Transition Chesterfield

As summer wears on, the fruit grows heavy on the trees. Soon plums will be ripening, then apples, then more apples. All around us, in gardens and on roadsides, trees are pushing out bushel-loads of delicious, healthy, chem-free fruit, only for it to drop to the ground and be eaten by slugs, while we drive to the supermarket to buy fruit flown around the world and wrapped in styrofoam.

 

Abundance is an attempt to get us back to some semblance of a sensible relationship with fruit. We identify trees with neglected fruit, organise teams of volunteers to harvest them, and distribute the fruit for free – to the tree owner, to the volunteers, and to the community, starting with homeless people and children, but hopefully there will be enough so that everyone can get a taste.

 

Abundance has been happening in Sheffield for a few years and they’ve got over 250 trees on their database, the equivalent of an invisible orchard in the middle of the city. How many trees can we find in Chesterfield? We’ve got a few already but we would like to hear from you if you know of any. We’ll talk to the owners if you don’t want to.

 

We’re also looking for volunteers, not just for picking, but for transporting, storing, and processing. Some of the fruit will have to be made into pies, jams, chutneys, etc.

 

 

For more on Abundance in Sheffield (and inspiration for what we could be doing here) click here to visit the Grow Sheffield website.