Friends of Abbey Gardens

The friends group produced a series of very good looking (if we may say so ourselves) postcards
to promote the garden and the What Will the Harvest be? project. Making good use of the
many beautiful images from our first season of growing, digging, and harvesting.

We produced eight different A5 calling cards which have all relevant information about the project printed on the back and four versions of A5 folding cards which are ideal to thank all those who made this year such a success. Designed by Lydia Thornley they are available from the friends group.

The brand new sign alone is worth a trip down to the garden. You can’t miss it!
Installed by Andy with support from Nina, produced by Formet.

If you want to get a taste for next years harvest you can have a look at the planting plan for 2010.
The document is best viewed by downloading it and viewing it in a pdf viewer.
Download the planting plan here -> Planting Plan 2010

photo: Lydia Thornley

Join us for a glass of mulled wine in Abbeys Gardens to Celebrate the end of the gardening season and a successful first year of ‘What will the harvest be?’ at 5PM on Saturday the 5th of December 2009.

The last garden club sessions with Chris took place at the end of November and Chris will join us on the day for a final farewell drink.

… However there is always more work to do and we will be on site digging compost trenches for the fruit trees in the morning from 10 am onwards. As always everyone is warmly welcome to join in and help out.

The Friends of Abbey Gardens will have its monthly ‘catch up meeting’ at 2 pm in the Cabin to which you are warmly welcome if you want to find out more about the Friends Group and the plans for the next growing season.

Behind the scenes activities have continued and plans are falling into place, which include the planting of Fruit trees against the back wall, grass seeding on the large pathways and the vacant triangle facing the street, fixing the fence and installing a new gate close to the cabin as well as a brand new honesty stall. All made possible through the Big Lottery, Community Spaces Grant which we managed to secure earlier in the year.

Also available on Saturday, hot off the press will be our brand new set of Abbey Gardens / What Will the Harvest be? postcards.

Looking forward to see you all on Saturday.

The Friends of Abbey Gardens

photo: Nina Pope

To download the latest press release click here -> Press Release Nov 2009
If you have further questions of require full resolution images please email us

Press release
for immediate release

Volunteers invited to plant our fruit wall Sat Jan. 16th, 10.30am – 3.30pm
Friends of Abbey Gardens and artists Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope invite you to join them for their first gardening event of 2010 – the planting of 30 young fruit trees in their East London public garden as part of the visionary project What Will the Harvest Be?

The wall-trained trees are the crowning glory of this unique open-access ‘harvest garden’ where literally anyone may learn about, grow and harvest fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers.

What Will the Harvest Be? at Abbey Gardens, West Ham is a communally-gardened vegetable and flower garden initiated by Friends of Abbey Gardens, a dynamic group of local residents living on the adjacent Baker’s Row, a stone’s throw from the 2012 Olympic site. The residents challenged London Borough of Newham (LBN) to halt the neglect of the overgrown third of an acre / 1600 sq m plot, protected from development by its notable historic ruins, to which English Heritage has awarded Scheduled Ancient Monument status. The remains span from those of a 12th C Cistercian abbey gatehouse to the foundations of terraced homes of the late 19th C and are a prominent feature within the new garden. London Borough of Newham rose to the challenge and provided both funding and active support from its Engagement Officer and West Ham Councillors.

The What Will the Harvest Be? project was designed by artists Karen Guthrie & Nina Pope of Somewhere, commissioned to come up with how both plants and people could grow together. The artists, who are both garden enthusiasts, designed bespoke raised beds in a formal, triangular layout inspired by the local ‘Plaistow Landgrabbers’, an early 20th century land squatter group whose ‘Triangle Camp’ picture is emblazoned life-size on the Abbey Gardens shed. The artists also recruited Chris Cavalier, a young performing arts graduate and gardener who has led free garden club sessions at the site since April.

Event details
Abbey Gardens, Bakers Row, London E15 3NF
Volunteers are advised to bring lunch and to wear stout shoes and warm clothes including gloves.
Tools are provided. New participants for 2010 are always welcome.

Contacts
E mail@abbeygardens.org
High-resolution pictures available from somewhere.org.uk
E artists@somewhere.org.uk
www.abbeygardens.org
www.whatwilltheharvestbe.com

Notes to editors
Though garden landscaping finished only in June 09, the project’s highlights this year included:
- the participation of more than 100 Londoners of all ages in regular free garden club sessions led by leader Chris Cavalier
- a packed Harvest Festival in September, where Observer Food award-winning restauranteur Sam Clark of Moro cooked fresh garden produce for over 150 visitors
- an innovative website showing the more than 150 vegetable and flower varieties planted and harvested by participants, including some brand-new tomato cultivars bred by a volunteer

Plans for the open-access site in 2010 include hosting cookery and social events, growing an experimental tropical fruit selection outdoors, work with local mental health charities and schoolchildren, and distributing excess fresh produce to local groups and businesses.

