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The Bees have finally arrived at Walmer Gardens!

For those of you who have been keeping up to date with WEN Abundance activities you will know that we have taken the renovation of on a small orchard in Walmer Gardens W13. We cleared it and pruned the trees over January/February (ably managed by The London Orchard Project)  Ealing Transition have the rear part of the orchard where the pond is for their first bee hive and on Saturday around 15,000 bees finally arrived in their new home.  The crew donned suitable clothes before opening the box to let them into their new home.  Needless to say once I had taken a picture of this I scarpered! Pictures of the event below.

Look out for more news when the Elderflower season starts towards June!

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-3.5c and we were still up for pruning our West Ealing Orchard

Oh yes we at WEN Abundance and Ealing Transition are a hardy lot!  We braved the freezing cold on Saturday 4th February to be part of a pruning workshop at our lovely little Orchard at Walmer Gardens. The London Orchard Project are doing a fantastic job helping us and brought in an expert to guide us through the day.

With some dedicated volunteers and support – including Jon Skoyles, Ealing Park Ranger, this Orchard has undergone a complete transformation. It will take a couple more years of pruning, planting and caring for the place but we know it will be worth bringing this place back to life.

Next up is the beehive Ealing Transition will be setting up around April – I’ll let you know exact dates when confirmed should anyone be interested in coming along.

Here are some pictures of the day (click to enlarge).

 

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Ealing Transition looking for people to help it tell its story

Ealing Transition is a focal point for practical community action on peak oil and climate change. It now has 1200 members and is looking for volunteers to help it tell its story:

Telling the Transition Story

Are you a storyteller, a journalist, blogger or film-maker? Could you get Ealing Transition into the headlines? We need a team to start magnifying the effect of our work, making our website work harder, using social media to its greatest potential, making presentations to groups around the borough etc. Contact steering@ealingtransition.org.uk if you think you can help.

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A very busy year for WEN Abundance

It’s that time of year where Abundance goes into hibernation for the winter after a season that started in August and stretched all the way to November! This year we picked around 1.5 tonnes of fruit – apples and pears were by far the most popular, however we saw a bumper crop of quinces too. We mainly picked in West Ealing, Ealing and Hanwell, but also took a trip down to Kent and managed to pick around 400kilos over a weekend.

Our apple juice has been sold by Cheddar Deli as well as The Little Art Room and they have taken the last of our apple and pear juice to sell at Xmas fairs. We have also developed 3 new chutneys this year so look out for them next year, along with yours and our favourites.

We covered more fairs this year, with the addition of Pitshanger Party in the Park. Our second West Ealing Family Day was a great success and it was lovely to see some of the tree owners popping by at the stall for a chat to find out what we had done with the fruit we picked. Talking of which we managed to pick at every location we were requested at – There were quite a few new trees from private back gardens as word of mouth spreads about our project.

We have also now taken over Walmer Gardens Orchard with Ealing Council’s permission and had a very positive response to the consultation of the local area for the renovation of this small Orchard starting in January 2012.

Of course we couldn’t have done any of this if it wasn’t for a small team of very dedicated individuals that devote an inordinate amount of their free time to this project – a big thank you to you all.

So in summary a very successful year for us – and we have plans to expand in 2012, more of which in the next Newsletter after a well deserved rest.

Signing off for a few weeks, a very shattered WEN Abundance Team!

Have a great Xmas and New Year and see you in 2012.

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Abundance Fruit Festival Saturday 1st October 11am – 3pm Turnham Green

Come along to the Abundance Fruit Festival at St Michael & All Angels, near
Turnham Green tube, 11-3pm this Saturday, 1st October.

Abundance London, in association with six local primary schools, have collected
nearly two tonnes of fruit that would have gone to waste.
– local jam-makers and bakers have been preparing preserves, jams, fruit
cheeses, cakes and savouries
– the giant fruit press will be there, powered by child-muscle, to make lovely fresh apple and pear juice
– honey from Chiswick bees
– freshly-grown herbs from Brentford
– bike-powered smoothie machine from Hammersmith Community Gardens, pedalled by local children (and MP)
– lots of traditional apple games – bobbing, longest peel, etc
– arts ‘n crafts stall for kids to make apple aprons, bags, dolls, etc
– cookery demonstration by top chef Ian from Sam’s Brasserie from 11.45
– heritage apple tree varieties not available in garden centres, eg. d’Arcy Spice, Keswick Codlin
– apple ID. Bring in 5 or 6 of your mystery apples if you would like our expert to identify your tree
– good food from Sam’s and Outsider Tart, using local fruit and veg (eg pumpkins from Chiswick House Walled Garden)
– bring in your surplus fruit and make an a la carte pressing of your own apples
– school stalls from the local primaries using Chiswick fruit

—
Karen Liebreich
www.abundancelondon.com
Twitter: karenatgarden

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A fantastic West Ealing Family Day in Pictures

Opera Viscera at St James Church
Pamela Howard School - Japanese Dancing
Melbourne Avenue
Melbourne Avenue
Some dancing to the steel band!
Some of the food stalls on Melbourne Avenue
Melbourne Avenue
Steel band on Melbourne Avenue
WEN Abundance in action with apple press
The Oddfellows in St James Church
Lots of Children interested in our apple press!
Get stuck in Pauly!
WEN Abundance setting up stall
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Fancy volunteering for some apple and pear picking?

WEN Abundance are coming into our exceptionaly busy phase with apples and pears coming out of our ears ready to be picked. If you are free, particularily during the daytime this week or next I would love to hear from you.

Most of our picking takes place in private gardens, we have equipment for you to use and will offer safety guidelines too.

We use the fruit in a variety of different ways from juicing through to making our own jams and chutneys. Any money we make from the sale of the produce is ploughed back into the project to help us buy equipment.

So if you want to help us reduce waste please offer up some of your spare time.

Contact me on here, or by email to wenabundance@gmail.com

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Success at WEN Abundance first blackberry pick

A small team of us went out to pick blackberries on what was a very pleasant Sunday evening.  Bitterns Field, Brent River Park did not disappoint.  Lots were ripe and a lot more to come. Plenty for jam making and I’m sure we will be going back to get more soon.

Some pictures of the evening..

Pauly and Gill
Veronica and Deb
Deb, Veronica and Pauly
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Abundance goes out to the local community

The Abundance team  were contacted by Nuria Rodriguez from Catalyst Housing about a foraging and jam making event for residents of Windmill Park Estate, Southall.

Our resident expert, Elizabeth went along with the group to pick blackberries to turn into delicious blackberry jam back at the community centre. Everyone had a go and the children loved the tasting at the end!

We will be looking forward to more events this year.

Here are a few pictures of the day – Click on the pictures to open them.