Gleaning Free Food to be Picked & Preserved

There are a number of organizations that volunteers practice gleaning to help fill food banks.

*** Gleaning can be a simple act of “one person” knocking on the front door of a stranger’s home asking if they can pick the fruit or nuts from their tree. Introduce yourself and get permission before picking. Some homeowners just let the fruit fall to the ground and left to rot. Many homeowners do not mind if someone wants to pick the fruit because it is less messy and gives them a good feeling of helping others. Many people turn to social media (like Facebook) to post in local groups if anyone has a tree or garden of ripe fruits and vegetables that would otherwise be unharvested.

In the modern world, “large scale” gleaning is practiced by humanitarian groups which distribute the gleaned food to the poor, hungry sometimes homeless families; in a modern context, this can include the collection of food from supermarkets at the end of the day that would otherwise be thrown away. Be sure to ask permission of property owners to test for fruit or vegetable readiness to harvest.

HISTORICAL context: to gather (leftover grain or other produce) after a harvest – being allowed to pick the landowner’s crops and taking leftover grain for themselves.

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Gleaned Fruits and Vegetables can be preserved by:

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Canning

Pickling

Dehydrated

Frozen

Root Cellar

Vacuum Sealing – prevents going stale and proportion control

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Click here to read about the practice of Gleaning Free Food to be Picked & Preserved:

https://www.backwoodshome.com/gleaning/

As an added bonus, You may want to take a peek at the article “It’s Called Gleaning. No Relation To Glee”:

https://thehomesteadsurvival.com/called-gleaning-relation-glee/

As an added bonus, You may want to take a peek at the article “Urban Gleaning Programs”:

https://sustainableconsumption.usdn.org/initiatives-list/urban-gleaning-programs