First Abundance London Fruit Day

Celebration of Chiswick’s fruit harvest at St Michael and All Angels

Abundance London held its first festival on 16th October, at St Michael & All Angels, Chiswick.

On the day, local tree owners turned up with baskets and even trolley-loads full of fruit to juice.

The huge 60-litre press was kept busy from start to finish, and there was a queue for the delicious fruit juice. All the chutneys, preserves, cakes and cordials sold out, and the plant swap stall swapped all its plants and then ended up selling everything to those who had bought no plants to swap. The apple bobbers and bicycle – powered smoothie machine were kept busy with damp and busy-pedalling children.

The longest fruit peel competitions were won by Michael with 1.97m for the adult prize, and Tom with 70cm for kid’s prize. Sadly, that was not an Apple Day record, so Chiswick must do better next year!

"We would like to thank the kids and staff at our participating schools – Belmont, Cavendish, Grove Park, Strand-on-the-Green, St Peter’s – who put up fruit maps, went out on picking parties, cooked, jammed, preserved, and some of whom had a stall at the Fruit Day and raised loads of money for their schools. We hope you had fun and learned about fruity stuff," said Project Co-ordinators Sarah Cruz and Karen Liebreich.

"Thank you to Torin Douglas and all at St Michael’s and all Angels for their help and patience. We would also like to thank our generous and courageous sponsors Eco-Age, Outsider Tart, Sam’s Brasserie and the London Borough of Hounslow, who all took a punt on us in this, our first Abundance Day.

"I gather that Outsider Tart and Sam’s Brasserie, cooking with some of our locally-gathered fresh ingredients, also sold out of their tasty food on the day. And many thanks to all who helped the day to be such a lot of fun: Chiswick Boot Camp who ran the fruit races; Carola Schulman for the jam-making workshop, and all the other volunteers.

"And of course, thank you to the tree owners, who invited us into their gardens to harvest their surplus fruit. If you still have fruit on your trees, let us know; if you want to be added to the map for next year, so we can help out if you have too much, let us know.

"Check out the updated Abundance Fruit map on www.abundancelondon.com and email us if you have any new suggestions. Next year –more trees, more fruit, more jam, more schools, more fun…"

October 19, 2010