Grow Heathrow growing group back in action

To all gardeners, permaculturists, transition towners, people who have never planted a seed before, wise, new, skilled and fresh, all welcome!

The spring is edging nearer and at Grow Heathrow after our exciting news of another growing season on our beautiful land in Sipson, it’s time to get together and plot, plan and plant what we want to build, grow, seed, and eat!

This meeting will be a space for us all to look at our success from our last growing season, make improvements to some problems we faced growing flowers, fruit and veg in and outside of our greenhouses, and to start to think about seeds and crops to be grown this year – using a permaculture design throughout hopefully involving many residents, friends and supporters who get involved in the process of planning and planting.

Come to Grow Heathrow 7:00pm 8th February 2011

A weekly gardening club will also be starting at Grow Heathrow from Sunday 6th March, 2pm.

Lets get skilled up! We all have green fingers ready to sprout…

… and of course resistance is fertile!

Beyond Tesco! The Hedgerow!

Grey skies and a pretty constant dribble of rain started our Heathrow Villages day of scrumping, but this was not to deter us! A hot vegetable soup was made from pumpkins and potatoes from the Grow Heathrow veg beds ready for our soggy return from the fruit trees and we set off with wellies, nets, bikes and trailers to our first location; Harmondsworth Great Barn Orchard.

Eight beautiful old variety apple trees make a small orchard in Harmondsworth behind the old barn and St Mary’s church, where the creator of the Cox’s Orange Pippin apple is buried. Having been told these laden trees tend not to be picked anymore there was massive excitement and energy from the scrumping crew to arrive and sample both the cooking and eating varieties. Climbing, shaking and picking apples from the trees and ground we had more than we could carry with the trees still looking as full as they had when we arrived!

Long time Heathrow resident Ken had great knowledge of fruit and nut trees in the area and showed us to a walnut tree in the next field. To someone whithout this local knowledge, it could seem there were no walnuts around but pushing aside the carpet of nettles surrounding the tree: treasure appeared! The field was also covered in yarrow, a medicinal white flowering herb great as a tea for the cold season; a bouquet now hangs in the Grow Heathrow community kitchen drying out ready for use. With 2 bags of walnuts and the yarrow we headed back to site to have some hot lunch and drop off the goods.

Revived and ready for more we scrumped three apple trees next to the site in Sipson and then headed down Sipson Lane to harvest a pear tree heavy with fruit on the side of the road. On our walk down to Harlington hawthorn berries, rosehips and damson plums were also collected from the hedgerows. A final pop to the Airplot to collect some apples from a cooking variety and we were ready to go through and sort the fruit of our labour.

A sorting station in the second greenhouse had been set up so we could separate the blemished fruit from the storable before the attack of the fruit flies. Sorting, drying and stacking the good fruit and then peeling the bruised and cut fruit to stew were the afternoon’s activities.

By sharing the local knowledge of what we already have around us we hope our community will come together in pride to defend it from all future threats.

This day focused on the abundance of fruit trees in the Heathrow villages, we hope to get more residents out and collecting in the coming weeks while the branches are still heavy.

Gather a group of friends and neighbours in your communities and go out in your area (or come to grow Heathrow and scrump here), see what you can find.

Let’s look past the supermarket shelves to the hedgerows!

Next installment is preserving and storing all this wonderful fruit for the winter months; Saturday 23^rd October starting 11am come share recipes with us (and a apple press is in the making; Sipson cider!)

More info on urban fruit scrumping:

http://growsheffield.com/pages/groShefAbund.html

www.hackneyharvest.com

Heathrow villages autumn scrumping & conker championship!

Look to the fruit trees of Sipson, Harlington and Harmondsworth! Laden with apples, pears, plums, rosehips, hawthorns and who knows what other goodies lay in the branches.

It’s that time of the year and we are ready for a good old scrumping and preserving session!

Come and join the autumn celebrations and collect these fruits that all too often fall to the floor and rot when they can be enjoyed by everyone in the community.

