Improving wild fruit supply - Guerrilla gardening

[Richie_asg1]

I used to pick a large crop of elderberries from some bushes over the road from me - until the council cut them all down for no apparent reason. They have also removed a 60m length of hedgerow in the last two years which was abundant with holly berries for the birds around here. Again no real reason for that either. The woods up the road have been clear cut for a housing estate and are now just a mess at the moment, but there are still pockets of scrub land around the boundaries, and a defunct railway line that is now a footpath.

I have seen in some areas that people take over a small (often very small) patch of waste ground and plant it with flowers, fruit or vegetables, and this is known as guerilla gardening. I see no reason why I shouldn't give nature a helping hand in such places and plant native species such as elderberry, damson, blackberry, blackcurrant, raspberry, blueberry and hops.
After all it will be mostly for the wild birds - and any home wine makers that can find them, and it would benefit the environment more than the local council is achieving around here.

Would you consider doing the same? I'm sure future wine makers would appreciate it.

 

[DavieC]

Sounds good, weve got loads of canal paths,fields and railway cuttings that are teaming with unpicked fruit bushes, since only getting into homebrew last year it was too late to harvest some but definitely going picking this year.

 

[Oneflewover]

Good effort! I get all excited when I happen across a wild fruit tree - particularly Damsons or greengages. Don't use them to make booze though, chili sauces and preserves for me

 

[cushyno]

On our return journey from France last summer holiday we stopped in Abbeville at the municipal campsite (ok for a night or two) and I went for a run to unwind the lazy legs. Found a Damson tree bursting with fruit. I stopped but could do nothing other than gaze longingly. It was heartbreaking to pass by without any means of carrying a load of the fruit back to base.

 

[marshbrewer]

I often think that they should routinely plant fruit trees by the sides of new roads (rather than the dull shrubs they tend to do) as Im sure it would benefit the wildlife.

 

[Richie_asg1]

I think it is quite a amazing that the fruit trees you do find along roads in the country are from apple cores thrown out of cars over 50 years ago! I remember my dad regularly did this, so, somewhere....there may be an apple tree sown by him.