You can pick your friends and you can pick your fruit...but can you pick your friends fruit?

As community gardeners harvest their season's bounty, thieves are brazenly carting off tomatoes, plums, peppers and cucumbers by the bagful from plots others have lovingly tended. When fruits and vegetables are at their peak, gardeners are often inundated with more than they can eat, and many are happy to share — at least with those who ask.

Neighborhood Fruit, based in San Francisco, was created to help people find and share fruit. It provides a way for those facing a too-abundant harvest to share the wealth. It also provides tips on where to find fruit growing in public places that is free for the taking, though the rules vary city by city. It even has a mobile phone application and a video on fruit-gathering etiquette. With the real-estate crisis has come a new type of urban foraging: taking fruit and vegetables planted by the previous owners of foreclosed homes, figuring that the lenders won't care. The goal of the urban-foraging movement is to collect food and vegetables that would otherwise be wasted and share the produce with people who will appreciate it, whether it's the foragers themselves or a food bank. Defining just what constitutes a public place has led to arguments. In most municipalities, while the land between the sidewalk and the street is yours to mow, it technically does not belong to you.  That means your neighbors can harvest the fruit, it's still polite for them to ask before hauling off bags of fruit from in front of someone else's home.  Don't bother complaining to the city: You may lose the tree entirely. Most cities prohibit fruit trees in the parking strips or swales because of the mess they create.

October Home Maintanence Check List

October is the first full month of fall; by the end of this month, most of your winterization should be completed. Falling leaves and dwindling daylight signal a final opportunity to do some outdoor organizing before winter settles in.

Repair roof shingles
Try to do this on a warm day if you have asphalt shingles on your roof, so the shingles will be flexible. Use roofing cement to seal cracked and torn shingles and to reattach curled shingles. Best bet is to call a roofer before you fall and break your neck!

Repair siding
Do a fall siding inspection and remedy any problems you find. Look for damaged paint, warped or split wood, cracks or holes in stucco, and missing or slipped siding panels. Most types of siding require a coating of sealant or primer, and paint to finish the repair and ensure waterproofing.

Reinforce windows

If your screens are dirty or damaged, repair and clean before storing them to prevent further deterioration. Light scrubbing followed by a blast from a hose will eliminate bird droppings and other grime. Small tears can be sewn up with thin wire. If you have older single-pane windows and no storm coverings, apply heat-shrink plastic to the inner or outer window frame to create an insulating air space and save heating expense.

Fireplace

Make sure your damper is in good working order by opening and shutting it prior to lighting the first fire of the season. If you didn't clean your chimney at the end of the heating season, do it now. Often the first indication that a chimney needs cleaning is a chimney fire, so preventive maintenance is important.
 
Detect deadly gas
If you heat your home with wood heat or a gas heater, a carbon-monoxide detector is a must. These devices look and sound like smoke detectors, but they detect carbon-monoxide gas instead. Units that plug into an outlet are also available.

Check batteries in smoke detectors
Daylight saving time ends Nov. 7. Get into the habit of checking smoke-detector batteries when you "fall back" and "spring ahead." Also make sure household fire extinguishers are fully pressurized and in good working order.

Close seasonal air conditioners
If you live in a place where air conditioners are used seasonally instead of year-round, this is a good month to close them down. Switch off power, make sure the condensate drain is clear, and clean condenser coils and filters (a vacuum will do). Either remove window units or cover them, to protect your home from drafts and the units from inclement weather.

Cut brush back from the house
Before stowing all of your gardening equipment for the winter, walk around your house with a weed whacker and a pair of pruners and cut back any brush, weeds or branches that contact your house. This task will eliminate a common access point for insects, rodents and rot. It will also keep branches and shrubs from scraping away at your siding during windstorms.

Watch those leaves
If you don't want the tannin in fall leaves to leave hard-to-clean imprints on your deck and concrete walkways, keep those surfaces leaf-free. If you do get some leaf prints, try a solution of half water and half bleach (test it first in a hidden spot — it may lighten the wood on your deck)

Store outdoor furniture 
Scrub and store outdoor furniture; even furniture designed to stay out year-round will last longer if protected from extreme cold and wet. Store or cover your barbecue unless you cook with it all year. Clean and store your gardening tools, but don't put them completely out of reach — shovels are useful year-round.

Winterize external plumbing systems
This is the most important job of fall if you live in an area that freezes in the winter. The simple fact that water expands upon freezing has caused countless homeowners innumerable woes. Ignore this job and flooding, water damage and thousands of dollars worth of plumbing bills will be your constant winter companions.

Here's your to-do list:

• Drain underground sprinklers
• Outdoor pools drained
• Drain exterior water pipes and pipes that run through unheated ares (such as garage, crawl space, or unheated porch).  If draining isn't possible the wrap with foam insulation or heat tape, 
• Cover exposed spigots with foam covers. Or, if cosmetics and ease of removal don't matter, wrap spigots in layers of newspaper, cover the newspaper with a plastic bag, and seal the whole affair with duct tape.Drain and store garden hoses. Leave one hose and nozzle somewhere that's easily accessible; you'll need it for gutter cleaning and car washing.

10 Ways To Make That Room Look Bigger

1. Removing Needless Things
You've got to leave some breathing room. Emptiness allows the eye to travel someplace and rest. Every space will feel bigger if you leave some things out.

2. Hang Curtains
Take the doors off doorways and closets and replace them with a curtain. Doors are a huge impediment to flow, and they take up space when they're open.

3. Arrange Closets And Make Sure They're Well Lit
Well-organized closets are essential. And if there's no lighting in there already, always install lights, closet is only 50 percent useful if you can't see in it.

 4. Let There Be Light
Have at least three points of light at eye level in each room and turn them on! By giving your eyes multiple focus points, lamps help expand a room visually, creating the illusion of more depth and space.

5. Use Rope Lighting
Buy LED rope lighting by the yard and put it anywhere in your closet at shoe level, as up-lighting on top of kitchen cabinets, and under cabinets for counter lighting.

6. Make a Mirror Image
Mirrors an old, neat trick help make any room feel more expansive, and they double the light.

7. Create Contrast With Color
Stain the floor dark, use light colors on walls, and paint the ceiling a lighter white. This helps the eye travel up the walls, giving a sense of more space.

8. Include Oversized Elements
Don't be afraid to go big. Someone with a small bedroom should build/buy a huge four-poster bed.Really kicks the room up a notch

9. Reach New Heights
Floor-to-ceiling curtains make walls seem taller and windows larger. Do this with your shower curtain, too, to create the impression of a big, luxurious shower.

10. Wash your windows!
The eyes stop at a dirty window, but the gaze travels out through clean glass.