Sunday 3^rd October 11am- 4pm

Scrumping and collecting

Bring tree locations, boxes, nets, energy!

Saturday 23^rd October 11am-5pm

Preserving and Storing

Bring recipes, jars, ingredients, ideas!

Let’s share our chutney, cider, wine and jam recipes and learn how to store fruit for the winter together.

Sipson Conker Championship 2010

Bring your conkers at midday to find out who will take home the Sipson Golden Conker. 

Both days starting at the Grow Heathrow site in Sipson, Vineries close, UB7 0JG.

Lunch provided, donations welcome.

Transition Heathrow at Hayes Carnival – Sophie’s blog

I was asked to help out Transition Heathrow for the Hayes Carnival in Barra Hall Park on Saturday 10^th July and immediately I said yes. I love the project both for its local implications and its wider political vision. Transition is all about recognising climate change is happening and that oil will and is becoming more and more scarce. It’s all positioned in a framework of what positive impact it can have on a local and global level. Plus I love a local day out and Hayes Carnival promised to be a great way of getting out there and meeting more of the community in the local area.

So on a beautiful (and incredibly hot) sunny day, amongst the genteel setting of Barra Hall park, Transition Heathrow set about transforming its little corner of the park into a beautiful representation of how life could be post-transition, with yards and yards of bunting, ex-airline pilots turned gardeners, tea and cakes and smiles in abundance.

If the transition movement is that its all about the positives, then Hayes Carnival provided an excellent opportunity to show how we deal with issues of power created by burning oil and coal. We just don’t need it. We have renewable that can provide so much of our electrical needs.

To make this point real, Transition Heathrow invited our friends from Coltek to come with their solar powered generator to provide power for the area, and as the blistering sun beat down, we danced to the music on the Transition stage, with live acts curated by another of our friends, the guys from the award winning folk club the Magpies Nest. It was a beautiful line-up, with music from the likes of Paris Thompson, Anna Log, Troubadour Rose, James Mcdonald, Aaron Jonah Lewis, JAW and Perhaps Contraption. The solar power also extended to the Renewable cinema, a lovely blacked out tent, strewn with cushions, showing a selection of films curated by more of our friends: Just Do It Films.

The café was run with aplomb and again set out a vision for a post-oil future. We had a pedal powered smoothie maker, creating delicious smoothies that involved some personal work. A smoothie never tasted better than one you had to pedal a standing bicycle to make….. There were home made cakes using vegetables we had grown in Sipson. We also had the legendarily efficient Rocket stoves. A beautifully constructed cooking stove using recycled oil drums and burning wood. These boiled our water so we could provide tea and coffee to the thirsty carnival revellers.

Grow Heathrow, the sister project of Transition Heathrow was there, giving away plants and seeds and general growing advice to encourage people to get growing locally. Screen printing workshops were also provided and more friends, this time from the radical social centre 56A, provided bike maintenance free of charge. And finally there was a free shop giving away clothes free of charge.

The Transition movement is all about creating community reliance with bottom up solutions but it is also about having fun with your neighbours, family and friends. For me, Hayes Carnival showed how a community can come together and be a showcase for a better future.

For photos of the day check our flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47991844@N06/sets/72157624348584707/

Art activists visit Grow Heathrow – Tara’s blog

The week, from 21st – 25th June, was a brilliantly mad one as the Interference group – a group of over 20 radical artists, activists and individuals, learnt about the links between art and activism.

We went on a day trip to the Grow Heathrow camp in the village of Sipson, the village recently saved from destruction due to the cancellation of the third runway.

As we arrived the group was having introductory talks from Paddy. I was busy being horrendously late, and had to wait for someone to find the keys for the gate. Looking over at the row of greenhouses it looked homely and welcoming, and I got to chat to some of the long term people on the site who’d been working to turn this land into an organic market garden from March. It was easy to see the huge commitment made to the site as derelict greenhouses had been restored to working spaces full of plants, sofas and working equipment (all donated mostly from the local community). There were several tonnes of rubbish on site that the local residents had convinced Hillingdon council to clear free of charge.

