I've only just discovered these guys, thanks to a small article in the latest OrganicNZ magazine.
It's a marvelous idea, in my view, cycling the country, planting pits and stones from organic fruits as they go - the idea is both elegant and subversive - the perfect combination for a project and one that attracts me so much that I wish I'd thought of it first. The have a website and it too is elegant and here's a sample of their philosophy and aims. I'm going to contact them and offer to 'fill in' the most southerly stretches of their fruit-map. Discovering the Free Fruit Peddlers really made my day and I expect I'll bathe in the excitement of that for weeks. I've already got a collection of plum stones that I'd intended to sow out in a specially made bed in order to produce dozens of trees next spring, but now I have another idea, thanks to these guys. Peaches and nectarines next. Hazels and sweet chestnuts...I'm thinking large perennial vegetables too...
Why?
"The cost of fruit continues to go up in this country. So, coincidentally does our obesity rate. Fruit is one of the foundations of a healthy diet. The Free Fruit Peddlers has been set up to help bring free organic fruit to everybody.
New Zealand has thousands of kilometres of roads and that means thousands of kilometres of roadside verges. And we intend to use them.
It is also about a spirit of generosity and reciprocity.
Think of it as karma, at The Free fruit Peddlers we believe that if you do a good deed someone will reciprocate in a delightful and surprising way.
How?
The how is also very simple. The Free Fruit Peddlers will plant heritage fruit seeds along the roadsides of New Zealand including the national cycleway. We will travel the roads of New Zealand by bicycle and with the aid of GPS navigation plot the planting. We will plant one seed for every kilometre travelled. Within years people should be able to travel along our roads and enjoy the taste and benefits of fresh fruit.
What you can do?
The Free Fruit Peddlers need your fruit seeds and stones
OK, stating the obvious, but the first thing we need is fruit stones. Specifically, healthy organic ones.
We need plum, peach, and apricot stones.
We cannot use apple seeds. Because of their genetic make-up apples cannot be grown from seed.
All you need to do is keep the stones clean and dry.
When you have enough just post them to us and we’ll do the rest.
5 comments:
Any Enviromental and health worries as to roadline spraying for weed control?
Yes, Colin, and it's disgraceful that those threats to health exist longside of all of our roads. Poisoning them over a long period of time is in my view unconscionable and something that should be discussed in the public domain. Roadside spraying (and railway line spraying) threatens groundwater and persists in the environment for a very long time. Check out the situation with Edendale to see what I mean. The effects on human health from these endocrine-disrupting chemicals is poorly advertised and very worrying indeed. Whether they are up-taken by fruit trees, into the fruits is something I don't know. Lead, I'm lead to believe, isn't and there'll be plenty of that alongside of our roads.
I'm appalled to think that we have poisoned such extensive stretches of our landscape. We truly are foolish people.
But consider the great look spraying gives our roadsides. Elegant gravel, pristine dead grass, textured mud, thought-provoking crumbling clay; you can't get beauty like that with plants.
Is it open membership?
What a wonderful project! I am baffled by the way Councils in this country repeatedly waste time & money by pulling up & replanting plants that give not much benefit at all. If they planted some fruit trees instead, surely that would be a sensible & good thing to do. Keep doing what your doing! keep peddling & thanks for sharing & I shall do some urban fruit seed sowing here too.
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