What the Big Apple’s Fruit Basket Can Teach Us About Growing a Community

“It is remarkable that a city as diverse as New York is not doing more to honor that diversity by planting a wider variety of public fruit trees that reflect the people who live there.”

Courtesy of Jordan Engel

Fig trees in Astoria, Queens.

It’s hard to miss fig season in Astoria. Walk down any sidewalk and you’ll likely come across a neighbor harvesting figs in their front yard. If you’re lucky, they’ll put a tender, perfectly ripe one in your hand and send you home with a few more to share. Although you can find fresh figs at local markets, they are generally expensive, as they are not grown commercially in the region. Despite, or perhaps because of, their value, the local fig trade functions primarily as a gift economy, where, to quote Robin Wall-Kimmerer, “the practice for managing abundance is to give it away.”

It’s a kind of community spirit more common to rural villages than dense urban neighborhoods, but one that has thrived in post-pandemic Astoria thanks to local initiatives like the Community Food Pantry and the Free Store. These trees act as nodes in a larger network of mutual care that transforms the neighborhood.

As a city planner and horticulturist wanting to get a better sense of the scale and distribution of these community assets, I spent the season cycling around Astoria, taking a census of its fig trees, and chat with their stewards along the way. What I found was remarkable: over 400 properties growing figs, and that was mostly just in front yards.

There are surely hundreds more hidden in private gardens and courtyards. With some properties boasting as many as six trees, the total number of fig trees in Astoria probably reaches several thousand – an extraordinary sum given that Astoria is not a particularly green neighborhood, lagging behind the city in terms of tree coverage. forest cover and green space per capita. Yet hidden among the brick and concrete lies a surprising secret: Astoria might just be the unofficial fruit basket of the Big Apple, thanks in large part to its main crop: the fig.

By talking with the fig trees each time they tended to the trees, I learned the provenance of many of the trees. “My father brought this cutting from Greece,” a woman told me while watering her garden. It’s a story I’ve heard repeated with slight variations. Astoria is a neighborhood of immigrants, and it was from their Mediterranean lands – countries like Greece, Morocco, Italy, Egypt and Palestine – that these fig trees traveled, carefully packed in the luggage of emigrants in the hope of preserving a link with their country of origin.

Because figs can easily root from cuttings, they are one of the few fruit trees that can survive the journey. Most of the trees here are heirloom varieties, unlikely to be found anywhere else in America. Each fig cultivar given to me this season had a unique quality: flavor, shape, texture, color. The diversity of Astoria’s figs reflects that of the surrounding human community, with Queens being one of the most culturally diverse places on Earth. And because they spread so easily, new generations of these cultivars are spreading to Astoria, many to neighbors in Asia and Latin America with no particular fig-growing tradition. Collectively, many Astoria neighbors are learning to love this fruit and the community bonds it creates. Fig trees are both living links to the past and weaving new connections in the present.

The fig tree is, in many ways, the ideal fruit tree for our urban environment. First, it’s productive: a mature tree can produce up to 40 pounds of fruit in a good year. It is self-fertile, drought tolerant, disease tolerant and impervious to most pests. Unlike many fruit trees, figs do not easily drop their fruit to the ground, where they could attract rats.

They require little horticultural expertise to grow. Traditionally, the most labor-intensive part of growing figs in New York was the annual wrapping of young trees to protect them from our cold winters. Even that hasn’t always been enough, as when the New York Times reported widespread fig losses in the region after the harsh winter of 2014. But as the climate crisis intensifies, there is a glimmer of hope in the fact that figs, once at the edge of the ocean, have a positive side. survive here, now thrive. Local growers I spoke with said there has been no major die-off of figs in recent years and many have stopped wrapping their trees, making growing figs even more accessible.

During my informal investigation in Astoria, the most surprising discoveries were the numerous fig trees found not in private yards but planted in the courtyards of apartment buildings, business parking lots, cemeteries, cafe terraces and on the campus of Astoria’s largest cooperative housing complex. These places are part of the urban commons, areas that are technically private but serve as shared spaces for the community.

The fig trees in these commons operate in the same spirit as the gift economy. Just as a neighbor might hand you figs from their tree, these trees offer their fruit to passers-by, free of charge for everyone to enjoy. Although privately owned fruit trees contribute to Astoria’s informal gift economy, this system still relies on the generosity of their owners. A more democratic and equitable urban agriculture system would provide open access to fresh produce, regardless of relationships or ownership.

For all their abundance, there is one place in Astoria where fig trees – and fruit trees in general – are conspicuously absent: city-owned land. The neighborhood’s predilection for figs has not led to their inclusion in local street tree beds, parks, schoolyards, playgrounds, or on NYCHA’s four major campuses.

This is a missed opportunity. By supporting local food systems and public fruit tree planting, the city can increase the benefits of Astoria’s informal system. This is not unprecedented: fruit trees are a defining element of the public sphere in cities like Seville, Spain, where 14,000 orange trees line the streets. In the United States, there are some 85 community food forests in cities from Boston to Atlanta to Seattle, with more under development.

New York was a late adopter, but in 2017 the city launched its first legal food site with the Bronx River Foodway pilot program in Concrete Plant Park. After seven years of growth, many trees and shrubs are now beginning to bear fruit. On a recent visit, I watched a father teach his daughter how to pick raspberries without being pricked by the thorns. A curious stranger approached and, after some conversation, joined them in the harvest. Despite the program’s apparent success in connecting people with community and land, the Parks Department has yet to replicate the program, and foraging on public lands remains illegal in the rest of the city.

There are 76 species on the city’s official list of street tree species. Among these, the only one that produces sweet and edible fruits is the saskatoon berry. It is remarkable that a city as diverse as New York does not do more to honor that diversity by planting a wider variety of public fruit trees that reflect the people who live there. Just as the fig has become a living embodiment of Astoria’s cultural landscape, jujubes, guavas, or persimmons might play a similar role in other communities.

There are signs of progress. Last spring, New York City’s first street pawpaws were quietly planted in Astoria, despite not technically being sanctioned by official city guidelines. Maybe this is another pilot program? Can we hope to see our public places filled with more trees offering gifts of fresh food, which everyone can pick for free? Astoria’s fig trees provide a model of what is possible when we rethink how we use our urban lands to create a more equitable, livable, and resilient city for all.

Jordan Engel is a recent graduate of Hunter College’s Master of Urban Planning program and a former community orchard designer.