'appy New Year!

So as we enter the new year we have plenty to discuss and do for the forthcoming year. The first event coming up is our next meeting which will be on Thursday 19th January. Please note the venue is Mr Lawrence Wine Bar in Crofton Park. Meeting starts prompt at 7:30pm. This is a change from the previously advertised date of Wednesday 11th Jan.

As a reminder of some of the things we get up to one of our members kindly sent us some images of her granddaughters picking apples from last Autumn at one of our fruit harvesting events. With so many apples there was more than enough to be able to offer some free to passers by which brings us nicely onto something related which will be happening soon...wassailing! Following last years successful 'wassail' at the new orchard on Hilly Fields we are planning a repeat of the event sometime towards the end of January. More details soon.

Meeting Update

In a concerted effort to keep people up to date with what's happening at meetings should members not be able to attend we will try and publish a brief resume of what was discussed alongside the date of the next meeting and events coming up.


Outcomes from Meeting 11.10.11 at Browns of Brockley


Local Timebank


Discussion around possibility of engaging with local timebanking community, to help source participants for activities but also to help to increase diversity of the transition town. Maria to investigate further.


Fruit Harvesting 2011

Background

Brockley has an abundance of fruit trees and a lot of fruit goes to waste because the fruit isn't picked. We're following on the heels of others. See:http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/18/fruit-abundance-picking

The main aim is to highlight the contribution that food makes to our carbon footprint (around 20%) and ensure that the harvest from local fruit trees doesn't go to waste, by organising groups of volunteers to go and pick from people's back gardens or trees overhanging the pavement.

Transition Brockley has organised several picking outings over the course of August, September and October. A dozen volunteers have picked from half a dozen back gardens in the Brockley area. There's no doubt that walking around the area with a fruit picker does invite questions and perhaps we have inspired some people to pick their own fruit. (we certainly had questions about where to buy pickers). In early October, we did our final picking session and took some of our pickings along to a juicing event at Honor Oak Park allotments where a large group was engaged in chopping, mashing and juicing apples and pears. The end product was delicious.

Reflecting on the fruit harvesting at the October meeting we noted that difficulties were:

-not knowing how many volunteers were going to turn up

-making sure fruit trees were going to be ripe at the time of proposed harvesting. This in effect means that much has to be organised at the last minute, at a time when the tree owner can be around.

Suggestions for the future were:

-start earlier to catch the plums! Some were picked this year but there were more.

-alongside organising occasional groups of volunteers to pick, we could encourage people to advertise excess fruit on freecycle

-such advertising could be done using posters on trees on roads where we know there are lots of fruit trees.

-if we wanted to get more people we could make use of the Rushey Green time bank which is very active.

As well as sharing out fruit, we also hope to stimulate discussion about other ways in which resources can be shared.e.g. Do you know of others to add to this list? If so, please email us.

Garden Share 
Are you looking for a plot of land to grow fruit and veg on? Or do you have a garden which is neglected and would be happy for someone to use part (or all) of, to grow food? Transition Brockley are investigating matching up available plots with growers. If this might suit you, please email us.

At a national level see http://www.landshare.net/

Freecycle 
Online facility to dispose of items you no longer need to someone who can make use of them. Please see here for details.

Hire your neighbours car (fully insured). See: http://www.whipcar.com/

Lend and borrow everyday objects, skills and spaces. See: http://www.ecomodo.com/

e.g. borrow a power tool - Apparently the average productive time of a drill in its entire lifetime is about 12-13 minutes. http://www.nesta.org.uk/blogs/assets/blog_entries/do_you_own_a_drill


Community Garden at Brockley Station


Volunteers met on Saturday 15th October to prepare the plot for the winter. The new sign is almost ready and will show what we have planted during the winter. The next session down at the garden is on Saturday 3rd December from 2-4pm. Please bring your own gloves and tools and remember that gardening is of course at your own risk so please bear this mind.


Draughtbusting Session 
Going ahead on Sat 29 October from 11 to 1.00pm. Address details to follow.

Mini-Meadow 
Meadow at the orchard plot on Hilly Fields to be cut then raked up within next week. Orchard carers to be contacted.

London Lead on Low Carbon Economic Growth
Event being organised at City Hall discussed and details forwarded to those in group interested in attending.


South East London Transition
Members of different South East London transition town groups met on Saturday 22nd October to share thoughts. Feedback soon!

Transition Brockley feature on Time Out website

Last year we were featured in Time Out's website feature on fruit harvesting in London and they've updated their article to include more groups which just goes to show that the fruit harvesting movement is gaining strength as people become more aware of the abundance of fruit that is available to them without handing over a penny!

Transition Snippets...

Here's a round up of things happening and events coming up locally...

