Friends of Abbey Gardens

Dear Friends, at the risk of jinxing the complex plans now in place, we’re writing to let you know that Abbey Gardens is finally on the brink of change.

We are awaiting final confirmation that our new top soil is in the tip top condition we need but once this is in place it will be all systems go, as the contractors come on site to carry out the remediation programme we need – providing us with a freshly top-soiled level site on which to build the Harvest Garden.

Other news is that we are delighted to have appointed our new Garden Club Leader Chris Cavalier who we hope you’ll all be getting to know at the regular Garden Club sessions he’ll be leading once we are up and running.

If you’d like a sneak preview meeting with Chris and to help us say good-bye to the current site why not come along this Saturday and help us out? We plan to pot up some of the wild flowers in order to save them for the new garden, we also need helpers to clear and sort wood from the felled trees, and to harvest the garlic from the ‘test bed’.

If you want Chris to have a look at how your seedlings are doing bring them along, equally if you’re yet to start a seed tray we’ll have seeds, soil and trays with us that morning.

So Saturday the 16th of May 10.00 to 12.30 come to the garden to help Chris, Nina & FOAG prepare for the next steps in the project.

Our next mailout will contain details of the installation programme for the Harvest Garden raised beds, this will take a week (early June) and we will be looking for as many volunteers as possible to help out … more details to follow very soon.

Any flowerpots you have lying about at home would be much appreciated for the transplanting of wild flowers. Any questions or comments do please get in touch.

Nina, Karen & the Friends of Abbey Gardens.

A short update on some of the many meetings that are happening (nearly daily) to get the Harvest Garden off the ground.

With all the match funding confirmed we now focus (some of) our attention on the second phase of the community spaces application. We had our follow meeting with Saima Iqbal our facilitator to update her on the progress and let her know about changes to the original application. Still a lot of items to tick off – but fingers crossed it should be ready for submission in early June.

Nina, Karen (somewhere) and Sharon (Newham) have been extremely busy getting all the re-mediation works on the way. Which hopefully will start in 2 weeks time!!! I have lost track of all the meetings, emails and phone calls that are going backwards and forwards.

Dorian Moore is busy setting up the first phase of a ‘What will the harvest be’ website and plant database.

And last but not least, Chris Cavalier has been appointed Garden Club Leader after a shortlist of 3 candidates have been interviewed by Liz Shearer (Newham, Parks) Nina Pope & Karen Guthrie (somewhere) and Andreas Lang (FOAG). – Welcome Chris! – who you will be seeing on site very shortly (or he might be knocking on your door holding a pack of seed).

Chris Cavalier getting familiar with the site.

photo:Newham Mag

Abbey Gardens and What Will the Harvest Be made it onto the Newham Website

Karen discovered this entry on the dlr site . I wonder how long it has been there before we noticed. DLR did contribute to the original arts commission. But since then they have really not had any further input. Hopefully its a good sign to see them advertising the project – maybe they will take some further responsibility – it would be much appreciated…. maybe we should write a letter….

Louis made this time laps of our efforts on Saturday.
Unfortunately the batteries ran out and the time laps stops early.
below an image of Louis and the compost he build with Nina.

photo: Nina Pope

Nina made it up onto the top of the tower and took some really nice images of the site and the area. They are all up on flickr and worth a visit.

Tim marking out the raised beds.

Despite the rain early on we made some good progress setting out the layout for the harvest garden on site. First with bright yellow string and then spraying the outlines in white.
We did not quite finish but most of it is done. It already raised many questions on how the raised beds should or could be designed to accommodate the gentle contours of the ground.

more photos on the abbey gardens flickr page which are worth checking out.

Louise, Karen, Tim and Lydia setting out raised beds and the walkway in between them.

The Friends of Abbey Gardens & Somewhere invite you to two weekend events as part of …
WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE?

On Saturday the 8th of November artists Nina Pope & Karen Guthrie will be leading a ‘layout day’ at the Abbey Gardens site. Working with string, tapes and spray paint we will be literally marking out the design for next years Harvest Garden onto the grass at Baker’s Row.

It should be a fun afternoon outdoors with lots of potential for measuring and string mistakes! Liberal tea brakes will be programmed into the schedule.

We will be meeting at Abbey Gardens at 12.30 for the all-afternoon project, please wear suitable clothing and footwear, and do bring along any coloured string you have to help us mark out the beds. Children are welcome but must be supervised.

Following on from this we will also be meeting on Saturday the 15th of November to build some compost bins and a test raised bed on the site … again all welcome. Meet at the gardens from 12.30 onwards.

Please let us know if you are planning to attend by emailing Nina on: nina@somewhere.org.uk

We look forward to seeing you there,
Nina, Karen & FOAG group.

The events are supported by:

Abbey Gardens is getting a little international recognition.

Chérif Hanna who teaches a group of 24 architecture students in Nantes France came to visit the garden on a field trip to the UK. The group is interested in urban developments that are outside the urban centres and want to understand how future housing developments can be inclusive and designed in participatory ways that involve residence directly in the shaping of their environment.

Abbey gardens – though not a housing development – is off interest because of the approach taken to build an active local community. The fact that the surrounding areas are earmarked for development (e.g. Abbey House) makes the garden an interesting case study – so it seemed. Nina and I were a bit worried the they came all the way just to look at a piece of green grass . . . Lets hope they come back next year to do some gardening with us.

Spot the artist – (presenting the scheme)

A short and productive meeting on site with Nick Ely from Newham parks and Jane Sidell from English Heritage. The responsibilities can roughly be divided horizontally. If you want to dig holes make sure that English Heritage is approving as you might damage a scheduled monument. Anything above ground needs approval and sometimes support from Newham Parks who are the legal owners of the site. There are off course many grey areas to this rule of thumb.

After not having seen Nick for a while we suddenly had 3 meetings in the space of 2 weeks. While waiting for funding to come (or not come) through we – the friends group along with Nina and Karen – are keen to get going and start the harvest garden (at least in spirit) by testing some of its elements and ideas.

Off course this determination to take action very quickly puts you in touch with the governing bodies of the site and all the hidden rules which need to be observed. Some very sensible ones and some which makes you scratch your head. Its the old contradiction – everyone wants participation but all the institutions that are in place to govern this engagement end up risk managing it rather then promoting it (with all the best intentions it needs to be said). Participation in my view depends on many small and direct actions and many of the rules make this directness impossible and often hamper involvement and participation.

Anyway its all part of building a relationship with the agencies, the land and the participants. Its all been very positive and productive and I am glad we went ahead with those two rather simple events which are test runs for bigger things to come. The (sometimes obscure) mechanics are becoming more clear with every little step.

Another small positive that came out of the meeting with Nick is the fact that he managed to release some funding to pay Nina and Karen to supervise the events. Less money then hoped for but nonetheless a very welcomed and important step. As a small ‘thank you’ I publish their logo below.

Bad news however about the trees on the south west corner of the site which will make way for the footpath. (No more elder-flower from Abbey Gardens) We did however get assurance that the tree on the North West corner will remain.

The temporary structure which we hoped to set up on site will need to be redesigned in order to apply with health and safety standards. Emails were sent a while back but did not find much response – again it seemed that getting active and doing things on site actually forces a response which ultimately helps to establish a working relationship.

Looking forward to more.