Urban foraging has become increasingly popular on the Route 1 corridor, as residents take advantage of the food that grows in the area.

On a recent afternoon in College Park, a middle-aged couple could be seen strategizing about getting ripe persimmons off a row of trees near the Old Parish House. You can spot people getting pawpaws in Riverdale Park in September and picking mulberries in University Park in late spring, and some say the hobby is becoming more popular during the coronavirus pandemic.

But it’s not just hobbyists any more.

Sangfroid Distilling made gin with an Asian orange foraged from Magruder Park by New Brooklyn Farms. Landscape designer Lincoln Smith, who studied plant sciences at the University of Maryland, runs a firm called Forested that advises landowners on “forest gardens” that produce food that can be foraged.

And Smith has helped three Route 1 cities design “food forests,” small city parks filled with edible fruits and berries.

The city of College Park’s food forest can be found along the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail located between Greenbelt Road and Tecumseh Street and Greenbelt’s food forest is at the Springhill Lake Recreation Center at 6101 Cherrywood Lane.

Hyattsville has the Emerson Street Food Forest at 4515 Emerson St. and the McLanahan Food Forest on the 3400 block of Oliver Street near the Prince George’s Plaza Metro station. And the city is looking for places to squeeze in more, as food forests take much less effort to maintain than traditional landscaping.

There are also a few food forests in Mount Rainier including one at 37th Street Park as well as the new one at 31st Street Park.

Food forests have also become a new trend at schools like D.C.’s Capital City Public Charter School, a natural next step after the recent popularity of school gardens.

Traditional foragers can find the locations of raspberries, blackberries, mulberries and serviceberries; and persimmons, pawpaws and plums along the Route 1 corridor online at Falling Fruit. Apps such as iNaturalist can help identify other plants.

The local food forests also have apple trees, pomegranates, kiwis, elderberries, Nanking bush cherries, Asian pears, red currants, strawberries and cranberry bushes.