Harvest Helper

We had a very successful wildflower seed harvest on Saturday with unseasonal warm weather. We gathered so many that we weren't able to process them all on the day, although we did make a start. The stamping kit we use for the the plant names on the packets proved very popular with the kids there ...

The photos are up on Flickr here

Wild Flower Mix

Before the seed collecting day at the weekend I asked Sharon Swift (from Urban Design who managed the site this year) to send us the list of plants that had been sown to see if we could locate them all ... Here's what we have:

An annual mix (approx. 40%) of White Campion, Corn Cockle, Cornflower, Corn
Chamomile, Corn Marigold, Field Poppy and Scentless Mayweed.

Along with a 'Butterfly' meadow mix consisting of 80% grass and 20% perennial
wildflowers (approx. 60%) including Birds foot trefoil, Red and white
campion, Chicory, Red Clover, Oxeye Daisy, Dandelion, Hemp-agrimony,
Common and greater Knapweed, Wild Marjoram, Black Medick, Yellow
Melilot, Wild Mignonette, Garlic mustard, Devil-bit Scabious, Selfheal,
Soapwort, Wild Teasel, Red valerian, Common vetch and vipers bugloss.

The annuals were sown to create an instant show this summer and are mainly
the ones that flowered this year. The meadow mix is there to create grassland and a more long term meadow just in case site remains undeveloped for anther year.

I think we'll be able to keep wild flowers at either end of the site alongside the Harvest Garden next year. We managed to find almost all the annuals to collect seed from - although I only found one lone White Campion.

Themes : harvest, abbey, seeds

Brogdale Bounty

This is one of the many orchards at Brogdale farm which I visited on Sunday - as you can see Abbey Gardens isn't the only place with an excess of fruit problem!

I left the apples from our tree to be identified (to my slight disappointment as it was a 'modern' variety they were unable to do an 'on the spot' positive ID!) and went to a really interesting talk on grafting. We're hoping to perhaps run a grafting workshop at Abbey Gardens this spring, so that if we do finally loose our apple tree it may live on through new trees grafted from the existing one. I found the whole business of grafting different tree 'tops' onto a variety of root stocks fascinating, I was so eagerly taking notes on the 'whip & tongue' method, cleft & saddle grafts etc. that the odd phrases written in haste looked really odd afterwards - "essential must have good hygiene to avoid canker". To my surprise you can even graft yourself a 'family' apple tree with many varieties on the one truck - that way you can have early and late varieties, cookers & eating apples all on the one tree.

Themes : Abbey Gardens, garden, harvest, fruit

We're on the Grapevine

Anyone who travels through Stratford station (East London) may have already seen the feature about Abbey Gardens in the 'Stratford Grapevine' last week ... if you missed it you can read about it here. The newspaper is a project by artist Lucy Harrison who's become a 'friend of' the project through our shared research into the area. The sort of spider drawing on the front shows how all the people who have contributed to the paper are linked together, and is a nice map of the connections made, it's interesting to see how the 'spider' grows each issue and who else we know in common.

Apple ID

Having 'illegally' pruned and cared for the lonesome apple tree on the site (before we had official access), the Friends of Abbey Gardens are now enjoying the fruits of their labours with an amazing harvest of eating apples from a tree we once thought to be crab apple!

You can see some photos of their labours and the produce they've made on our Flickr group.

In the meantime we sent off some fruit to the amazing service at Brogdale to try and identify the tree. In our enthusiasm we sent the apples too soon, but this Sunday I'm going there in person for the cider open day and taking three new examples along ...

ID to follow.

Themes : Abbey Gardens, garden, harvest, fruit

The first anecdote

One of the things we want to try with the garden is making some links between the real space and the website via links embedded in the final 'signage' and plant labels. The idea is to try and collect recent history and record how the the garden (literally) grows rather than just focussing on its medieval past. While I was away on holiday Dasha (from Baker's Row) sent me this first story ...

