The Seattle area is full of great local-foods-related resources, and two more just came to my attention.

The first is an entirely human/nature powered CSA (community supported agriculture) delivery program for farm-fresh food.  Powered entirely by sailboat and bicycle, these folks bring fresh food from the Kitsap Peninsula to a few different drop-off places, including one in Ballard.  More information is here and a Seattle Times article is here.

The other is City Fruit, a community group encouraging fruit tree owners and fruit picking enthusiasts to harvest extra fruit for local residents in need of fresh food and who have limited money to buy it.  The group is also working on a fruit mapping project, which is still in its infancy; they need you to help map public fruit trees in the Seattle area. 

Speaking of public fruit, I was traveling back from a swim in Lake Washington with friends yesterday when we decided to stop and pick some blackberries at my old favorite blackberry patch in an alley in Madison Valley.  My friend noticed, however, that the leaves were looking suspiciously yellow.  A keen observation; a few minutes later a guy who had noticed us from his backyard ran over to say that his neighbor, too lazy to trim the bushes and annoyed by their presence, had gone and sprayed all the blackberries with Roundup, a really toxic herbicide (produced by Monsanto). 

It makes me feel a little better about having moved out of that block; the berry patch was one thing I was unhappy about leaving.  But, although blackberries are invasive, Roundup is a poor solution.  It hits other plants in the area and, needless to say, coats berries that unsuspecting fruit-lovers gather for their pies.

So choose your fallen fruit carefully!  And, if you can help out the City Fruit folks linked above, please share what you find.

Farm background image from hockadilly - fruit/veggie mobile addition is a Photoshop mashup I made.