Permaculture Kids' Club

Long time Transition Brockley member Ruth has emailed to tell us of a new monthly workshop that is starting next month. Details below:

Come to Mayow Park (Grow Mayow Community Gardens SE26 ) on the last Sunday of the month for some Kids’ Permaculture, starting this February 27th 2011.

Suriya and Ruth will show you how to ….

…make birdfeeders, plant an edible hedge, grow your own food in fun ways, learn from nature, make useful stuff, play nature games and much more!

Suitable for 8 to 12 year olds. Parents also welcome!

For info email Ruth on impermaculture@gmail.com or ring /text her on 07766 596600

Hilly Fields Orchard Planting

 The long-awaited orchard planting finally took place on Saturday with around fifty members of the local community participating. The London Orchard Project with their tree expert, Russell Miller and a couple of assistants from Hackney Harvest brought the trees and equipment and members of Transition Brockley and the Friends of Hilly Fields provided refreshments and support.



Planting in full action



In all seven apple trees were planted, the varieties of which can be found here and they now sit happily on the lower ground alongside the Stone Circle. The next stage of the orchard will be to develop the orchard management plan and set up a meeting to discuss how to go about the watering and maintenance duties. A few people expressed an interest in adopting a tree and any others wishing to do so can email us and we will get back to you with details.

One group with their completed tree

Thanks to those who helped make the day run smoothly:

The London Orchard Project and their helpers; Prendergast Hilly Fields College for lending us some tables to set up the refreshments on; Keith, the park keeper for letting us use his facilities to heat up refreshments and Glendale for providing the mulch; Erin from the Broca for lending us some equipment to heat up the soup and drinks; the refreshment crew who made apple soup, hot spiced apple juice, cakes, dried apple rings and for serving them up to hungry participants!

Finally a big thank you to all who came whether you watched or took part it was fantastic to see so many of the local community coming together to do something positive and hopefully very rewarding.

The refreshments went down very well!



The completed planting

There are lots more photos of the day on our Flickr site. In the meantime we will keep you updated on the progress of the trees on this blog and add more photos as they come.

We briefly discussed an informal wassailing event to celebrate the orchard sometime in February so do look out for details of that in due course.

Orchard Planting on Saturday

Everyone is welcome to join in with the planting of a small apple orchard on Hilly Fields (next to the Stone Circle) from 11.00am to 1.00pm on Saturday 15 January. This will be the first community orchard in a major park in the borough of Lewisham and we, from Transition Lewisham/Brockley are delighted to be initiating this project, together with the Friends of Hilly Fields and the London Orchard Project, with funding from Capital Growth and support from Lewisham Council and Glendale.

The orchard is being planted to promote the growing of fruit locally (in an area which previously had many fruit orchards), to provide habitat for wildlife, and for people to enjoy.

It will be a family activity day, and as well as the digging, planting, composting, mulching and treeguard staking, apple-themed refreshments will be available (mulled apple juice, apple soup and apple cakes).

We will be looking for volunteers to help maintain the orchard after the planting so if you are interested then please speak to one of us on the day. We look forward to seeing you there!

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!

Merry Christmas!

From all at Transition Brockley have a happy Christmas!

Orchard update

Following the cancellation of the planned orchard planting in December we're now able to tell you of a new date which is Saturday 15th January 11am - 1pm. We also have more information about the varieties of apple we're planting below:

If you are interested in helping out with the planting or even adopting a tree to help with the aftercare and maintenance then please do come along. If you can't come but are interested in the orchard and the potential it offers then please feel free to contact email us.

Carina from the London Orchard Project has emailed to tell us about the varieties of tree will be planting at the new orchard. There's a mixture of eating and cooking apples and also 1 variety suitable for the cider lovers!

Egremont Russet
'The definitive English russet apple, with the charateristic sweet/dry "nutty" flavour.'

Lord Lambourne Apple
'Popular garden variety, many uses, good balance of sweet and sharp.'

Kidd's Orange Red Apple
'One of the best Cox-style apples, and adds some of the scented flavour of Delicious. A good apple for the gardener as well.'

James Grieve Apple
'A versatile cooking apple, excellent for juice, and widely used in breeding programmes.'

Saturn Apple
'An excellent modern English apple variety, developed at the famous East Malling research station.'

Arthur Turner Apple
'Attractive flowers and a versatile apple for cooking.'

Somerset Redstreak Apple
'A solid cider variety, the Somerset Redstreak is the apple behind Thatchers Redstreak Cider, which won the 2007 International Cider and Perry Competition.'

Hilly Fields Orchard Planting *UPDATE*

Sadly the weather beat us and we have had to postpone the planting until the new year. It is likely to be sometime in January where hopefully the weather will be a bit kinder to us!

Keep checking for more updates or sign up to the email list.

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Planting is still going ahead as measures have been taken to keep the tree plots from freezing and our arboriculturalists have advised that there should not be a problem with the planting. The forecast is good for Saturday, so come and join us!!!!

Everyone is welcome to join in with (or just watch) the planting of a small apple orchard on Hilly Fields (next to the Stone Circle) from 11.00am to 1.00pm on Saturday 4 December (see poster above). This will be the first community orchard in a major park in the borough of Lewisham and we are delighted to be initiating this
project, together with the Friends of Hilly Fields and the London Orchard Project, with funding from Capital Growth and support from Lewisham Council and Glendale.

The orchard is being planted to promote the growing of fruit locally (in an area which previously had many fruit orchards), to provide habitat for wildlife, and for people to enjoy.

It will be a family activity day, with digging, planting, composting, mulching and treeguard staking.

Come along for some warming spiced apple juice, hot apple soup and apple-themed sweet things.