Oakland fruit enthusiasts promote neighborhood foraging

Interested in learning about urban gardening, foraging, bee charming or even Dungeness crab fishing? Foundfruit.com helps Bay Area residents find a CSA, learn about fermentation and discover farmers markets in their neighborhoods.

Oakland residents Kim Di Giacomo and Michele Senitzer co-founded Found Fruit as a way of connecting with other neighborhoods who have produce and foraging skills to share.

Now is a great time to plan for summer fruit wine making. Flowering trees will soon start to produce fruit such as plums, peaches, nectarines and apricots and will ripen starting in June. Foundfruit.com lists where to find wild plum trees in public areas.

Plum Wine Recipe

Wine Making Guides 5 lbs / 2,250 grams plums
3 lbs / 1,350 grams sugar
8 pints / 1 gallon water
1 teaspoon citric acid
Wine yeast

Winemaking Method: Plum Wine Recipe- Wine Making Guides: Wash and cut up the fruit and place in a fermentation bucket. Pour over the boiling water and cover bucket and leave for four days. Stir twice daily and then strain on to the sugar, stirring vigorously until all the sugar has dissolved. Add the yeast and cover. Stir regularly for five days and then pour into fermentation bottle, fit airlock and leave to finish fermenting.

When fermentation has ceased, rack the wine into a clean jar and place in a cooler environment and leave for a further few months. Rack again if necessary and leave until the wine is stable and then bottle. This wine can take up to 12 months to mature.