Lewisham green drinks


A monthly event for those interested in engaging in topics such as environmental issues, climate, politics, local news and of course the transition town movement whilst indulging in a beverage or two! First Monday of every month with the next one happening on Monday 5th September. Come along from 7:30pm to Mr Lawrence Wine Bar on Brockley Rd just past Crofton Park Rail Station.


Brockley Common Community Garden

The garden at Brockley Station has been producing lots of delicious food throughout the summer. Garden co-ordinator Caroline writes:

In case you have a moment to go and pick some home grown food at the Transition Town Brockley garden, please see below what's up for grabs!

- tomatoes, will be ready a week from now

- spinach, doing well, and responds well to regular picking

- squash, still ripening

- runner beans, still producing 

Please feel free to pop to the plot and pick anything that looks ready!

We will be preparing the plot for winter on Saturday 15th October, 2-4pm. Do drop me a line if you have any suggestions, or indeed green contributions! 

Brockley Cross Action Group AGM - Saturday 24th Sept 11-12:30pm @ John Stainer School, Mantle Rd, Brockley

Transition Brockley will have a stall at our neighbours' annual AGM where we'll hopefully have some information on the projects we've been working on throughout the year so far and beyond. Come along and engage with your local community!

Hilly Fields Orchard

The orchard has produced some apples this year however it's best to pick them early to encourage them to produce better and more substantial fruit in the coming years. The mini meadow has been very successful and we hope this could lead to a bigger meadow around the orchard in the future.

Fruit Harvesting

Once again we have been out and about harvesting fallen fruit and fruit from trees which the owners have no need for. We're looking at another harvesting event within the next couple of weeks. More details soon. In the meantime if you wish to be kept up to date with the latest news on harvesting then please contact brockleyharvest@yahoo.co.uk 

We're also looking ahead to October when Ian from the One Tree Hill allotments will hold his annual apple pressing day at the allotments on One Tree Hill from 1-6pm. We're hoping to be able to contribute some fruit from our harvesting and it promises to be a fun day for all the family whether you want to exercise your muscles or just enjoy the fruit juices being made!

Draughtbusting

We've been talking about organsing a draught-busting session locally for some time now and we've  finally got someone to help us out by using one of members' houses as an example for the day on how we help cut down on energy use and save some money!

We're looking at Saturday 29th October, possibly in the morning to run a session. Numbers will be limited on a first come, first served basis but if the event is heavily over-subscribed then we'll look to organise more. The demonstration property will be the Hilly Fields area of Brockley. If you're interested then please email us at
transitionbrockley@hotmail.co.uk and we'll let you know further details.

TT New Cross - Food Group

Our friends from New Cross have recently launched a food group and are looking at lots of different aspects of local food from production to distribution to landsharing schemes and more. The next meeting will take place on September 8th from 7:30 - 9:30pm at the Hill Station Cafe in Kitto Road, Telegraph Hill. There are two presentations taking place at the meeting including one from Transition Brockley member, Fran who will talk about Brockley Gardenshare which aims to match up landowners with people who have no land and want to grow food. There will also be a presentation from Amina who is the new manager of local cafe 'Come the Revolution' which has just opened in New Cross and seeks to use locally produced food.

Fruit Harvesting & Gardening - Sat 20th August

Harvesting in action 2010

Last year we successfully harvested unwanted fruit in the local area and this year we're intending to do this again. The details of this year's first event which combines both harvesting and gardening are below:

Once again, we're planning to organise some local fruit harvesting. We're emailing you as someone who expressed an interest last year or has more recently found out about Brockley fruit harvesting. We'll be in touch separately with those who donated part of their tree's crop last year to see if you're interested in doing the same again this year.

As a reminder, the main aim is to highlight the contribution that food makes to our carbon footprint (around 20%) and ensure that the harvest from local fruit trees doesn't go to waste by organising groups of volunteers to go and pick from people's back gardens or trees overhanging the pavement.

• If you've got a fruit tree, donate part of your tree's harvest for distribution to the local community (you get first share).
• Or volunteer to be an urban harvester and have fun getting involved with picking, distributing and / or processing the fruit.

We expect our first picking afternoon to be sat 20^th August (fruit availability permitting!). We plan to combine this with being at the Brockley Common Community garden (see below), as follows:

1 - 2.30pm : Harvesting
2.30pm - 4pm : Gardening
4-5pm : Winter garden planning (in a local cafe)

Last year fruit was distributed amongst volunteers and handed out at the community garden by the station and some went to a local refugee group.

