Which apple?

How many varieties of apples can you name?

Probably just a handful.

But despite the limited selection available commercially, there are in fact around 2000 different kinds in the UK, and fifty of those grown in West London were on display at a recent harvest celebration at Turnham Green (left). They had wonderful names like Lane’s Prince Albert, Ellison’s Orange, D’Arcy Spice, Laxton’s Fortune, Newton Wonder, Lord Lambourne and Howgate Wonder. The oldest was the small, red, flattish Court Pendu Plat, cultivated since 1613, though probably enjoyed by the Romans.

Some visitors to the event brought with them apples to be identified by expert Steve Oram. He immediately recognised the one I had as a Blenheim Orange, an 18th c variety good for eating or cooking (left).

The day was organised by Abundance London. http://www.abundancelondon.com/
Over the past few weeks, with the help of local school children, its volunteers have picked around two tons of fruit which would otherwise have gone to waste. Some was on sale at the event, either fresh from the tree or transformed into jam, chutney, cakes, crumble and juice. Delicious!

A reminder that Apple Day - a celebration of this fruit - is on October 21. More details of events at http://www.england-in-particular.info/cg/appleday/index.html

Fresh from the press!

Visitors to the Queens Park Day in north-west London this afternoon had a chance to see how good freshly-pressed apple juice can taste. As part of the festival, a quarter of a ton of apples were peeled, chopped and processed by helpers from the Transition Kensal to Kilburn group, including David Young (pictured).  The press attracted a stream of fascinated onlookers and by the end of the afternoon, it had produced an incredible 450 glasses of juice. The apples came from local gardens as part of the nation-wide Abundance scheme, through which garden owners offer their surplus fruit to be picked by volunteers and given to good causes. Before Abundance came along, most of these apples, pears, etc would have been left to ripen, fall and rot. Now, through the efforts of local groups of fruit harvesters, it's getting to people who will enjoy it.

Abundance Sheffield has produced a guide to setting up a harvesting group: http://www.growsheffield.com/pages/groshefhandb.html

Abundance at King Henry's Walk Garden

On Saturday members from some of the London-based Abundance fruit-picking groups gathered to share their experiences and explore ways of working together next year. They came from as far afield as Peckham, Belsize Park, Archway, Wimbledon, Kilburn, Chiswick, West Ealing and Mapesbury (Willesden Green). Some groups have been going for several years and have facebook pages, while others are very new and, in one case, just about to get started, so there was a lot to talk about.

The venue was King Henry's Walk Garden (left), a community garden in the Mildmay ward of Islington, opened in 2007. Created on a patch of derelict land, it's primarily a garden for people who don't have one of their own, with 76 organic growing plots and planters (below) for the use of local residents and communal garden areas for recreation. (It opens to the public at weekends.)

There's also an area of protected woodland (once the site of an old factory) and a resource building where activities such as our meeting are held. Despite the cold grey weather, the garden was an inspiration. Volunteers were carrying out regular maintenance, and it was heartening to see how many plants were sending up new shoots, despite the recent blanket of snow.
For more about the project see http://www.khwgarden.org.uk/

Harvest time

Do you have a tree laden with fruit you can't reach or a lawn covered with windfalls you don't want?
It's a common problem in suburban gardens. But rather than see food go to waste, community fruit harvesting schemes are springing up around the country. It's all done on a very local level, usually through word of mouth or local residents' associations, with tree owners contacting the picking teams once their fruit is ready. The produce is shared between local charities, tree owners and volunteers. Our area in NW London has two schemes going. Last weekend Mapesbury Fruit Harvesters (pictured) tackled a huge old apple tree and ended up with 67.5 kg of Beauty of Bath (mostly given to a local charity for the homeless) plus a few windfall Bramleys. Later this week we'll be picking plums. A plus for tree owners is that a few of us went on a pruning course earlier in the year, and can now bring light and shape into some of the trees which have become too overgrown to produce well.

The umbrella name for the initiative is Abundance - it recently won an Observer ethical living award. Local groups are flourishing in parts of Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh and Sheffield as well as London, and it's hoped many more will spring up.



Last autumn the BBC website ran a feature on Abundance: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8280425.stm
For more information try the following links:
http://ttkensaltokilburn.ning.com/group/fruit?xg_source=activity
http://www.growsheffield.com/pages/groShefAbund.html
or for the Mapesbury area, email Mapesharvesters@hotmail.co.uk