Green Options

Pear pie. Pear ginger muffins. Pear cordials made from aging pears, sugar and vodka. Pears canned in sugar syrup. Pear jam.

When Mary calls me every year at the end of August with her annual message of “The tree is ripe – come pick,” I turn into the Bubba Gump of pears, gratefully using the four bushels of pears I harvest off her abundant backyard tree.

As the country whines about escalating food prices, there’s often rotten apples falling from some tree near you. Or pears, plums – name your fruit. You know the tree I’m talking about – the one you pass by every day in someone’s yard that is practically falling over with ripe fruit and you think to yourself, “Someone needs to do something with that.” How true – and that “someone” is you.

Talk about a sustainable homerun: By connecting with and harvesting a local fruit tree, you not only garner more organic, fresh, local fruit booty than you know what to do with – and put something to use that would otherwise have gone to waste. You build community by connecting with others. We’re talking community at its core, most sustainable essence, sharing abundance with others, relishing the gifts of the land.

Step up to the plate – or bushel – and tap into these unwanted fruit on trees in backyards across the nation that could be making the world a better place through more pie – or jam or cobblers or muffins – you get the picture.

Here are three tips for foraging a fruit tree near you:

“Free organic fruit. Perfectly ripe. Locally grown. Yours for the taking.”

Your ears perking up yet? If this showed up on your local Craig’s List or Freecycle would you be frantically e-mailing, “When can I come over”? Amazingly, such an opportunity probably exists right now, perhaps right down your road, as fruit trees ripen and – too often – fall to the ground and rot.

Like an archeological remnant of a past generation, industrious homeowners often planted these fruit trees several decades ago, before our era of mega-supermarkets and the universal concept that we can, and should, buy everything 24/7. Seems these trees tend to fall into two categories: either they belong to senior residents who can’t physically pick and process the fruit, or newer residents who bought the house with the tree and don’t have the time to pick, much less know what to do with four bushels of pears. Other folks even go as far as considering these trees a nuisance, as overripe fruit falls to the ground and attracts bugs and rodents, eventually chopping the tree down.

Don’t anger the Lorax, make pear pie instead. By connecting with these untapped fruit sources, you cook up something bigger than your private food stash – you will be an ambassador for building community, one bite at a time. I made my annual pilgrimage yesterday to local seniors John and Mary’s house to raid their pear tree, coming home with three five-gallon buckets of fruit. No secret invasion needed; Mary calls every year right before Labor Day to let me know the pears are ripe and we’re welcome to harvest.

Here are three tips for foraging a fruit tree near you: