Imagine visiting your local park and being able to look forward to the fun of picking your own picnic once you get there. Juicy mandarins, sweet custard-like white sapotes and tangy native tamarinds are all growing at your local park and free for the taking! Think of how local ‘food care’ groups could plant and look after edible street and park trees, just like bush regeneration groups do now, and celebrate the harvests with fabulous ‘street food’ community festivals. Well with increasing awareness of the environmental, social and economic importance of local, sustainably produced organic food you can be sure this all won’t be too far away!

Of course any trees planted need to be suited to the local climate, easy to establish, low maintenance and high yielding, produce high quality, tasty, nutritious fruit and have low potential to become problem weed species. Trees need to fit the local environment and community. With the help of some local botanical experts, and our obsessive knowledge of fruit trees, we’ve created a draft top 20 list of street and park trees specifically for the Illawarra. We’d be keen for any feedback on the species we’ve recommended, or ideas on we can spread the food growing phenomenon...