... As you may know we have a garden full of oversized plants. I have been dreaming of offloading them to Abbey Gardens for some time. I know we that are not meant to dig and that there are future design plans. But I thought it would be OK to move just one plant in a pot. It was the Buddleia. Coincidentally there used to be a lot of these on site in the wilderness days and I thought it might be symbolic to bring one back.

20.8.2008

Mugwort to Physalis

The Urban Seed Day went really well, and a big thanks goes out to Roy Vickery for his excellent contribution. The idea was to gather or sow some seeds for next year's Harvest Garden and to talk more about our long term proposals for the garden. Botanist Roy (of South London Botanical Institute) joined us for the afternoon and led a great walk around the garden looking at wildflowers that have been imported, blown onto or deliberately planted on the site. Besides just identifying an amazing range of plants from Mugwort & Corn Cockle to tomatoes & Physalis (!) Roy was also able to reveal some fascinating folklore about the different plants. Karen then gave a master-class on seed propagation, with some hands on volunteers sewing seeds of plants to be used next year.

Squash Surprise

We had a good time at the St Mary's allotments open day on Saturday and we hope met some potential new recruits for the Harvest Garden. When you see what they can do with squash you know why we want to sign them up!

More images over on Flickr

URBAN SEED DAY

Come & join us on Saturday August 16th for an URBAN SEED DAY at Abbey Gardens ...

We will be gathering and sowing some seeds for next year's Harvest Garden and talking more about our long term proposals for the site. Joining us for the afternoon will be botanist ROY VICKERY (of South London Botanical Institute) for an informal afternoon of WILD FLOWER SPOTTING, FOLKLORE, SEED GATHERING & SEED SOWING.

We will be at the garden, which is opposite Baker's Row in East London (Near West Ham or Stratford tube) from 3pm-5.30pm. The event is free but booking is advised via our contact page.

The event is supported by Newham Council & Friends of Abbey Gardens, we will also have some exciting seeds from the wonderful Chiltern Seeds to give away. If you have seeds gathered from your own gardens do bring some along to swap - Louise has already given me loads of poppy seeds from her West Ham allotment.

Refreshments, materials & equipment provided. Sorry, no unaccompanied children under 14.

St. Mary's Allotments Open Day

If you're planning to come to our urban seed day (see above) you might like to make an afternoon of it and also visit the wonderful St. Mary's Allotments also in Newham, they're off Queens Road and the entrance is opposite Princes Terrace (E13 9AJ).

I believe the open day runs from 12.30 - 3.30 pm (On Saturday August the 16th) and there will be a marquee with produce etc. Judging by our visit a few weeks ago on the Harvest Walk it would be well worth the trip.

Research trip

A different project took me last week to Somerset, a place overflowing with good gardens. As I'm never driving home it's never possible for me to visit the many outstanding nurseries frustatingly, though last time I visited East Lambrook Manor, one time home of Margery Fish, a gardening heroine of mine not least because she always gardened in a nice frock.

Anyway, this time I spent one of my evenings at a lecture by Mr Paul Atterley of Antiques Roadshow fame, on Arts & Crafts Homes and Gardens. All very interesting but the venue was even more impressive - Hestercombe Gardens, a turn of the century extravaganza, with a Victorian terrace leading to a vast sunken garden (pictured here).
I turned a rare moment of isolation in the garden to good use, when I realised that some of the critical dimensions of the lower terrace compared with many in our proposals for the Abbey Garden site. For example, just seen on the right, the raised terraces are about 2 metres high around this main terrace, the height of a landform / ampitheatre we have proposed. It felt right - neither intimidatingly high nor too halfhearted. The design is also similar in some ways to the triangulated Harvest Garden we have suggested getting underway in 2009.

Themes : garden, Somerset

Champagne Harvest

We drunk the elderflower champagne at the end of the Harvest walk on Saturday ... and it slipped down very nicely! Some people asked for the recipe so here's the link again.

What Will The Harvest Be? - The Walkers

Thanks to everyone who came along on the walk on Saturday, Karen & I really enjoyed it!
Thanks also to Len, Janice, Gordon & Louise for opening up the world of Newham
allotments for us, and to the Friends of Abbey Gardens for the food in the evening.

