A map of publicly available fruit trees, mostly in Slovakia | Hacker News Reader

A map of publicly available fruit trees, mostly in Slovakia

fruitmap.sk

155 pointskazet44 comments

It's a shame that neither this site nor mundraub.org mentioned by yorwba utilizes the OpenStreetMap database. It shouldn't be too hard to find or introduce the proper tags; trees already support genus/species etc. It would expose this data to a larger community, and encourage contributions from local mappers.

I would try to get rid of the 'Use ctrl+scroll to zoom the map' limitation; it's annoying and pointless on a full scale map.

> It shouldn't be too hard to find or introduce the proper tags

There's lot of people mapping such details in OSM already:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural%3Dtree

I have actually been doing some of this in my area for crabapple trees. Not necessarily to eat them, but I find it useful to clean up the sidewalk and dump the fallen crabapples in my compost. IMO it just needs a viewer that focuses on plants that bear fruit, and potentially a tag to designate public access (maybe just reuse access:public).

Somewhat offtopic, but (almost) all of these websites use Google Maps. This means they probably are going to get large bills with this extra HN traffic flood. :(

Since these are non-commerical tools, my company (in my bio) would be happy to provide free maps for these websites—as would many other OpenStreetMap-based providers.

This is very kind of you! Thank you for supporting an open web!

Our company wouldn't be possible without the many, many others that built the dataset and keep it fresh. We owe them all a debt of gratitude.

The least we can do is help them find a little fresh fruit. ;)

Let's not pretend that this is from the bottom of their hearts. This is a business strategy to increase penetration.

Nothing wrong with it except the duplicitousness.

symbiosis is not duplicitous.

We would all be irritated if Facebook or Google tried to pretend giving its products away was any kind of charity.

Anyone who wants to load in a list of coordinates manually into a maps website is more than welcome to do so. That's what I did.

Profit is like oxygen; necessary for survival, but not the point of living.

If people are doing good things, I don't much care whether it's originated from a _good heart_ or not. I'm totally satisfied with the idea that someone is motivated to do good by outside factors and is willing to take such an opportunity. It makes me much more optimistic about the course of humanity.

Whatever mapping service you use, more traffic means more cost and ultimately someone has to pay. Just like your company, Google Maps offers non-profits a subsidised service [1].

[1] https://support.google.com/nonprofits/answer/3367237?hl=en-G...

Sure, but rendering tiles isn't anywhere near as costly as what Google charges. Google is using their mindshare as having the best maps to help them charge high rates for baseline service.

On that note, Google Maps's quality seems to be significantly dropping. They're missing most of the 300k addresses that have been renumbered in the past decade in Kitsap County (just across the water from Seattle), and when I go much outside Seattle proper, their maps are spotty compared to OpenStreetMaps.

> Google Maps's quality seems to be significantly dropping. They're missing most of the 300k addresses that have been renumbered in the past decade in Kitsap County (just across the water from Seattle), and when I go much outside Seattle proper, their maps are spotty compared to OpenStreetMaps.

Maybe because they like to wait and see if they can snarf up open source map data rather than generate it themselves :)

The county literally offers this data for free in a weekly dump, as do most counties in the US. OpenStreetMaps is the only group to download those weekly dumps, every couple years one of large database providers that Google & Apple buy from will download it. But that right there is why they're both so far behind, with Google having the advantage of nagging their smartphone users to make their maps less shitty (which is why they're good in dense urban areas).

that's very kind gesture :) this idea is very good but it would be a shame if it cost people too much!

Global focus

https://fallingfruit.org/

This is incredible. Works in my city in Washington state very well! Does not have raspberries or other berries, however.

The resources listed nearest me are mostly dumpsters.

There’s a large demographic overlap here with the freegans.

Might not be amusing to have dumpsters all over your list but if you’re in a concrete jungle it might not be so surprising.

That's in a medium-small town, the next one over. There's only 2 entries that aren't dumpsters (and those are herbs).

https://mundraub.org/ is similar, but for Germany.

This is great, when you don't have family with a garden, it's hard to take your kids somewhere to pick fruit straight from the tree.

except most of these trees grow usually next to frequented roads and I would pass on fruit exposed 24/7 to gases from cars

Is that still a concern? It used to be a major health issue when I was a kid because of tetraethyl lead pollution, but now that leaded fuels have been banned long ago, the car emissions should be harmful only to breathing and climate change, without any poisonous residue on roadside plants.

Dutch version: http://wildplukwijzer.nl

Some coverage of Austria as well.

Sweden: http://fruktkartan.se/

Fruit on public land.

Apropos, I like the stories of Johnny Appleseed and Luther Burbank, both of which I read as a teenager, when I used to both do and read about organic gardening and related topics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Burbank

Czech version https://na-ovoce.cz/map/

Austrian version: http://fruitmap.at/

New Zealand: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1HDtmvU4XemdY0bDLDf...

I don’t understand why Slovakia has so many fruit trees compared to other countries!

i run a fruit tree map for atlanta too: https://www.concrete-jungle.org/food-map

How long until someone hatches a plan to harvest all the fruit and sell it at a supermarket?

And I just left Slovakia....

harder to use. by inaturalist may hold some data either.

At first it's funny then it's kind of unsettling. Not even trees can hide from the all-seeing eye.

Just go spot fruit trees on your own.

>Just go spot fruit trees on your own.

How would you know if you are allowed to pick the fruits? Not all private properties are fenced, so if you take your bugs and go hunting for fruits you could get face to face with the angry owner, his dog and who knows in some countries his gun.

What pisses people off the most is when people damage the tree trying to get the fruit. Losing one crop is frustrating but now some jerk has compromised the tree for years or maybe forever.

There’s a group here that gets the owners’ permission. Some of those trees were planted by the previous owner or someone whose health or free time doesn’t let them pick like they used to. This group gleans the tree, and then the fruit is split evenly between the owner, the pickers, and a food bank. The owner gets a little less fruit but does something good and has less rotting fruit to clean up that year.

You just made me recall one of my favourite movies:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gleaners_and_I

The fruit trees would love it. Wide seed dispersal? People coming from nearby regions to eat? I produce a different kind of seed but I'd still sign up.

But fwiw I've learned that if you ever find yourself saying "Just <do something>, [it's that easy!]" then you're likely making a silly comment regardless of subject.

"People with the 'oh, you just...' mentality never understand why it takes a long time to do things." - http://wiki.c2.com/?JustIsaDangerousWord

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