Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Fruit Harvesting On The Ladder
After picking up on Urban Harvest on HOL a while back I saw a post about groups organising to pick fruit in their local areas (http://urbanharvest.wikispaces.com/). Being an avid jam and chutney making fan I responded to see if anyone was organising anything on the Ladder/ Gardens area. It looked like no one was, though I had a couple of people alos respond saying they were interested in doing something together.
This post is to see if there are others who have an interest in harvesting some of the unpicked fruit from the myriad of fruit trees growing in the Ladder/ Gardens area- I have a Conference pear tree (though I am never sure how good the pears are from it if I am honest. However, I have been lucky enough to have excellent neighbours who have been happy to share some fantastic conference pears from their tree (which sadly has been decimated by the landlord this year, so we look forward to next year). I have always wanted to find a source of cooking apples, and always lusted after some figs from the trees I can see around the place.
It would be great to see if there are others with a similar interest in urban harvesting, swapping recipes and knowledge. What I hope to do, if we get enough interest, is:
• Get together to meet an organise (a bit) in a couple of weeks time
• Identify some trees to pick from in the area (and possibly start creating a ‘fruit map’)
• Put some dates in the diary to meet up and pick in the autumn
So, if you want to spend a bit of time harvesting, for the owners of the fruit trees that may be picked, yourselves, friends and family, or others than can use the fruit such as community groups etc then please let me know. Please mail me with your email address, phone number and address via HoL and I will put your name on a mailing list (please let me know that you are ok with me sharing details like email addresses with others on the list or not).
Tags for Forum Posts: fruit harvesting, fruit picking, urban harvest
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by L F T Snowflake on
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Some years ago, probably about 25 years ago, I proposed the idea of 'fruit for the homeless' in which school and youth groups would go out and gather in the harvests from all those fruit trees that are in people's gardens and then give them to groups working the the homeless. Funnily enough I got a reminder of that this morning when out with the Parkland Walk volunteers. A guy came along eagerly collecting ripe blackberries, pointing out that as he was living on the streets, he did not much fresh fruit. Sadly, because of things like 'elfin safety' it did not get off the ground. I'm up for a bit of this and perhaps we can pass some of it on to the Food Bank in Wightman Road.
Cheers
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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That was quick! Yes, some of what I have in mind is to identify where some of any possible 'surplus harvest' may go (assuming we get some). If we get enough interst and meet up it would be useful to get the details of groups like the Food Bank guys (who I do not yet know).
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Permalink Reply by NIck and Lizzy on
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In the meantime, there are some blackberries in Railway Fields! I was surprised by how many we picked this week.
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Permalink Reply by matthew cuthbert on
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Ace, Harringay is great for pears apples, cherries, greengage/ plums, blackberries nettles grapes and figs... for some simple rewarding food.
Picking, mapping, cooking eating
Sounds great! Time to put all that inspired TV cooking in to action.
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Permalink Reply by 3tqyzx63lgqlo on
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Hi, I'm up for this, in particular the idea of a a map would be great! Thanks for the suggestion. Why can't we just organise via this forum here rather than a seperate mailing list? I'd just rather not have any more emails I'm already on way too many lists!
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Hey Kim. I asked for people's emails because I thought that would be easier.Not everyone who is interested in getting involved in on HoL, or may use it as much as us. I was trying to find a relatively simple way of helping this along, but we can given HoL a go first to see if it does what we need.
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As an enthusiastic preserver, I've been lamenting the plums on the pavement at the bottom of my street. Fruit for the homeless is a great idea too. And how about contacting Foodcycle at the Station House Cafe on Ferme Park Road. I bet they wouldn't worry too much about the safety elves. Sailing close to the "best by" wind is their stock in trade.
As we're so close the Garden of England, you could run day-trips to Kent. I know some great PYO farms that are only just over an hour away. This may be a bit commercial for the purists, but it's the only way I can afford to make blackcurrant or raspberry jam.
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Permalink Reply by Bethany Burrow Atherton on
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We'd also be interested, sounds fantastic.
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Justin, will the rubbish summer affect this year's harvest? For example, this time last year the plum tree at NHP had masses of fruit but so far it's not doing well at all. Btw, Parkside Farm PYO nr Enfield is v good
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Good question and the honest answer is I do not know. Part of the reason for me doing this is to try to learn a bit more about how these sorts of things affect cropping. If anyone out there knows I would love to know too.
Observationaly, the apple crop and my own pear crop looks pretty poor this year. Not sure if that is because the trees all exhausted themselves with a bumper crop last year???
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Also observationally, the plum tree which overhangs our garden from our neighbours over the back fence is doing pretty well - I'd say about the same as last year.
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