Hidden Harvest – The food hiding in plain sight

Hidden Harvest Ottawa co-founder Katrina Siks explains how her organisation works in Canada’s capital city to exploit the underutilized resource offered by fruit and nut trees in private and public spaces.

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We do something similar here in Phoenix during the winter when all the citrus ripens. The city is OVERFLOWING with it. Many people get groups together, especially for the Martin Luther King Day of Service, and glean citrus in their respective 'hoods.

Our group gleaned for a homeless teen drop-in center and several women's shelters. We also sent a lot of fruit up north to the snowy parts of AZ for hungry folks up there.

Here's an example of just one of the HUGE containers we filled.



We also do other things like harvest carob pods that get made into carob powder in Nov.

Can anybody tell me what kind of shrubs were producing the berries that figured so prominently in the Hidden Harvest video? I live in the Ottawa area and whatever they are, they seems to be very productive in this climate, so I'd like to plant a few.

The bushes with the small dark berries are Elderberry.

Lots of posts in the forums on how to plant them and their uses.

Nice to see this idea spreading. The Seattle version of Hidden Harvest is called City Fruit: http://cityfruit.org/
What's special about this organization is that they don't only organize harvesting of surplus fruit but also work to increase the quality and quantity of available fruit. They teach tree owners how to maintain their trees, organize volunteer tree stewards, and work with the city to maintain fruit trees in public spaces.

We are doing this in Oakland CA. http://www.growingtogetherproject.org/#!oakland-fruit/cyy1 We are harvesting, maintaining, pruning, saving and propagating fruit trees in Oakland!

Lately I have been focusing my efforts on preserving fruit (so much hichaya persimmon jam to be made!) and selling it to raise money to plant more fruit trees.

Thanks for the ID, Rick!