It’s a fruity free-for all! Fruit garden planted near Highbury Corner

Published: 29 October, 2010
by TERRY MESSENGER

VISITORS to Upper Street will be able to help themselves to rare varieties of fresh fruit straight from the tree – thanks to the efforts of keen gardeners.

Members of the Upper Street Association planted a fruit garden at the top of Islington’s main thoroughfare on Saturday.

And they have invited people to pop into the plot, near Highbury Corner, to take their pick when the fruits ripen in late summer.

Among the extraordinary, free fruity will be:

• Medlars – an apple-like fruit, popular in Elizabethan times, although rarely eaten since.
• Quince – which looks like a large pear and is best known as an ingredient in the wedding feast enjoyed by lovers in children’s poem The Owl and the Pussycat.
• Black mulberries – a purplish, sweet, juicy fruit originating in south-west Asia.

More common fruits such as apples, pears, strawberries, plumbs, and gooseberries will also feature.

Association member Julia Vellacott said: “We want people to help themselves. We don’t want to have to police the place. And besides it’s all about teaching people, especially children, about fruit. Some of the children from the local schools have never seen an apple on a tree.

“We also want to revive fruits which are delicious but are rarely eaten these days. They shouldn’t just be lost and forgotten.” 

Around 40 people of all ages spent three hours planting the trees and bushes. The fruit garden in the park, which runs alongside Compton Terrace, cost £2,500. It was funded by Capital Growth, a scheme started by Mayor Boris Johnson to encourage home-grown food.