Fruit Trees in Hampstead

My attention was drawn to a rather interesting site the other day. The fact that fruit comes from trees is something that I often forget (surely it just appears in the shop downstairs?) and even when I do remember that simple rule of biology, the idea of fruit trees existing anywhere near me just seems absurd.

Fruit City's aim is to tell you where in our wonderful London we can actually find fruit trees. The idea behind it is that every year, so much fruit goes to waste just dropping from these trees and no-one out there is eating it. I can understand why though. I'm sure I was told when younger that picking wild flowers was illegal and I'd get arrested (now everyone just has an image of me prancing around as a kid and picking flowers...) and I guess that drilled into me and I extended the rule to any form of 'picking'. Maybe others are in the same mindset?

On top of that, there's always the quality of fruit on random trees. I find fruit a fussy entity at the best of times. Back in the day a friend of mine had an apple tree in their back garden. Naturally I'd try and eat them if I got the chance (eating anything in sight seems to be a general rule of thumb for eleven year old boys) and my general reaction was one of unhappiness. The apples were normally bruised or sour (probably because I'd picked them at the wrong time...)

As you can probably guess, Hampstead Heath has one of the largest concentrations of fruit trees in London, according to the map anyway, and I'm sure it can't be complete (especially seeing as the website gives the opportunity for others to add trees that they have discovered.) But would the general public use a site like this to go out there and grab an easy snack? Or does the idea of eating fruit straight off of the tree really not appeal to you at all?

Photo courtesy of WxMom