I don't know if you guys have heard of Forage Oakland, but I think it's a pretty cool idea. A bartender from Chez Panisse recruited a crew of people to map out, harvest, and redistribute unwanted fruit growing in parks, alleys and people's backyards.

Here's how it works. Say you have a big, old grapefruit tree growing in your backyard. Even if you love grapefruit, you'll probably spend part of the year with more grapefruit than you can eat or give away. If you link up with the Forage Oakland people, they'll harvest what you can't use and share it with people who want it. Then they'll come back with other people's unwanted persimmons, olives, pears, quince, tamarillos, and yes, figs.

It's the sort of thing that makes me wonder why I live in the Northeast.

Very cool idea.
I can see in the future "Forage Ottawa" distributing different kind of hardy apple varieties from backyards (& some vegetable) and occasionally hardy pears & yes, super cold hardy grapes for wine making.

Someone is doing that in Kauai, HI....

http://kauaiabundance.com/results.php

Great Idea!
We gotta start doing that every where.

That's a great idea. Here there are figs, pears. persimmons, and a multitude of citrus that people just let fall on the ground. I passed a huge persimmon tree in a front yard the other day---must have been 2-3 bushels of fruit on the ground rotting.

I love this idea!

Yea, its sad to see all of that fruit go to waste. I finally started doing something about it about 3 yrs ago. I've got a list of people that I collect pears and apples from. This year I came home from the cider mill with 90 gallons of apple cider and 60 gallons of pear cider. Last year my total was 125 gallons. I'm increasing my reach every year! Here's a few pics....

Oh yea, this is a fig forum. I forgot to tell you when I was in Pomona, CA last Sept. I rode down alleys on my time off looking for fig trees. I found a large tree that was LOADED and went to the front door. After getting permission to pick I made it my ritual to go pick figs every wednesday. I brought them back to the KOA where we were staying and would can them in mason jars. I came back to WI with 45 quarts of figs....gleaned for free from a neglected tree. I wish I could can avocados too.

Peace,
Little John

Little John, that's very impressive and a good thing you are doing. How did you can the figs? As preserves, I assume. We used to have a booth in a local antique mall here and could sell all the fig preserves, pear preserves, jams & jellies, etc. we could can. Did that for years before the thing closed. Not too many apples here so no cider mill either!

In the past I've made a "fig sauce" sweetened a bit and canned that. That year I collected figs with a friend at an abandoned ranch and they might have been Latarula or some type of honey fig. This time I just removed stems, cut them in half and made a honey syrup. Also, I added the juice from two oranges from the same yard. Thats 2 oranges per batch (about 8 quarts). I added the OJ to bump up the acidity. The whole thing turned out ok but I wish the figs were more flavorful. I think the figs were Kadota but I'm not sure as I've never eaten a Kadota fig before. Here are some pics of the possible Kadota, sorry no inside pics but the flesh was white or yellow.

Nice looking fig, whatever it was.I've never done any figs like that. I might try freezing some this year for later use. Thanks for posting the pictures.