If you have a fruit tree you would like picked or would like to volunteer to pick, please email: Brockleyharvest@yahoo.co.uk

Other projects you might be interested in include:

Garden Share – Are you looking for a plot of land to grow fruit and veg on? Or do you have a garden which is neglected and would be happy for someone to use part (or all) of, to grow food? Transition Brockley are investigating matching up available plots with growers. If this might suit you, please contact Fran: fr2rogers@gmail.com

Brockley Common Community Garden, next to the Station – planted with a mixture of edibles and flowers. If you're interested in getting involved please contact: joynerca@googlemail.com

Brockley in transition: the year in review

So as the year draws to an end and the seemingly endless cycle of freezing temperatures and snow carries on it seems like a good time to reflect on some of the things that the group have been up to throughout the year. Note, there's a deliberate slant towards the things we've been up to rather than talking about Brockley generally but if you do want to read about that then take a look at a good round up on Brockley Central.

Hilly Fields Orchard

We were hoping to have planted the orchard by now but we had to postpone the planting due to the recent weather however, Saturday 15th January is the new date for your diary so please come along between 11am – 1pm.

Members of the group have also undertaken orchard management training organised by the London Orchard Project and will be looking to train others up to help with maintenance after the planting.

Fruit Harvesting

Inspired by projects such as Sheffield’s Abundance project where unwanted fruit is collected and distributed we decided to map and collect Brockley’s unwanted fruit and redistribute to local people and refuge centres. A number of harvesting events took place and the whole project was very successful. Time Out online even featured us as one of London's best harvesting projects! Plans are afoot for next years harvesting where hopefully Brockley's fruit may manifest itself in a more preserved form...watch this space!

Brockley Common Planting

We held working days to transform a barren piece of wasteland into something more productive which could be used by the local community. This culminated in being part of the Brockley Cross Action Group's tenth anniversary celebrating the hard work done by the local community in transforming the area around the station.

Hilly Fields Fayre

This year we decided to take a slightly more proactive role in the Fayre by helping to organise a number of stalls alongside our own with organisations that have environmental interests at heart such as Global Action Plan, Frendsbury Gardens and Lewisham Waste Initiatives.

Other things we've been up to...

Alongside Transition Westcombe we took part in discussions with local supermarkets to discuss how they could cut their carbon footprints. We also got Brockley's local Costcutter shop to take part in Plastic Bag Free Day.

Continued to support such initiatives as 9 Carrots culminating Mr Lawrence Wine Bar becoming the first 9 Carrots project to reach its target; Frendsbury Gardens who continued to blossom with their useful workshops; St. Saviours Community Garden which keeps on growing and helped to stem the plight of Brockley's bee population following the workshop we had with Capital Bee last year.

Finally, we hope you've enjoyed taking part in any of the activities we've been involved in this year and hope that you will continue to support us as we will continue to support the local community by being as proactive and educational as we can!

Have a happy new year!

Apples and Pears...

Here's some more images of the fruit harvesting project. This time apples and pears were harvested by members of the public alongside Transition Brockley's fruit harvesting team. Fran has invested in a telescopic fruit picker which seems to be proving very useful to reach fruit that is out of reach by hand or on a ladder.

For more info on how to get involved with the fruit harvesting please contact Katie at:

brockleyharvest@yahoo.com

Transition Brockley mentioned as one of London's best harvesting groups!

From time to time we like to let people know when a well-known organisation or publication decides that our group is worthy of some coverage so here's a link that Time Out London ran recently on its website with regard to our fruit harvesting project.

We're not actually aware of the criteria for judging the 'best' harvesting groups in London so can only assume that the author of the article has sound judgement when it comes to assessing fruit hauls. It's good to see other groups also participating in harvesting unwanted fruit and perhaps in the future we can hook up with them...

Brockley Common - A Post Celebration

For anyone that made it down to Brockley Station on Saturday they had a treat as the Brockley Cross Action Group and Transition Brockley alongside many volunteers and some of Brockley's very talented people came together to provide visitors with food, drink, musical entertainment and hopefully a bit of inspiration! The Brockley Cross Action Group have done wonders in transforming the area around the station and it will only get better as time goes on with plans for a performance space and hopefully new station facilities sometime in the future providing a welcome gateway into Brockley for residents and visitors.

It's early days in our quest to harvest Brockley's unwanted fruit and we're quickly finding out about the logistics of such an operation but I'm pleased to report that it's proving to be very rewarding and great fun!

Our first harvest of the day began at a house in Breakspears Road, Brockley where we were confronted by the most wonderful site of huge pear trees, likely to have been a part of Brockley's past heritage and many different varieties of Apple. We were tasked with picking Bramley cooking apples from a very well-trained tree which has obviously had a lot of love and time given to it over the years. The pictures below show the tree and volunteers in action. We tried out our new fruit picker with its handy prongs and basket which allow you to pick the apples easily and collect them in one move without straining too much. In all we picked around 10 boxes of apples of which 4 were to go down to Brockley Common to be given away to passers by.

The Apple Tree

Using the new apple picker

The second harvest at a house in Algiers Road by Katie and Caroline in the afternoon provided eating apples to compliment what we had on offer but we didn't just have apples though as we also gave away the damsons picked earlier in the week alongside fruits picked at the station from our own plot and also the hedgerow nearby.