For those there (& those who missed it!) you might like to see my pictures on Flickr

Aquilegia Mixed

Seeds from Saturday

If you got a packet of seeds from us on the walk these are the plants they were gathered from ... Aquilegia ... seen here growing on the allotment started by my Father in law Derek Olden. I grew these from seed last year and they flowered beautifully in April/May. I've gathered enough seeds for about 30 packets - not bad! The only trouble is I can't remember exactly which type they were, so for now they're just Aquilegia (mixed). If you grow some from seed this year the mature plants can be added to next years 'Harvest Garden' we hope to create.

Themes : harvest, abbey, seeds

What Will The Harvest Be? - The Seeds

I've been preparing some packets of seeds to give away on the walk we're planning for Saturday. I must say I'm quite pleased with the packets (although if any one knows where to buy seed envelopes in bulk on-line do say!) the idea is to link the seeds to both the site/person who collected them and eventually to an on-line database of plants in the Harvest Garden. We're interested to see if we can link the real garden to an on-line audience and personalise the plants and gardeners at the same time.

See above for where these first seeds were collected from.

Themes : Abbey Gardens, harvest, seeds

Walking Weekend

This Saturday July 12th you can walk & talk with us at the initial event for WHAT WILL THE HARVEST BE? We will be leading a walk starting from Abbey Gardens around some of Newham’s other green spaces:

3.00 pm Abbey Gardens (Bakers Row)
3.15 pm West Ham Park
4.15 pm St Mary’s Allotments
5.00 pm The Greenway
5.30 pm West Ham Allotments
6.00 pm Abbey Gardens - Picnic

Come & join us for the walk to hear more about our proposed projects for Abbey Gardens and meet some Newham residents with green fingers. Following the walk there will be an informal gathering for a picnic & bar-b-que with the Friends of Abbey Gardens, which you are also very welcome to join. Feel free to bring along some food (especially home-grown!) Elderflower drinks will be available made with the flowers I gathered on the site.

To book a place on the walk please email us.

For those who have yet to visit Abbey Gardens, the site is located at the end of Bakers Row, Stratford, East London E15 3NF

The long view

Robert sent me this image of the site taken from the top of a local tower block. You get to see the context of the streets and factories around the site, and also a touch of green: could be the grass coming up or could be weeds!

Fizzy Drink Links ... or what is Sarsaparilla?

I've been doing a lot more research into the 1906 Plaistow Land-Grabbers & their Triangle Camp (more of which later). One of the things I was interested to read was that once they had been evicted from the 1st site they set up another camp called Pooley's Triangle Yard. As well as flying the red flag removed from their triangle camp 'hotel' they put up bills on the gates stating that 'on payment of a penny for a refreshment ticket the holder was entitled to a glass of sarsaparilla & to enjoy the concerts & speeches provided'. Assuming the Pooley's in the camp name is the same company advertised in the Pamphlet about the Land-Grabbers (found in Newham archive) I assume they were also the manufacturers of the sarsaparilla. What I can't work out is what exactly this drink is/was and why they linked themselves to the protesters.

Meanwhile back in 2008 my own elderflower 'champagne', made from blooms off the site, is starting to bubble. Not, it seems, as much as the 'Olympian' variety which Hilary tells me has already caused a few explosions. She sent me a link today to the event where you can taste their fine wines and other spirits!

The First Harvest?

I went out on my bike on Friday and harvested the elderflowers from next to the site. I'm trying out two recipes: one for cordial (which you can drink straight away) & one for 'champagne', which takes a couple of weeks to mature.

I've frozen some cordial and unless I fall fowl of bottle explosions (apparently a common problem with the champagne) we should have some of each to try when we meet together with the friends of Abbey Gardens group ... I think some of them are attempting some too.

Coincidentally Andreas sent me a link to another project in the area which also involves collecting local 'produce' from around the Olympic perimeter blue fence to make 'Olympic' spirits and foodstuffs ... it's by Optimistic Productions who have more about it on their interesting website.