Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 4.6.
The fruit and vegetable garden created in the Cultural Centre Precinct in
central Perth, Western Australia.
In Nelson, New Zealand, The Open Orchard Project
16
aims to plant, tend
and harvest fruits from trees in public places. This was established in 2008
and now has over
40
active members.
In Bohemia and Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic, to-
ward the end of 19th century the government introduced a programme
of improvement of nourishment and raising welfare of the community
by a supported planting of fruit trees and care of them along roadways.
Tourists can still travel the roads of the Czech Republic and pick fruit from
roadside trees.
Foraging
Many older readers may remember going out into the countryside on an au-
tumn weekend and picking wild blackberries or other fruit from hedgerows.
This is foraging, and it has been done for generations in autumn in Spain,
France and Italy to collect wild mushrooms.
Foraging may now be trendy, but it was the way many cultures fed
themselves in the past. In 1424 Aeneas Sylvius, Pope Pius the Second
visited Scotland and reported that the locals peeled the bark of the pine
trees and used the inner bark to make bread; Lapps were making bark
bread up until the last century. The American slippery elm,
Ulmus rubra
,
kept early settlers alive in America and herb products are still sold based
on this tree.
Collecting and eating plants from the wild is once again increasing in
popularity and can take place in any season and in almost any rural location
including the beach, where seaweed can be collected as food.
