Abundance Manchester is a project which aims to harvest surplus or unwanted fruit from gardens and public trees around South Manchester and distribute it to local groups and communities who need it. We also collect and distribute surplus vegetables from allotments and we have started our own Abundance allotment to grow our own fruit and vegetables to donate to groups who can make good use of it.
Do you have a fruit tree in your garden? Surplus veg in your allotment?
If you have a fruit tree in your garden and have surplus fruit, or are physically unable to pick the fruit, please get in touch! We will come and help harvest the fruit, and you will get the first share. We can come and pick fruit from Chorlton, Whalley Range, Moss Side, Rusholme, Didsbury and Ladybarn. Please also get in touch if you would like to donate surplus vegetables from your allotment.
What will we do we with the fruit/veg?
We will distribute the fruit/veg to local groups that can make good use of it, e.g. refugee and asylum seeker groups. Please also get in touch if you want to receive fruit for your group or organisation. If we have too much of any one fruit we will make jams, pickles and preserves.
Do you want to help us? Please also get in touch if you are interested in joining our group! We need people to help pick the fruit, preserve it, distribute it, and assist with the general running of our group and help grow veg.
As Abundance Manchester, we operate in the South Manchester area, encompassing Hulme, Moss side, Fallowfield, Ladybarn, Withington, Whalley Range, and Didsbury. We would like to encourage other groups to form in other areas of Greater Manchester and beyond, and can help facilitate this. We also have some details from people who have contacted us about surplus fruit in areas including Sale and Trafford. So please check out our toolkit and get in touch if you are thinking of starting your own group! A project can be as simple as a few fruit picking sessions or directly linking up growers with surplus fruit to community groups in need..
am local and interested in helping out if you need volunters
Hi Abundance Manchester
Do you have a group like this in the Surrey area more specifically within Croydon. I know of a few people who would love to help in their spare time. Or if there isn’t one how do I start up an Abundance Croydon!!!
Thanks
Lornatic
Hi,
Saw your post on the Manchester Abundance site. I thought you may be interested in a few things that are going on nearer your neck of the woods. You may already know about these:
Brixton Abundance – http://transitiontowns.org/Brixton/ABUNDANCE
Capital Growth – run through out London to help create 2012 new food growing spaces by 2012. http://www.capitalgrowth.org – provides support, advice and in some cases funding,tools,etc.
London Orchards Project – (some abundance projects are particularly interested in the scrumping side of things – carina@thelondonorchardproject.org
London Food Link – linking with like minded people and projects throughout London – http://www.londonfoodlink.org
Good luck with setting up a Croydon Abundance – you may be able to recruit some like minded people through Diana Battaglia’s green Croydon mailing list – Diana.Battaglia@croydon.gov.uk
Ben
Hi after watching the River Side Cottage programme i was really interested in your project.
I am the Manager of a Community Centre in Heywood and am really keen to start a project like yours going in our area.
Can you spare some time to talk with me and give me some advice.
If so please email me at above address anytime or ring me on 01706 620340.I work Mon, Tues,Wed,8 till 3.
Many thanks
Louise
Louise have you been able to set a scheme up in your area?
what a fantastic idea
perhaps this could be copied in other areas
i would love to be involved if there was something happening localy
i am in bradford
Hi
Could you please get in touch as I work for a supported housing project in Old Trafford and would like to know if there is anything you could help our service users with for christmas.
Kind Regards
Louise Barlow
Hope Manchester
0161 877 0287
adhopemanchester@hotmail.com
Hi,
I saw some information about the project at the Potato Day at Hulme Garden Centre and would like to put some information in Manchester Organic Gardeners Journal about the Abundance Project. Is it OK with you if I reproduce some of the information from the website for the Journal or do you have a press release I could use. Its good to hear of such a worthy project. It may well be that some of our members will be interested in getting involved.
I am hoping to go to the printers next Friday 13th March, so I’d be grateful if you can get back to me before then.
Many thanks
Margaret Bebbington
Editor, Manchester Organic Gardeners
Here’s the start of a description/press release/who we are… feel free to amend
Abundance Manchester is a great new community project that harvests fruit and veg from people’s gardens and allotments that would otherwise be wasted, and re-distributes it (mostly in bike trailers) to people in need. After a really successful first year, the project has also started to develop its own veg plot in an unused corner of a car park in West Didsbury, where fruit and veg will be produced organically and given away.