What Interference has found so inspiring from this is that it found activism at its extreme end and at its most potent, working with local communities for real change and long term goals. The land itself is also gorgeous, although ridiculously hot in the summer heat. It was a fully working mini village, with living space, toilets and plenty of food growing around us. The people at Grow Heathrow welcomes visitors with workshops and talks about climate change, permaculture and the surrounding issues of these.

My main task for the day was helping to create lunch with Kasha and Lisa from Interference. We already had chilli cooked by Sam and Mark, as well as some little extras, and finding the communal kitchen wonderful to use, decided to get a little bit ambitious. I made my best ever pot of rice, fried some potatoes and made red onion marmalade using the supplies generously given to us by the Grow Heathrow team. We all had a fantastic lunch in the shade, following a morning of the Interference group helping out on site with construction and gardening.

During the afternoon, fully inspired by the visit, we went off in our groups across the rest of the site to plan our own actions the next day around east London (you can read all about that in our book ‘A piece of the action’ self published and released, or have a look at our flickr account for a visual account of the week, including our time at Grow Heathrow).

Having moved away from Hounslow recently I’m looking forward to returning to that wonderful place (as are many other Interference people!) for the working weekend coming on —- where volunteers once again will pitch their fork into making the land functional and beautiful. Come and join us there!

Revolution disguised as gardening

Two permaculture teachers, enthusiastic about Grow Heathrow, gave a free three day course there earlier this week. It was attended by over 20 people including local residents and supporters from further afield. Proving the maxim that resistance is fertile, some of the attendees are planning to start an eco-village land squat in West London later this month, armed with knowledge from their visit.

Permaculture is a set of approaches to help us create a permanent culture – on which land and food systems sustain life rather than being ravaged in the persuit of profit, and in which there is no space for aviation. It’s about working with natural systems rather than against them, both in our relationships with soil and plants, but also with each other, with social and political systems. It’s revolution disguised as gardening.

For more information about permaculture, check out the Permaculture Association.

Rambling thoughts from the garden…

I’ve just finished my first cup of tea of the day as a robin flew around the greenhouses greeting me. Our routine at the garden has started settling into place, albeit with many interesting turns of events along the way.

One such event occurred a few nights ago. A police helicopter was circling overhead and we presumed that it was simply passing. However, as the nuisance persisted, 3 police cars pulled up at the site explaining that the helicopter was initially passing over until it noticed ‘a commotion – possibly protesters or terrorists’. This ‘commotion’ was in fact some friends from the Kew Eco Village joining us for dinner! Several neighbours and friends including Tracy, Linda, Geraldine and John McDonnell, our local MP, turned up to see what was happening. In the end the police left with their tails between their legs and we even got an apologetic visit from them the next day.

Other aspects of the garden adventure have been more productive. Our kitchen at the back of the first greenhouse is rapidly becoming the social hub of the site, complete with a hammock for lounging. It’s looking very beautiful with our collective artwork sprucing it up. There’s still lots more to do all over the site, but hopefully this weekend, the 27th – 28th March, will be fruitful in terms of numbers of visitors. We hope to build a compost toilet, glaze and repair some of the panes of glass in the greenhouses, and pot lots of fruit and veg. The front area is now clear and raked, ready for us to sow a meadow on Sunday. In the summer it will hopefully be glorious and flourishing.

A couple of pigeons are perching on the top of the greenhouse as I write; it’s nice to share quiet times with birds and bees. We couldn’t have got this far without the help, support and donations of countless people. The further we progress, the further our aspirations for the site grow. Who knows, maybe one day soon we’ll even get rid of the mound of rubbish that we’ve cleared out!

Grow Heathrow ready for take off

Beginning our new project on the first day in March was always going to be tricky, but even Spring was on side. For Transition Heathrow’s latest project we’ve gone back to the land, turning a neglected scrap in the heart of the third runway into a thriving market garden for the community.

