Who We Are

Abundance Manchester is a voluntary project which picks surplus or unwanted fruit from gardens and public trees around South Manchester and distributes it to local groups and communities. We also collect and distribute surplus vegetables from allotments and have our own Abundance allotment to grow food for groups who can make good use of it. We are also currently looking after Kenworthy Community Orchard in Chorlton. Below you will find the latest updates on the project.

To get in touch please email abundancemanchester@yahoo.co.uk

Kenworthy Orchard Project

Various activities are in the pipeline for Winter 2011/2012, including a raspberry day on Sunday Jan 22nd, apple pruning on Sunday Feb 19, and more feeding of the trees at some point soon.  Jan meeting Friday 13th Feb, 7.30 pm, in Hulme. All welcome. See the Kenworthy Orchard page for more details.

Making Local Fruit Work

28 January 2012 10:00 – 28 January 2012 16:00

Todmorden Unitarian Church, Honey Hole Road, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, OL14 6LE

Abundance Manchester is participating in this event, if you are interested in local fruity activities do come along!

Join the Making Local Food Work team and Incredible Edible Todmorden for a day of workshops, networking and inspiration. The day will be a mixture of inspirational case studies combined with an Open Space session to explore new models, partnerships and opportunities around sustainable local fruit production.

This event is FREE and is suitable for those involved with:

• Community Orchards / Fruit-based Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) / Abundance projects  / Scrumping projects  / Transition Initiatives / Cider co-ops Orchard Groups

…or just anyone with an interest in creating sustainable livelihoods and community enterprises around local fruit.

You are encouraged to bring stalls, displays, produce, scions, ideas, opinions, co-workers, friends and colleagues for a real festival of fruity enterprise.

To book go to www.makinglocalfoodwork.co.uk/fruit If you would like more information prior to booking then please contact us on 0161 246 2907 or by e-mail: mlfw@uk.coop

Orchard Meeting 13th January 2012

Abundance meets regularly to plan activities, discuss progress, and distribute tasks. This is usually a core group of 4 or 5 people, but we are keen to get a few more people involved. Next meeting Friday 13th Jan, open to anyone who’d like to get more involved or just wants to find out more about what we’re doing at Kenworthy. The meeting will be at the Work for Change offices in Hulme, M15 5RF, in the Yellowbricks (same building as Kim by the Sea).  Facing Kims, head to your left to the end of that building and turn right around the corner onto Geoge Parr Road. The entrance to the offices is a red door on your right about halfway along the building. If no-one’s there to let you in, ring on 07967 227 981. We’ll probably have a drink round the corner afterwards at Kims.

All Welcome!

Picking over for 2011

We’ve had a great season with tonnes of apples and veg harvested and delivered to appreciative local projects. But now apple season is all but over we’ve called it a day on that side of our work. If you have surplus fruit you can always take it directly to a local hostel or community project – or even offer it to your local school. We’re now being kept busy with orchard maintenance activities at Kenworthy Community Orchard, see that page for more.

Veg Plot Update

In the Spring of 2011 we decided to turn the plot over to fruit production rather than veg growing, and to no longer run it as a community plot. It’s a sad decision but we have had serious problems with a colony of biting ants that have invaded the site, making it an unpleasant working environment. We have been unable to get rid of these despite trying  various organic methods. For this reason we will slowly be turning the land over to lower maintenance perennial crops – mostly tree and bush fruit that requires little soil disturbance. We will manage the site as a small core group. Thank you to everyone that has participated in growing veg at the site, we hope you’ve enjoyed it and if anyone is interested in helping out with looking after the plot regularly that would be great – but we are no longer holding open plot sessions on Sundays. However the plot will continue to provide  local, organically grown produce to people who can make good use of it.

Picking Sep 17th 2011

There truly was an abundance of fruit to be picked on Saturday with just 2 gardens containing a total of 8 fruit trees! Mostly apples, some cooker and some eaters although each garden had a pear tree as well. Some new faces joined some regular pickers and despite a slight drenching we had a great day. Thanks to everyone who came along. Join us next week, details will be emailed out on mailing list.

Abundant apples, grapes…and figs!

Yes…figs!!! Last Saturday Abundance Manchester picked two trailers of delicious and juicy eating apples, plus grapes and figs all from Didsbury! These will go to the Boaz Trust which helps destitute asylum seekers (see our Food Growing section), and The Roby (Longsight) which provides freshly cooked food to people with mental wellbeing needs.

Picking Sep 18th 2010

On Saturday 8 of us visited 4 houses in Didsbury & Withington to harvest a mixture of cooking and eating apple trees plus a couple of pears. They included the biggest pear tree in the world, well we don’t know what the record is but this one was definitely a contender. The rain mostly held off until we were safely tucked away enjoying a post-picking coffee & cake.

The fruit was taken to our veg plot, joined by veg kindly dropped off by local allotment sites, plus our own veg from the plot. We left large mixed boxes of fruit & veg for collection by HARP mental health project and The Boaz Trust (who look after destitute refugees), plus we took a bike-trailer full of apples to Cornerstone day centre and a boot-full to the Salvation Army hostel in town. A good weekend overall! Thanks to everyone who participated.

Pruning & harvesting during food growing workshops

Participants of Abundance Manchester’s food growing workshops have begun to teach others veg  gardening skills! Here’s Rudo (left photo, on right) passing on her great tomato pruning tips!

In September a few of us harvested blackberries along the Fallowfield loop in Levenshulme – it was a perfectly sunny, autumnal morning. Elizabeth (left) and Jubreti (right) each managed to find a few handfuls!

The garden has been nurtured by people seeking asylum in the UK, some of whom regularly volunteer at the Abundance Manchester plot and help to grow food that is then distributed to those in need.

MCC’s Carbon Innovation Fund has enabled Abundance Manchester to run these much needed workshops.