What could possibly go wrong?
Posted on 10/14/2012 9:00:22 AM PDT by Donkey Odious
Consider it a modern take on the legendary tale of Johnny Appleseed. Vancouver, B.C., has announced plans to plant 150,000 fruit and nut trees on city streets, in parks, and on city-owned lands in the next eight years, reports the Vancouver Sun.
At the moment, the city has about 600 fruit and nut trees on city streets, and another 425 can be found in the city's parks, community gardens, and pocket orchards.
"Street trees play an important role in helping Vancouver adapt to climate change, manage stormwater run-off, support biodiversity, and even provide food," Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement to the city's council last week.
(Excerpt) Read more at takepart.com ...
In 5-6 years, the city is going to wonder why there are so many homeless people around in early fall.
Vermin.
Birds, raccoons, squirrels and insects will approve.
Yep.
Can’t get a farm tag in the middle of the city.
Some “community organizer” will say, “see, I told you the republicans were trying to return you to your agraian roots. Pick fruit, next it will be cotton.”
I can just see people waiting and watching fruit ripen and then someone else coming in the night and getting it.
I don’t see any problem with it. In fact, I have thought of thing like this myself, along with having unemployed people on unemployment doing the harvesting as a condition of getting benefits. It would be unattractive work, but it would do something productive.
This should bring out a bio-diverse set of lawyers, once the homeless guy gets sick eating the city produce.
I think urban gardens and orchards are a good idea because one of the problems with inner city types is that they are completely clueless as to where and how food is really grown.
Anything that connects them back to the dirt is a good idea.
If they aren’t properly managed and present unexpected problems, well they just aren’t that hard to cut down and replace with more usual urban trees. They do have a higher upkeep cost, since they require regular pruning to keep them productive.
Closer and closer to eliminating private property, a cornerstone to our freedom:
“The organization, which also considers itself an artistic operation to the extent that it encourages the public to press the boundaries of urban shared space,....”
Urban shared space, a phrase I am sure we will be hearing a lot more often. It is the new “Global Warming”. They never, ever let up. Not ever.
Yup.
An idea only lifelong city people wouldn’t see the futility of. Orchard owners don’t just sit around all year and have the fruit fall into baskets at harvest time.
What could possibly go wrong?
“”If they aren’t properly managed and present unexpected problems, well they just aren’t that hard to cut down and replace with more usual urban trees. They do have a higher upkeep cost, since they require regular pruning to keep them productive””
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You nailed it. This is another example of government waste. Once the liberals find they actually have to work to harvest fruit and nut trees, the trees will be neglected and there will be a rat infestation until the trees are cut down.
>>>Anybody see any potential problems with this??<<<
When I lived in the Emerald People’s Republic (otherwise known as Eugene, Oregon), many of the plum trees, English walnuts, and blackberry bushes had gone wild, poking through fences and appearing here and there in alleys and empty lots. When these trees fruited, you could literally walk down the road, pick ripe fruit, and eat it. Cool. I never collected the walnuts, but my friends did.
On the other hand, that same fruit ripened, then rotted. The plums were a slimy mess, attracting mass yellow jackets. The blackberries, once established, needed a bulldozer to remove. And the stain from the outer cover of the walnuts was nearly impossible to remove. At the end of the season, what was once Nature’s bounty had become Nature’s landfill problem.
I’m a very avid gardener, and gardening requires lots of care and effort to prevent it from being a mess. Which I’m sure the good people of Vancouver will discover once their wonderful fruits trees drop endless tons of unpicked fruit on the ground, once the vegetation becomes an unruly mess, once some of the plants become The Day of the Triffids while others die in obscurity, and once various animals and pests, especially wasps, rats, and mice, decide that they like the urban landscape as much as Canadians, then they’ll either have to hire an army of city-paid gardeners or cut down the damn things and just plant Douglas firs.
I’m wondering what variety of orange tree they’re planning to plant in Vancouver, B.C. (See pic at site)
Anyone that says what Serve Man said is ignorant of the cattle business. Cattle being fed free range is tough and stringy.
RATS!!!
So, big brother is mapping trees on private property who's limbs grow outside the property line. Strangers coming along picking from your fruit trees won't stop at the property line.
Wanna bet someone injects a poisonous substance into these public fruits (the plant as opposed to the human-kind). You're right, lawyers will get rich. Reminds me of the old story about a farmer getting mad over his watermelons getting stolen so he posted a sign that one of the melons was poisoned.
Because the city is not going to spray the trees with fungicides and pesticides, a lot of fruit will fill with worms, drop to the ground and rot while simultaneously creating an eyesore and slip hazard. The city streets and parks will reek of rotting fruit.
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