Golden conkers and champion chutneys

Sunday saw the crowning of Rachel as the Golden Conker Champion, but not without a fiercely fought competition. Whilst the tournament took place in the spectacular conker platform, the sun was shining and pungent smells of delicious apple chutney wafted through the greenhouses.

Thirty people enjoyed a day of chutney and jam making from fruit scrumped from the Heathrow villages a couple of weeks before. An amazing apple press made by Dai and Oscar provided us all with the most scrumptious juice, as we all shared recipes and ideas about storing the fruit for the winter. It was wonderful to see lots of new faces in Grow Heathrow, all getting stuck in and directly taking action on food security by growing food for surrounding communities.

The tension mounted as conkers were selected, knots tied tightly and safety goggles adorned for the start of the Heathrow Villages Conker Championships 2010. Ringmaster Rob got the tournament going and provided endless entertainment with his compering. Conkers were obliterated and some of the games dragged out to sudden death. But as competitors were knocked out, it was down to Juan Stan (aka Joe) and Mexican Day Of The Dead (aka Rachel) in the final. Stampsies was the word of the day, but even so Rachel was the winner and took home the golden conker for the girls.

Overall everyone had a fabulous day of learning, laughing, tasting, playing and sharing. Now is the time to build communities as we are doing in Heathrow; learning about food security and sharing skills for a post-oil future. To see what real community resilience in action looks like, David Cameron should come down to Sipson.

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.

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.

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