foraged for food, including greens, vegetables, and fruits. I didn’t find much in my area, but some users report good results.
Fruits of the Hood shows edible plants in the Southeast plus Pennsylvania and Oregon. Most of the plants are in the original area of North Carolina, but it has branched out into neighboring states. I don’t live in the area, so I was unable to test the site on its usefulness. If you try it, let us know what you find in the comments below.
Keeping Track of Foraging Opportunities
I suggest keeping a journal and map of where you find edible plants. In a SHTF situation, it could be a real lifesaver for you and your family. Note where you found the food, when it is ripe or available, and be sure to include good identification information so that you can positively identify the plant before you harvest it.
Related: 21 Wild Edibles You Can Find in Urban Areas
I know one forager who takes this plan one step further and plants seeds from his kitchen scraps on vacant land around his neighborhood. It is not a garden and requires nothing more than dropping the seeds and keeping up with their location. When he returns, he sometimes finds a free bounty of vegetables or fruits. It doesn’t work well where the land is mowed regularly, but can be done in lightly wooded areas that get some sun but are difficult to mow.
I forage for edible fruits, vegetables, salad greens, and medicinal herbs and I rely on good identification data to help me with this task. It is extremely important that you can positively identify the plant, which parts are edible, and how to prepare it.
A good physical book, such as The Lost Book of Remedies, is available to you anytime (once you’ve purchased it, of course), but online maps and resources may not always be available. To make use of online sources, make a physical copy now and visit the location and verify the information for yourself. Make careful notes so that you will have everything you need when the SHTF.
You may also like:
16 Wild Edibles You Didn’t Know You Could Forage For
The Berry That Is Illegal To Grow, But Perfectly Fine To Forage (Video)
How Much Land Do You Need to Be Self-Sufficient?
I love the Lost Book of Remedies! It was just what I have been looking for! If you think the world is changing enough for you to learn survival skills, this book may just save your bacon one day. I give it 5 stars!
I think this page and many more like it, IS JUST A DATA MINING SITE LOOKING FOR MORE INFORMATION FROM US. NO REASON TO EVER NEED TO PROVIDE YOUR ADDRESS. JUST GO TO YOUR COUNTY EXTENSION SERVICE AND GET THE INFORMATION.
I tend to not trust easily in the world we live in now but I have learned from experience to trust C Davis! Much of what he has said I learned from my dad and grandparents and now hear from him. I have also learned many new things like how to do the things I heard when I was young. He has never lead me wrong yet.
There is an easy solution to the problem of providing more information than one feels comfortable providing. That is to exit the website. Now I realize that once you have gone to a site, there are all kinds of nasty things ranging from cookies to malware to viruses that can be installed on your computer without your knowledge. As knowledgable internet users, it behooves us to have anti-malware, anti-virus and other protective programs installed on our computers and we have to do housekeeping to clear out cookies that we don’t want to bite into. Unfortunately, too many sites we like or need to visit also install cookies for “our convenience” so we have to be careful before we hit the “delete all” button.
Hi BigKid, I personally don’t gather any information from you. But you don’t have to fill in your address anyway. Just zoom in to your location.
I would point out, when harvesting from a neighbor’s tree without permission, in California it used to be that any stolen farm produce valued at more than $50 was a felony. A felony conviction in the PDRK will forever preclude you from owning a firearm, firearm parts or ammunition. It is defined as farm products but covers home-grown as well as commercially grown farm products.
That said, I haven’t kept up with the gyrations of our deity-anointed masters in Goofytown (known in other parts of the country as Sacramento) but they have been very busy this year making all kinds of crimes mere annoyances, so I don’t know what they have done to stealing farm produce. Unfortunately, the farmers have lost their clout in Goofytown to the fat cats in the bespoke suits, manicured nails and designer haircuts.
As kind of an off topic, but hopefully amusing anecdote, our local courts once prosecuted two yo-yos who had spent a whole day stealing avocados. They wound up selling them for less than they would have made had they worked the same amount of time at Mickey D’s flipping burgers. However, that did not change the fact that they stole more than $50 worth of avocados sold in the legitimate market. They were also charged with felony malicious mischief because the damage they did to the trees was over the felony limit. So two felonies convictions for less money than they would have made doing honest work.
I tend to not trust easily in the world we live in now but I have learned from experience to trust C Davis! Much of what he has said I learned from my dad and grandparents and now hear from him. I have also learned many new things like how to do the things I heard when I was young. He has never lead me wrong yet.
These websites are wonderful resources. Only falling fruit was really helpful right now, but the others may be some day.
When you enter your location to the left of the map is a drop down list of reported edible and medicinal species, this has to be the most exhaustive list of useful plants I’ve ever seen. For instance, Horse Chestnut (Aesculus) is commonly listed as toxic but after seeing it on the list I googled it and it actually is edible when shelled and roasted. Very cool resource.
Falling Fruit had no info for my area. At all. I live 20 miles north of Seattle. The other two, I couldn’t even get into. One site, because of my ‘virus protection’ & the other because I was on Google? I don’t understand any of it. It’s times like these that I feel old & decrepit.
this site didn’t give me anything near me–i know of a pear tree across the street and an apple tree two blocks down (chgo). didn’t note either of them.
add them to the map! it’s not a map generated by magic. each tag has been added by a human being who walked past the plant, noted its status and location and then took the time to add it to the website. contribute, don’t just expect to take.
Fruits of the Hood denied me access, according to the Google message. It did allow me to request access, but so far, no response. Edible Cities does not work at all…