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Guerrilla Grafters covertly add fruit-tree branches to ornamental trees

Cory Doctorow at 7:09 am Tue, Sep 25, 2012

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The Guerrilla Grafters are a group of rogue artists who roam San Francisco, covertly grafting fruit-tree branches onto ornamental trees to create a municipal free lunch. John Robb calls it "resilient disobedience."

How can you improve the productivity of your community even if the officials are against it?

One way is through resilient disobedience. For example, there’s a group of gardeners in San Francisco that are spreading organic graffiti across the city. How? By grafting branches from fruit trees onto ornamental trees that have been planted along sidewalks and in parks.

They are using a very simple tongue in groove splice that’s held together with annotated electrical tape. Good luck to them.

Personal Biochar Kilns, Portable Factories, DiY Septic Tank Cleaning, and Guerrilla Grafting (via Warren Ellis)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  biotech • botany • happy mutants • horticulture • protest • sfo

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Walsh/100001992361976 Michael Walsh

    So, if a graft turns productive, and somebody climbs up on a box to pick a pear and falls on their face, will the guerilla grafters help with the attractive nuisance lawsuit?

    • http://scavenger-ethic.blogspot.com/ scav

      They have already helped with it. OK, in that exact scenario the litigious entitled whiner refusing to take responsibility for their own safety survived the fall. But you have to expect some of them will not :)

    • banchara

      So, Michael, I guess you’d like the location of these trees so you can make some easy lawsuit money?  Way to be a schmuck. The rest of the world is not as a$$h0le-ish as you might think.

      • ocker3

         Some people Are like that. I was in a small community church (in Australia) that met in a school hall, but the insurance costs were just getting silly, so we talked about meeting in people’s homes. Everyone thought it was a good idea and was happy to commit to all being personally responsible for their safety and that of their kids, except for one guy who stated that he would sue anyone if something happened to him. We all knew him as being quite a hard guy to be friends with, but he killed that church group.

    • John Robb

      And if the economy fails and everyone is hungry….

  • Eric0142

    “Thanks, dudes!”
    - SF rats.

    • Snig

      Rats totally live in cities for the fruit trees.  Has nothing to do with garbage, sewage, water systems and litter. 

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1391856142 Jonathan David Grindstaff

        Dog, SF rats is an underground crew of people who eat fruit out of dumpsters. Way to dis on them.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Actually, SF does have a problem with tree rats, at least in the neighborhoods with a lot of trees.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/V47PYM2LLNPWR46FQ5N6BNFGJE Russ

           Look at the rats, up in the trees…

  • GoatLordMessiah

    The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

    • acerplatanoides

       and the sidewalk alongside the road to hell is covered in rotting fruit.

  • xiagang

    I’m sure someone can tell me, but really, what’s not to love about this? 

    • banchara

      This is fantastic all around. Ignore anyone who says otherwise. If you are from CA, you know that fruit trees are all around. A few branches of fruit on non-fruit trees doesn’t hurt ANYONE.

      • http://profiles.google.com/cola82 Nickola Johnson

        Yes people, ignore the lawyers!  It’s all about the money! :/

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Well, the fruit could be durian.

  • Gutierrez

    “The group only grafts trees that are nominated by a steward in the neighborhood, who promises to maintain it and make sure that fruit is harvested and does not become a hazard. Trees also are grafted within species, fruit-bearing apple onto ornamental apple, for example.” ~ LA Times

    http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/11/local/la-me-guerrilla-grafters-20120912

    • dragonfrog

      I though that sticking to the same species is necessary for the graft to survive – grafting e.g. pear onto an apple tree tends to fail.

      Though even if it wasn’t necessary, it would be a good policy – if the city has planted ornamental apples, edible apples are no more or less messy, so no additional maintenance requirement is added.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1391856142 Jonathan David Grindstaff

      yeah, that sounds ok then. Otherwise fruit on the ground does get a little messy especially near roads. But at least those neighbor kids will have something to throw at cars come fall.

    • hymenopterid

      That’s crucial.  If the fruit isn’t harvested, it’s just going to serve as a disease vector for agricultural diseases.  On top of this, many fruit trees have been bred to bear more fruit than they can support.  If you don’t prune an apple or a peach for example, its branches will split from the fruit loads.  That split can become infected, and kill the whole tree.

      • acerplatanoides

         think of the children

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BOOM27DBLMZQIJVK4BQLE7K5YA Nagurski

       Doesn’t sound all that covert then.

  • stuck411

    I’ve heard of guerrilla gardening before but this one takes it to another level of cool.

  • Snig

    And if you’re going to hear about illegal graft in the city, this is probably the best possible kind to hear.   

  • Donaleen Kohn

    And when the steward moves away?  It sounds cool in concept but perhaps falls short in reality.  Fruit trees overhanging sidewalks are NOT such a great idea.  If the fruit isn’t gathered, it makes a slippery mess on the sidewalk.  Fruit trees attract yellow jackets and those of us who are allergic don’t appreciate that.  Do they REALLY know what they are doing or are they compromising the health of the trees?  

     It just sounds a bit half baked to me. 

    • Snig

      If it becomes problematic, do you think anyone has the technology to remove the branch?  Some sort of technical ungrafting procedure from a registered tree surgeon? 

      It’s not that complicated, it’s been done for a thousands of years, and doesn’t convert the whole tree to an edible fruit bearing tree. Not that much fruit.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1391856142 Jonathan David Grindstaff

        At that point you just chop down all the trees, just in case.

        • Snig

          And since we’ve adopted leaves as our currency, we’ll all be fabulously rich!

    • ThunderHammer

      We sent a man to the moon, but growing fruit trees in the city is absolutely out of the question, on account of the risks.

  • wysinwyg

    Fun to watch people struggling to come up with reasons why this is a bad thing.  These guys are my heroes.

    • hymenopterid

      http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/PDEP/target_pest_disease_profiles/EGVM_PestProfile.html
      Not much of a struggle if you’re a grape farmer.

      • acerplatanoides

        It must be tough for grape farmers. Tough like a salmon trying to get upstream in nothern california.

  • http://www.facebook.com/joshuamil Joshua Miller

    Only in America would anyone refer to free food as a “nuisance”. How dare you litter my beautiful concrete with delicious, free, natural food. Oh the humanity!