One of the highlights of the day was one of our visitors who took it upon herself to take some of the apples and bake a pie only to come back within an hour and allow us to sell it to very willing customers! A prime example of how quickly fruit can be transformed from the point of picking to something different but very tasty.

Our stall in front of the garden we created and some keen customers tuck into the apple pie that one very generous and enthusiastic visitor made after taking some apples frm our stall.

At the end of the day we managed to give away all the fruit we picked which was great and make people more aware of the things we do and promote the fruit harvesting and new orchard underway this autumn.

You can view more photos of the day here

Thankyou to all that helped out!

Dam good harvesting!

Tonight saw the first harvesting event of the year as two members of Transition Brockley made their way to a home in nearby Grove Park to pick Damsons which will be given away to visitors to the event at Brockley Common on Saturday.

When the offer of harvesting Damsons was first suggested by a friend we lept at the chance to use it as a bit of a trial run before the major harvests of the autumn. With tarpaulin, boxes and our new handy apple picker we managed to pick around 200 Damsons.

Picking Damsons

Our damson haul and a couple of apples

 

Summer fruits [updated]

Transition Brockley and now founding member of Transition Sydenham, Alona sent us this link to an interesting article in the Guardian which looks at the potential for foraging in the streets and land that surrounds us. This ties in nicely with our proposed harvesting of Brockley's currently unharvested fruit trees this autumn.

A particularly useful link in the article is this one which takes you to a 2 page supplement illustrating the 'food' year and when certain fruits and salads are available.

To illustrate just how much free fruit is available to us if we look at our bushes and hedgerows a little more closely a friend of Transition Brockley picked two bowls of blackberries last week (see above) and there is still more available so get out there, take a walk around and see what you can find! If you do find something let us know via the comments section or email this address and we'll add it to our edible foraging map which will be something a bit like this but for Brockley.

*UPDATE*

One TB member took upon himself to seek out Brockley's bounty and the fruits of his labour are shown below in the form of a Blackberry Crumble!

Brockley Fruit Harvesting

Have you got a fruit tree? Donate part of your tree's harvest for distribution to the local community (you get first share, of course). 

Or volunteer to be an urban harvester (September and October) and have fun getting involved with picking, distributing and / or processing the fruit. 

Then.... come along to a harvest celebration

Further info:

 

Brockley has an abundance of fruit trees and a lot of fruit goes to waste because the fruit isn't picked.

 

As a preliminary to the fruit orchard planting in Hilly Fields Park in November, and also as an independent project, Transition Brockley is organising some local fruit harvesting in the autumn. The aim of harvesting is to benefit from our local produce, raise awareness of the fruit bounty on our doorsteps, help people harvest their fruit and redistribute the surplus amongst the community on a non-profit basis.

 

We will need lots of volunteers for the actual harvesting and distribution, but to start with we'd like to map what fruit trees there are in the area. Most of them are in gardens, so if you know of any, we'd love it if you could tell us the type of fruit tree (ie apple, pear, plum etc) and the address. If you know approximately when the fruit is ready for picking that would be helpful too.

If you'd like to be involved in any way, please let us know. Some of the things that need doing are:

• Mapping the trees (with details of address, cropping time, owner's contact details)
• Contacting owners of fruit trees by knocking on the door, talking to them and leaving a leaflet.
• Identifying sources of, and collecting boxes and crates for carrying fruit.
• Harvesting (tree climbers, tarpaulin holders and sorters).
• Loan of equipment e.g. fruit picker, bike trailer, large juicer / crusher
• Helping with an event to celebrate with juicing and sampling of other uses of fruits (possibly on Hilly Fields).

This is an exciting project very much in tune with Transition priorities for working as a community to reduce our carbon footprint and we hope that you will be inspired to assist in some way.

If you can help please contact: Brockleyharvest@yahoo.co.uk by the 11th September, if possible (after that date also ok)

Fruit Harvesting in Brockley

Inspired by Grow Sheffield's Abundance project and in conjunction with Transition Brockley's own attempts to recreate Brockley's strong history of orchards Katie recently hosted an evening of tasty snacks and chat about the potential of fruit harvesting in Brockley. 


As we found at the meeting fruit harvesting can be quite a daunting task with plenty of logistics to overcome before the first fruit is plucked from a tree. However, as can be seen in Sheffield with the Abundance project it is possible to do and can produce many benefits for local groups. Helpfully the group in Sheffield have now produced a handbook which will no doubt prove invaulable to harvesters.


The next stage for the group is to establish some key parameters for the project:


- Who will benefit from the fruit?
- Which areas to target?
- Mapping Brockley's fruit trees
- Sourcing equipment required for harvesting


If you're interested in harvesting or have fruit trees which don't get harvested then please contact Katie