Following on yesterday’s story of the crab apples, don’t forget about gleaning. Gleaning is the process of collecting something that isn’t going to be used–and putting it to use.

Sometimes you can help a food bank by picking up donations and delivering them to their distrubition  site—they may send home surplus items with you (yes, food banks do get TOO MUCH of some items). Of course I don’t recommend that you divert any resources from the needy, but its frequently true that they are overwhelmed with cerian items at some times and are forced to throw them out.

You can offer to glean a neighbor’s neglected pear tree in exchange for a few jars of pears, or employ Web sites like Freecycle or Craigs’ List to look for fruit tree/garden owners with too much produce to manage. (If you live in the town I grew up in, it’s likely that this time of year, mysterious baskets of zuchinni have already appeared on your doorstep this summer).

I wrote a piece for Seattle’s Child Magazine while back about berry picking with kids. I was surprised to learn that most berry-picking isn’t more cost-effective than buying supermarket berries (color me disappointed!) but I did learn a valuable gleaning tip:

In my county, wild blackberries are prolific and not sprayed! (Call your city or county’s department of natural resources for details on if harvesting these is permitted and if they are sprayed or not).

Here blackberries are considered a weed and are managed by pulling or burning, but not during the summer. They’re not sprayed and grow heavily at the edges and borders of many county parks. I verified with my county that it is permissible to pick the berries provided that I am on public lands or picking the berries with permission on private lands.

Every summer we take our beach buckets out several times a week and bring berries back. We wash them and lay them on baking sheets to freeze then scoop the frozen berries into zipper bags. They freeze well and make pies, smoothies, cobblers and ice-cream-toppings galore.  We’ve picked more than five pounds of blackberries already this summer to freeze for winter.  (Some have found their way into pies and blintzes already though).

Ambitious canners can also make jelly out of this yummy gleaned fruit.

This post is part of a series I’ve entitled “Frugal August” and is inspired by (though not copied from) the book The Complete Tightwad Gazetteby Amy Dacyczyn. My tips are meant to build on hers, but generally are not duplications.