As well as creating a practical solution to the waste that can happen when people have ‘gluts’ of a particular crop, connecting diverse groups of people though sharing out produce and providing an excuse to climb apple trees, the project aims to demonstrate just how much is potential there is for feeding ourselves in cities. There are already so many fruit trees and bushes that people don’t have time to look after, and even more potential patches of land in gardens and public spaces that could be used for food production. Just imagine a city where fresh herbs grew in municipal hanging baskets, nut trees flourished in parks, and beans climbed up the sides of office buildings.
Making the most of what can be produced in our own city cuts food miles, re-connects people with their food and immediate environment, re-skills participants in gardening and practical skills, improves bio-diversity and livens up grey spaces. If you would like to help out with the allotment now or to harvest fruit later in the year, please get in touch! Equally, if you have or know of produce that will be going begging at harvest time, please let Abundance know now so they can plan to come pick it!
Would like to join Abundance Manchester but I leave in Salford. If I can join please get in touch. Hoon
Hello
Thanks for coming to speak to us at the WI. I’ve added a link to you from the Friends of Didsbury Park website. Hope to be able to start volunteering with you soon!
Rachel
WI/Friends of Didsbury Park
Hello
I was at Climate Camp in London today and sorry to have missed you. 30 of us discussed food projects and what we’re doing. I’m starting an apple harvesting project locally, around Kilburn, NW6. Can you tell me how to make home made apple pickers please? Is it as simple as a pole with a cut-down plastic water bottle on top?
Thanks
Michael
That’s great you’re starting another fruit picking project, I’d be very interested to hear how it goes. Yes the fruit pickers are just poles with upside down cut in half plastic bottles taped on the end- they work surprisingly well!
Leonie (Abundance Manchester)
I too am very inspired by your project and would like to see if it is something that could be replicated in Conwy, North Wales. Does anyone have any time to have a chat about how you set up and how you have located harvest sites?
01492596783
Thanks
Katie
hi,
i enjoyed your workshop at climate camp.
i’d like to collect names of people interested in starting Abundance Haringey (North London).
Please anyone get in touch with me if you have advice or would like to get involved
gemma
harrisgemma@hotmail.com
Hello,
I wanted to invite you or anybody who might be interested to an event called ‘Finding the Plot’ and it is for food growing communities who want to find ways to access land, it is on the 21st of October in Reading and it promises to be really good. If you need any information please contact me on intuitivecook@gmail.com Thank you.
Hi, I am really impressed with what Abundance are doing and would love to get involved. Please email me details of meetings and the jobs I could do as a volunteer with you. I live in Prestwich and would love there to be a project set up for North Manchester as well as the South. I have a large garden with plum tree and blackcurrant bushes and I’ve tried growing various things in the past. Maybe i could grow stuff specifically for abundance in my garden or organise a group allotment locally. I look forward to hearing from you.
Kam (0161 7207911)
Hi,
I’m really interested in what you are doing. Can you get in touch via the above email? I’m working on a celebration of Manchester that it would be ace for you to be a part of
Cheers,
Dan
Hello I’m working on a website for grandparents, to be published in January. I want to write about your project and others – could I ‘borrow’ your picture – the one with the word Abundance carved in a log – to illustrate it? Please let me know, asap – 020 8840 8890/07860 515 217. Cheers,
Gill Adams
Hi there
Just looking for any like minded people and contacts for a group in East Sussex?
Thanks
Dear All,
I thought you might be interested in the conference Local Action on Food and Sustain are orgaining on 25th June in London on the economic viability of community food growing projects.
Go here for more information http://www.sustainweb.org/localactiononfood/local_food_events/
It’s going to be a great day on a subject that is crucial for the urban agriculture movement.
Best,
Anna
[...] where communities come together to collect and press the fruit. Residents can join schemes in Manchester, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Sheffield and Leeds, to name but a few, where volunteers collect surplus [...]
Hi, I’m thinking of getting together a group for the Bolton area, what advice would you give, if you have time to give advice?!
Are there any other people who might be interested in getting this project going in Bolton?
Hi Gale,
Here’s the link to our page on how to set up your own Abundance! Feel free to get in touch if you have any further questions.
http://abundancemanchester.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/create-your-own-abundance/
Good luck with it!
Your apple and pear juice was beautiful
will definately come and see you again x