giving food away

[den_the_cat]

does anyone know if there are any legal issues with giving fruit and veg away? I've force fed neighbours and everyone else I know here and have now got a box of apples outside the gate with a sign saying 'cooking apples - help yourself' on it but I'm a bit concerned that some kid will get ill from eating one and I'll have an irate parent on the doorstep or even worse a legal letter because someone found a maggot or something.

Yes I know its silly but the number of people who sue for pretty much anything now makes you think.....

Also is there a difference between me doing it (private) and someone who is technically a company doing it? There are tree loads of fruit and a load of veg which are technically owned by a company I know who doesn't want them - but they have (probably justified) concerns about letting people help themselves.

Composting it just seems such a waste

[Andy Hamilton]

If there is a law against it there shouldn't be, I love it when I go for a walk in the country and see a sign saying free help yourself and there being loads of free food, almost heavenly.

[the.fee.fairy]

you could always put a bit on the sign saying something like 'eaten at your own risk - all organically grown, there may be some dirt on it that needs washing off. Watch the odd maggot!'

Then you're covered.

[Boots]

What a great concept. Can't say I have ever seen anyone do that... just give it away, I mean. Sometimes farmers put things out on the road, but there is always a tin there for donations.

Just about any usuable leftovers tend to be directed to soup kitchens or just passed among friends here, I think. Or bottled.

...that would be just fantastic to walk down a road and find a basket of apples or something similar... A real random act of kindness on a hot day.

I dunno about the lawsuit - yes, I think folks do sue for anything nowdays, but if you haven't handed it to them or received any monetary gain then I think they'd be hard pressed pushing a penny out of your pocket. They'd spend a heap of money just trying to prove it was your apple, I'd imagine.

[den_the_cat]

well, people are quite welcome to donate but after having a box outside for a day, through two school runs (the mums pretty much park in the drive so I presume they saw it) and until it started raining hard so I rescued the box before it got soggy - and I swear not one apple has gone. They're lovely big ones as well - no bruises, no obvious maggoty signs and no interest whatsoever.

So I guess I'll try again tomorrow in case someone comes back with a bag. I do hope so there's already another half a box full on the ground .....

[Boots]

Maybe they might go better if they were handed out at the school? Can you offer them to a teacher to give out, maybe?

[hedgewizard]

Den, you seriously need to look into how you deal with your excess matey! The only things I've had to shed surplus of this year are cucumbers (first year of growing them - had no idea they were so prolific!) and tomatoes (no excuse, I just overdid it). There are a couple of good books on dealing with your harvest - I can recommend one for you if you like (although preserving and storing can be hard work, and not for everyone).

[Muddypause]

There are a couple of good books on dealing with your harvest - I can recommend one for you if you like

Book Review; Book Review.

[The Chili Monster]

I suspect mistrust (your motives) or even lack of knowledge (not knowing how to prepare the apples) that may be holding some people back. Then there's those individuals who simply do not read 'notices' ... or feel reassured only by produce that has been overpacked and well-travelled.
As for the legal issues ... I suspect that it would be up to the plaintiff to demonstrate maliciousness or neglect, given that by leaving the apples at the side of the road you are hardly looking to 'create legal relations.'

Another suggestion: there's been a few offers of produce on my local Freecycle group. Worth a try?

[cir3ngirl]

Local vicar had box of apples outside his gate yeaterday. What I really want are seeded from his sweetpeas.

Davina

[Millymollymandy]

Den, you seriously need to look into how you deal with your excess matey! The only things I've had to shed surplus of this year are cucumbers (first year of growing them - had no idea they were so prolific!)

He's talking about apples - you can't exactly control how much they produce (apart from not planting any more apple trees that is!).

Know what you mean about the cucumbers, so why oh why did I plant more this year than last? Idiot!

[den_the_cat]

(s)He's talking about apples - you can't exactly control how much they produce (apart from not planting any more apple trees that is!).
!

Exactly - plus we moved mid season into a rented place so I have everything we could harvest from the old veg patch and fruit bushes, a chest freezer full of stuff from there and now here plus some foraging so we at least have some blackberries to go with the apples. Plus they're cookers - so with only two of us in the house there's a limit to how many we can get through.....

Its just a bumper year for everything which is great in theory but its just too much, there's no point my freezing, bottling, jamming or storing things which will still be there next year when the new crops ready, the family are miles away and their freezers are full anyway, the neighbours have been stocked up, this weeks composting bin was half full of them and I may have to start force feeding the postman. This flippin' apple tree could feed the five thousand!

Chilli Monster I did seriously think about printing a recipe or two and sticking it on the box! I think if they were eating apples they might well have been taken but cookers look scary I guess!

[Chickpea]

I've taken surpluses to the nearest farm shop and they gladly buy them off me. To be honest I haven't made a bundle of money, but it gives me a heck of a kick to sell my produce, and it beats watching it all rot.

Alternatively you could give it to a homeless shelter, something like that.

[hedgewizard]

I'll review the storing and preserving book when I get a moment. We had a bumper year for apples two years back (but all 15' up in the air, hence the drastic pruning), probably about 20 kilos of stuff off three standard trees. We gave very little away, with even the scabby little ones being pureed (whole, skins and all) into sauce for canning and freezing. OK, so we had two years worth of frozen apple, but that was an unsustainably high yield because I'd yet to take the trees in hand.

You CAN control the yield on an apple tree by a mixture of judicious pruning and rubbing off apples at the fruitlet stage. In fact for quite mature trees, it's a good idea or they settle down into cropping very heavily one year and quite poorly the next. Controlling the amount of fruit gives you bigger apples, less drop, and greater resistance to scab and so forth.

I like the farm shop idea though, that had honestly never occurred to me!

[circlecross]

where are all these places that give away free food???

I picked some brambles, hazlenuts and sloes this weekend, with an eye to returning for crab apples, hazlenuts (when bigger), maybe more sloes (I'm pregnant, so there's not much incentive for me to make sloe gin for others!), and maybe rosehips if i can be bothered.

Haven't been jumped and force fed free food by anyone tho'!

Susan