After the successful site take on the Monday, in which about 20 people secured our new site, we spent an intense week in the sun clearing and cleaning up the mess left behind by previous tenants. The amount of rubbish was monumental, but by the weekend we felt ready to open the gates and welcomed in the community.

The support we’ve had from the local community, and particularly from those on whose doorsteps we’ve set up, has been staggering. We posted a wish list of stuff we needed and by the weekend had mostly fulfilled it. From food parcels to blankets, we’ve been supremely well looked after by our new neighbours.

Over the weekend an incredible mix of people came together and spent two days in the glorious sunshine restoring the greenhouses to their former glory. It’s hard to describe just how positive the atmosphere was, especially when people were primarily clearing rubbish. We had kids painting tyres to grow potatoes in; mass raking to clear up the broken glass and bender building to establish a beautiful shelter for our front gate. By the end of the weekend we were all exhausted, but exhilarated, by the amount we’d managed to achieve in such a short space of time.

This project is definitely a good antidote for anyone feeling overwhelmed post-Copenhagen, or depressed after reading 1,000 comments on the Guardian dissing climate science. Making a tangible difference in a community that has been blighted for so many years by the overhanging threat of airport expansion is wonderfully empowering, and there’s plenty for people to do to get their hands dirty.

As a good friend of ours said about the project, “people should stop talking about the resistance, and come here and live it instead.”

For more information email info@transitionheathrow.com or if you want to come and join us for a day’s work call the site phone on 07890751568.

Swoop on abandoned market garden

Today , community activists from the group Transition Heathrow [1] moved into an abandoned market garden in Sipson. [2] Around lunchtime, about 20 people “swooped” [3] on the land in Sipson, one of the villages due for demolition if the third runway at Heathrow goes ahead. [4] After securing the site, the group immediately informed their new neighbours and local residents of their intention to reopen the old market garden for the benefit of the local community.

The ‘Grow Heathrow’ project aims to encourage and support locally grown produce in an area that once had some of the most fertile soils in Britain. Transition Heathrow has launched the project to highlight the need for a community controlled food supply in order to remain resilient to the impacts of peak oil and climate change. It intends to use the old market garden not only for growing, but also for activities such as bike workshops, clothes making, solidarity support for local workers and direct action workshops for people trying to stop the third runway.

Transition Heathrow member and local resident Joe Rake, described the events of the day. “Around lunchtime, a group of us walked onto the site. Once we had secured the gate, we set about telling local residents why we were there and inviting them to join in. We also had to start tidying up as it appeared to have been used for scrapping cars. Since the last tenants were evicted, the site has attracted unsavoury characters, so we wanted to restart the market garden for the good of the local community.”

Many of those involved in the ‘swoop’ see today’s action as a positive way of resisting the third runway whilst building an alternative community solution in its place.

Heathrow resident Amy Summer said “We’ve been fighting the threat of the third runway for years, and its blighted our community. This kind of action not only helps stop expansion but also helps regenerate the area, providing local skills, green jobs and organic produce instead.”

She added, “This form of direct action is just as important as sitting on a runway, blockading the bulldozers or striking for more green jobs. There’s no point in growing your own veg if it’s going to be covered in tarmac by BAA. At the same time there’s no point in community resistance if there’s no community left to defend. We have to do both.”

Notes:

[1] Transition Heathrow is a grassroots action group aiming to draw out the juxtaposition of sustainability and airport expansion, as part of the Transition Towns Network. It was established in October 2009 by Plane Stupid activists and Climate Campers who have been working with local residents. For more info see www.transitionheathrow.com

[2] Berkeley Nursery in Sipson has been derelict since the last tenants were evicted by the council. Local residents say they were using the site to scrap cars. Previously, the site had been used to grow fruit and vegetables as one of the many local market gardens.

[3] The ‘swoop’ is a term recently used by climate activists to refer to the sudden arrival of people on a site, often linked to land occupation or sites of protest.

[4] The third runway at Heathrow will demolish more than 700 homes around Sipson, Harmondsworth and Harlington, and will leave many more homes uninhabitable as they find themselves at the end of a runway.

Site phone number: 07890751568