ever heard of sylmar california? it’s famous for…? not sure, but i’d like it to be famous for a tropical fruit forest. the goal is to provide the public with the wonderful opportunity to taste fruits that can grow here but are unlikely to be found in a typical local supermarket.
the area i started guerrilla gardening a couple months ago is a drainage ditch just outside my friend’s community. throughout the year there’s always at least a trickle of irrigation runoff that supports an overgrown thicket of willows, fan palms, a chinese elm tree, tamarix and other weedy plants. outside this area is a no man’s land of castor beans and off-road vehicles. there’s also a “river” if it rains enough, as it has this year. the other day i found an old but small mulberry tree growing literally in the river. there’s unripe fruit on the tree that is very small so i’m guessing it was planted by a bird. what other fruit trees could grow in the seasonal river?
i just used a map tool to estimate the total possible area for the food forest… and maybe it’s around 300 acres. most of it is river wash area so i’m pretty sure it’s safe from development. but it’s probably not safe from people who feel the need to remove non-native plants. admittedly, i’m not sure about having castor bean plants growing everywhere in a food forest. right now there’s also trash everywhere. in theory i could spend all my time removing trash and castor bean plants. but so far i’ve just spent all my time planting fruiting trees and plants…
banana
blackberry*
black sapote*
blueberry*
boysenberry*
capulin cherry*
carica cubensis (papaya)*
catalina cherry*
cherimoya
dragon fruit
elaeagnus latifolia
elaeagnus pungens
ficus pumila
fig panache seedling
guava banana
guava mexican*
guava lemon
jackfruit
jelly palm
longan*
loquat
lychee*
monstera deliciosa
mulberry
pereskia aculeata
psidium longipetiolatum*
psidium sp prayer*
psidium sp red*
starfruit*
*fruiting size
you can obviously find things like blueberries and blackberries in local markets. they were my friend’s overstock plants and i was too curious how they would do in the overgrown ditch.
the list doesn’t show quantities. so far i’ve planted over 20 small jackfruit seedlings that have survived at least one winter outside. the more jackfruit seedlings i plant, the closer that 1 of them will be to local conditions/climate. i can never word this concept right. the average yearly high temp of sylmar is 77, but the average year high temp preferred by jackfruit is 84 (guessing). however, jackfruit seedlings are all different, so they don’t all have the same exact temperature preferences. if they did, then they’d be wiped out by even the smallest climate change. out of 20 jackfruit seedlings perhaps 1 of them prefers an average temp of 82. all else being equal, this seedling will do the best in the food forest. out of 100 jackfruit seedlings perhaps one of them prefers an average temp of 81, and so on. i have no idea what the actual numbers are, but the concept is basic adaptation. @a_Vivaldi is better at words than me, i nominate him to put this concept in words.
the trade-off with planting small seedlings is that they can be gobbled entirely by a hungry rabbit. ideally the seedlings should be grown in a nearby nursery, but this requires a lot of fenced in space, which i certainly don’t have. in the area i see fenced in empty lots but no signs that say “call this number if you’d like to use this space to grow fruit trees for public spaces.”
my planting method is to crawl into the thicket while trying my hardest to avoid copious amounts of rat poop and slugs. once i find a space where i can just barely stand up, i dig a big hole and then cram a bunch of plants into it. not only is this economy of scale, and a hedge of bets, but it facilitates an exchange of resources, thanks to fungi, among the plants.
resources are never equally distributed. a surinam cherry seedling might have access to a big pile of possum poop while its neighbor, a guava seedling, might have access to more water. the cherry trades some of its nitrogen for some of the guava’s water, and they are both better off. as an aside, i don’t understand how possum poop is so big.
ever heard of the miyawaki method of forest planting? the main tenet is to plant the trees and bushes very closely together. studies have shown that this method results in faster growth than traditional methods. proponents attribute this to greater competition but in reality, greater productivity depends on a better distribution of resources, which is the very point of markets. miyawaki forests basically make it easier for plants to trade resources with each other. however, since miyawaki proponents don’t understand economics, they only plant natives. the chances that any given country has the best nitrogen fixing plant in the world are just as slim as any given country having the fastest running person in the world. no country has a monopoly on all the best things. therefore, every country is better off by trading with the rest of the world. this is just as true for plants as it is for people.
visitors from around the world can trade their money to help the south coast botanic gardens grow. imagine if there was a 2nd donation box… “help our garden grow… fruit!” would you put your money in the 1st box or the 2nd box? does it matter? if it does matter, then why is there only 1 box?
how many fruit trees are in your closest public park?
have you ever written or called your city to request that more fruit trees be planted in public spaces?
have you ever guerrilla gardened fruit trees?
do you want more fruit trees in public spaces?
what’s the demand for fruit trees in public spaces?
in theory i could walk around asking people to sign a petition for more fruit trees in public parks. what percentage of people would be willing to sign? 75%? i’d collect more than 10,000 signatures which i’d take to the city council. and voila! 200 fruit trees planted in a park! leslie knope would be so proud!
signing a petition isn’t demand. writing your congressperson isn’t demand. voting for a mayor who promises to make your city greener isn’t demand.
demand is putting money into a donation box for fruit trees. demand is growing jackfruit from seed and planting the seedlings in an overgrown ditch. demand is donating money to this forum for a category dedicated to planting fruit trees in public spaces.
right now we don’t have the opportunity to use demand to determine the supply of forum categories. we don’t have this opportunity for the same reason we don’t have the opportunity to use demand to determine the supply of fruit trees in public parks. most people think we’re better off without these opportunities. but we’re never better off being ignorant of each other’s real and actual and true preferences for fruit trees. here and now is the time for humanity to finally leave the cave of delusions and walk out into the real world with fruit trees growing everywhere.
