Sunday 8th September
SESSION ORGANISER
Find out about GoodGym TaskForce
Report written by Rachel (she/her)
Celine and I joined members of the Abundance project to help harvest 4 apple trees from a public orchard near the Millennium gallery so that they can be distributed to good causes and saved from waste.
Great turnout of volunteers despite the earlier downpour. There were lots of ripe, tasty and unblemished fruit still in the trees, so we could afford to be a bit picky about leaving the more damaged ones and we still had a bountiful harvest!
The abundance of mistletoe in every tree confounded me as I've never seen it so prolific and up close. I've since been told that it will have been put there deliberately so it can be harvested for Christmas events and is known to thrive particularly well in Apple trees. Couldn't resist the photo op ๐
Abundance Founded in 2007 by Stephen Watts and Anne-Marie Culhane, Abundance is a volunteer based organisation that rescues, shares, cooks, and processes fruit which may otherwise go to waste from right across Sheffield. Most of the trees we pick are in private gardens, where we leave 10% of fruit for wildlife. Abundance If we pick a public fruit tree we leave at least a third of the fruit unpicked so it is available to the community. Tree owners have the first share, then they donate the fruit they donโt want, volunteers have some and we share the best fruit with the community (e.g. food banks, lunch clubs, support centres) The rest we cook, preserve or juice together in the community. We love exploring sweet and savoury ways to cook and preserve fruit and sharing recipes. Everyone who joins a preservation workshop gets the recipe and a jar of chutney to take home. All events are an opportunity to meet new people and strengthen social networks, as we are a friendly bunch!
See moreSheffield
Helping this fantastic local pickers group to improve their local community