Funding
To date What Will the Harvest Be? has been funded by London Development Agency, London Borough of
Newham, Arts Council England and supported by Chiltern Seeds. In Autumn this year the Friends of Abbey Gardens group made a successful bid to the Community Spaces programme to support on-going development of the garden. The Community Spaces grants programme is being managed by Groundwork UK as an Award Partner to the Big Lottery Fund. Community Spaces is part of the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces initiative.

Community Spaces
Community Spaces is a £50 million open grants programme that is managed by Groundwork UK as an award partner to the Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces initiative. The programme helps community groups create or improve green and open spaces so that the quality of life in neighbourhoods across England is enhanced. Only community groups in England are eligible to apply to Community Spaces – a full eligibility criteria is available at www.community-spaces.org.uk. The programme has been open for small and medium grants (£10,000 – £49,999) since March 2008 and will remain open for these sizes of grants until 2011.

Groundwork UK
Groundwork supports communities in need, working with partners to help improve the quality of people’s lives, their prospects and potential and the places where they live, work and play. Our vision is of a society of sustainable communities which are vibrant, healthy and safe, which respect the local and global environment and where individuals and enterprise prosper. For further information visit: www.groundwork.org.uk

Big Lottery Fund
The Big Lottery Fund’s Changing Spaces programme was launched in November 2005 to help communities enjoy and improve their local environments. The programme is funding a range of activities from local food schemes and farmers markets, to education projects teaching people about the environment. Groundwork UK was appointed as a Changing Spaces award partner, responsible for distributing £50 million through its Community Spaces scheme.

The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888 Out of hours: 07867 500 572
Public enquiries line: 08454 102030 Textphone: 08456 021 659
Full details of the work of the Big Lottery Fund, its programmes and awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Friends of Abbey Gardens tries to meet on the first Saturday of every month at around 2pm in the Cabin at Abbey Gardens. Everyone who is interested in the garden is very welcome to join.

Here are the minutes of the November meeting -> foag_novembermeeting09_minutes.pdf
You can download minutes of previous meetings in the download section

We (Nina and Andreas) were invited to talk about the Harvest Garden at a presentation entitled “Integration Through Gardening”. The session was organised by Denitza Toteva as part of the TINAG Festival which took place over the course of 3 days (23, 24, 25 October 2009) in East London.

“Can intercultural gardens play a role in urban integration? Exploring community gardens in Berlin and London. The discussion also examined the conceptual framework of integration in different political contexts. Speakers included Nina Pope (Artist), Andreas Lang (Resident) and Alexander
Vatchev (Gardener).”

Goodness, tobacco plant seed pods are sticky! Collecting flower seeds, I looked as though I’d been resurfacing the road! But that wasn’t all we were collecting: at our monthly Friends of Abbey Gardens meeting, we were swapping plans, information and generating ideas for next season. [Lydia]

Bindweed: it’s sneaky. You have to ferret about to find the roots that are hiding, otherwise it comes back. We’ve been clearing this tenacious beastie ready for our apple trees along the back wall of the garden. Pausing to admire some surprise flowers, there’s been harvesting of our glut of tomatoes – and praise for Dasha’s wonderful tomato ketchup. We’ve wandered-off with some Cavolo Nero to find out what it tastes like. And our magnificent haul of potatoes is graded and going into a few ovens this evening, with the rest stored. There’s something very satisfying about baking a potato you dug up earlier… The garden is looking gorgeous in the Autumn light so pull on your wellies and join us! [Lydia]

Autumn is here and now the clocks have changed we are tweeking our Thursday night garden club times.

Chris will continue to run the Garden Club until the end of November, Saturdays and Tuesdays remain the same but we are moving the Thursday night session forward. So until the end of November the times will be as follows:

Saturdays 10.00 am – 2.00 pm
Tuesdays 10.00 am – 1.00 pm
Thursdays 4.00 pm – dusk (at present about 5.30)

Of course the garden is now open to the public everyday so you can visit at any time, but if you want to get into hands on gardening these are the best times.

As Chris is on holiday this week Nina will be running the sessions – on Thursday night we have a group of students from the Royal College of Art visiting and Nina will be giving a talk about the garden if anyone would like to join. On Saturday we have plenty of harvesting to do plus weeding and a few more ‘choice’ jobs! Hope to see you all there.