It’s here! The season when pounds and pounds of peach-like ‘organic’ loquat fruit is available for the taking from the trees of urban Southern California. These trees grow like weeds, are prolifically re-seed themselves, and peek and pop out from alleys and untended yards everywhere. You see folks employing all kinds of tactics to get them down–some with ladders, the classic kid-stands-on-the-parent’s shoulders, and my new favorite–stand on the dumpster, and pull the branches down with scooter handlebars.
There’s so much fruit, and so many people that don’t seem to care for loquats (or know they’re edible) that nobody seems to mind if you pick. Best to break or cut off whole branches (rather than picking the fruit), it keeps longer.
