Urban Scrumpers Are Picking the Forbidden Fruit

Urban Scrumpers Are Picking the Forbidden Fruit

My friend Sarah Cruz called me at 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday and said, "We found a hidden orchard on an abandoned property, can you grab my apple-picking poles at my house in your car and I'll meet you there on my bike at noon." I put my 3-year-old and 5-year-old daughters in the car, called my husband and told him to collect my 7-year-old son after football practice and bike to the apple-picking spot in a leafy part of West London. It was impossible to see the hidden orchard from the road, so Karen Liebreich, Ms. Cruz's picking partner, scrambled from the abandoned plot of bramble and rubble in her long, rubber boots to guide us to the five trees bursting with ripe Bramley eating and cooking apples.

For both the adults and the children it felt like a big clandestine adventure and all we were doing is picking apples about 10 minutes from our house. Or so it seemed. In actuality we were what the Brits call "scrumping," or in other words, taking apples from trees we didn't own—a fast-growing trend in urban London and throughout the U.K.

The trees and locations are spread among the pickers by word of mouth. Last spring, Ms. Cruz picked cherries in a local park. "People looked at me like I was stealing," said Ms. Cruz, a coordinator for volunteer fruit gatherers. "But we are actually helping the council gather the fruit, which would just rot and go to waste." The apple-picking area in question is under Hounslow Council, which issued a comment saying "We are more than happy for people to enjoy our trees and their fruit in London's greenest borough."

These women are part of a growing army of guerrilla fruit pickers, who climb fences and brave dangers ranging from broken wine bottles and stinging nettles to hostile dogs and turf-conscious rats to pick seasonal fruit in unorthodox places. Scrumping activists even have their own organization called Abundance, which is composed of volunteers throughout the U.K. who are dedicated to harvesting unpicked fruit. In London, Abundance has been set up as an association with charitable aims.

It is unclear whether the free-lance fruit pickers operate in illegal territory. I called the London Metropolitan Police spokeswoman, who said officially they didn't have a comment because there is no recent record of scrumping arrests or complaints and it really isn't something officially recorded, suggesting that scrumping is an accepted practice, unless a land owner files a formal police complaint.

It wasn't always this way: The criminal registers of England and Wales report that from 1791 to 1892 hundreds of criminals reported for petty theft, fraud and scrumping were sent to Australia. Officially, scrumping hasn't been repealed and is still technically illegal under legislation, reports the National Archive U.K., but the last reported case was in 1829.

"This year the picking has gone ballistic," said Anne-Marie Culhane, co-founder of Abundance in Sheffield, who says her volunteer base has grown to 200 from only 30 just before the recession. "We have legitimized scrumping."

As well, Abundance has become a valuable service for some home owners who can't pick the fruit in their own gardens and call the pickers to come help.

Ms. Cruz has led school groups and volunteers to gather more than a 1,000 kilograms of fruit this season and often sells the fruit to local restaurants and donates the money to schools.

Meanwhile, Ms. Liebreich, who co-authored the book "The Family Kitchen Garden" (2009, Timber Press), is dedicated to converting children to become pickers and has been making presentations in local schools. My 5-year-old daughter told me about the "apple pickers" who came to her primary school to show the children where apples come from, how to pick them and how to make apple juice.

For some scrumpers, picking their own apples can yield a real savings.

On a bright October day, Debra Morall, a mother of two children, stood on a seat at a bus stop on busy Chiswick Lane with a long-pole picker and reached pears dangling from a tree over the street. "Food prices are rising and the recession has made everyone look at their finances," she said. "It seems ostentatious to leave fruit hanging on a tree and then spend excessively at a grocery store. I also want my children to know where food comes from."

Still, harvesters' high ladders are often balanced on high-minded ideals. "Scrumping is about taking back some of that freedom we have lost in a commercial society," said Simon O'Grady, a school teacher, recently scrumping for the first time on an abandoned plot with his children. "We pay for people to watch our kids and we go to big supermarkets, but this is something we don't have to pay for. It's fun." Mr. O'Grady acknowledged that the practice has its hair-raising moments. He didn't wince when a rat ran over his foot. "I didn't want to stop my children from picking," he said.

Some scrumpers take the concept beyond picking. Richard Reynolds, known in London as the Guerrilla Gardener, is growing his own fruit and vegetables, including cabbages, lettuces, runner beans and onions, on land he doesn't own. One of his most successful crops this year were some strawberries he planted on an intersection island near Blackfriars Bridge near London's financial district. "During and after World War II people planted gardens to have enough to eat," he said. "Now we have the fear of bankers and a global economic meltdown and a pending environmental catastrophe. People need to see what they can do."

The Sunday night after my family's local apple-picking, I revealed our escapade to a mother sitting next to me at my children's swim lesson. When she responded that it was a shame her family didn't have time to go to one of those pick-your-own farms outside London that charge a fee, I quietly treasured my family's free harvesting expedition.