Here are some projects, organisations, or fun things you might be interested in. Feel free to suggest others in the comments box below.
Forest Fields Gardening Club
At the Sumac Centre, 245 Gladstone St, Forest Fields
Volunteer days: Tuesdays 2pm – dusk
This is a food garden set up in the heart of Forest Fields. It aims to provide a space where local people can get experience of growing organic food, and get ideas, plants and resources for growing in their own spaces. Come along on our volunteer days whether you are wanting to get your hands dirty, or just see our garden and get inspiration about what you can do in small spaces.
No website yet, but you can keep up-to-date via the Sumac website.
Cool Temperate Nurseries
This is where we got all the trees for the Forest Fields Orchard Project from. Phil Corbett, who runs the nursery, was really helpful in suggesting the best varieties for what we wanted to do, and made sure we got them at a very good price. If you’re looking for more fruit trees and bushes, and all sorts of information about sustainable food growing, this is a great place to start.
Abundance
Abundance Nottingham is a project to harvest the seasonal glut of local fruit like apples, pear and plums. Each year hundreds of fruit trees go unpicked either because people don’t notice them, may not be physically able to harvest them or there are just too many fruits at one time.
Abundance is a team of volunteers who help harvest city fruit and redistribute the surplus to the community on a non-profit basis – to community cafes, nurseries, and individuals.
Transition Towns
The Forest Fields Orchard Project is directly inspired by the Transition Towns movement, which is based on the idea that not only do we need to cut carbon emissions dramatically to reduce the impact of climate change, but that we will have to cut them anyway as oil becomes more and more expensive and, eventually, runs out. The implications of doing without cheap oil – for food production, transport, house-building, heating, clothing, consumer goods – are massive, and it could take decades to successfully make the change (the ‘transition’) from the way we live now to the way we will need to live in the future.
Transition Towns are communities across the world who are taking on this challenge right now – thinking about how it could best be achieved, and taking practical steps towards it.
For more information on the Transition Towns concept, and some of the ideas (and evidence) behind it, go to their website. Or keep it local and go to….
Transition Nottingham
and
Transition Forest Fields
The Transition Towns movement is obviously all about doing things at a very local level. Transition Nottingham, and the numerous local Transition groups which feed into it, have been busy for the last few years – thinking, planning, and most of all doing things which will begin to lead the way towards a future which isn’t dependent on cheap oil. Get involved!
Sprout
Sprout is a Nottingham wide scheme, funded by v, the national youth volunteering charity, offering young people the opportunity to run their own environmental project. If you’re aged 16 – 25 and interested in starting and running a project that will have a positive impact on the environment, then we can provide advice, support, training, and funding to make it happen.
If this isn’t for you, you can get involved with our one or two-day environmental events and campaigns. Amongst other things, we’ll be community gardening, allotment clearing, and raising awareness of environmental issues.
Veggies Catering Campaign
Whenever you’re doing a project that involves volunteers, those volunteers need feeding. And no-one does feeding better than Veggies. Contact them for all your catering needs….
St Ann’s Community Orchard
St Ann’s Community Orchard, within the Hungerhill Allotments site, is a lively hub of educational and community life centered on local children and families. It was set up in September 2001 on several overgrown allotments. The plots – which include mature fruit trees, a pond and a stream – were cleared and planted up by volunteers, schools and community groups. Check their website for details of the many activity days and educational programmes they run – it’s a lovely, inspiring place to be. And they know their apples.
Other resources on apples and fruit growing to follow…
