Black Bunting

Here's the Jaywick Escapes stall at the Summer Fayre - I was very pleased with our black bunting, we even matched the award-winning majorettes.

Posted Saturday 8th August, 2009 at 9:49 am by Nina

Jaywick Escapes

...is our working title for our consultancy / lead artist-ry with Essex County Council in and around the shabby but very interesting Essex town of Jaywick, where we have been asked to develop new proposals for improving the town's green spaces.
Earlier this week I spent a night in neighbouring Clacton-on-Sea where the seafront has a fairly recently revived Edwardian garden full of traditional carpet bedding, which is so lurid that - as our project colleague Crispin said - "it does funny things to your eyes".
As a girl brought up in a Scottish seaside town, I have an abiding affection for this most unfashionable horticultural habit, unsustainable and frankly crass as it may be to buy thousands of tender, freakish plants from Holland, nurse them along in the reluctant British summer only to compost them just a few months later. I also think bedding now has a historic legitimacy, just as the more decorous revived knot gardens have a place within certain restoration projects.
Of course Jeff Koons has used bedding to great effect in works like his giant 'Puppy' but I don't know what if any place Victorian / Edwardian era bedding has in the American cultural or social past, what it speaks of there.
We haven't found any stretches of bedding in Jaywick though there are some very colourful planters here and there, and some very charming private gardens. There is something about the lavishness of the Clacton bedding, its sheer bling, in comparison, that speaks volumes about the status of these neighbouring towns...

Posted Thursday 6th August, 2009 at 8:19 pm by Karen

Big Summer Puddings

We had a great time at the Big Lunch with the Friends of Abbey Gardens ... kind of a launch for the garden too (well we bought two awnings so I guess that's a sign!).

For my money the best pudding prize was a close run thing between Karen's Summer Pudding (seen here) and Stanislava's Bulgarian chocolate triangle (pictured on the WWTHB blog).

More pictures from the day are on our Flickr Group and there's one for the whole nation wide Big Lunch project.

Posted Wednesday 22nd July, 2009 at 3:04 pm by Nina

Friends of Abbey Gardens Big Lunch

We are really pleased with all the progress made creating this year’s Harvest Garden. To celebrate all this hard work The Friends of Abbey Gardens are hosting a lunch in the garden:

THE BIG LUNCH ON 19 JULY 2009

This is just around the corner, so while all our salad crops are sprouting keep your fingers crossed that the weather will be on our side for the 19th so that we can enjoy a lunch together in Abbey Gardens.

The program of the day will be as follows:

• 10 - 12am – regular Gardening Club preparing the lunch!
• 12am - garden opens
• 1pm - a small ceremony to mark the completion of the garden including a musical performance by a local resident
• 1:15pm - lunch served, BBQ (provided by Friends), salads grown in Abbey Gardens, home-made bread
• Followed by pudding – this is going to be “Jacob’s Join” so please bring cakes, puddings or fruit to share.
• Anytime - stroll around the garden, check out how the plants are doing, chat and enjoy the day
• Kids can make mud pies or join the “tots drama circle”.
• 4pm - end of Big Lunch

If you are planning to join us for the Big Lunch we would like to ask you to let us know by sending a message to:
mail 'at ' abbeygardens.org by 13 July 2009 so that we have some idea of how big the Big Lunch will be!

Some practical notes:
• We would like to ask you to bring your own picnic stuff (plates, cutlery, cups) and a chair.
• Any donations of other food to share (aside from the puddings) will be welcome, but please can you let us know as part of the RSVP what you would like to make. Home grown produce would obviously go down well!
• The Friends will be supplying some soft drinks and beverages but again you are very welcome to supplement these with a bring your own bottle.
• Please feel welcome to bring any musical instruments for improvised musical entertainment.
• Be prepared for rain or sun – there isn’t much shade in the garden.

We are very excited about the Big Lunch and we hope that many of you will be able to join us on the day to celebrate all the progress we have made together.

Our Big Lunch will be part of a nationwide event – click here for more information

Posted Thursday 9th July, 2009 at 11:02 am by Nina

Working Weekends

Work continues at Abbey Gardens despite soaring summer temperatures and this weekend will be a busy one for planting again:

The 4th & 5th of July the site will be open 10 - 5 again for both Saturday and Sunday planting sessions on the final beds. Karen, Chris and I will all be there on Saturday and FOAG will be over seeing the planting on Sunday, with Chris joining in the afternoon.

As from next week the site will be open 3 times a week for the garden club sessions at the following times:

Free Garden Club Sessions (June - Nov 2009)
Saturdays 10.00 am - 2.00 pm
Tuesdays 10.00 - 1.00 pm
Thursdays 5.00 pm - dusk

These sessions run right through the summer but once FOAG have an official site lease from the council the site will also be open each day for people to enjoy, we anticipate this starting in August.

Many thanks to everyone who has helped out so far.

Posted Friday 3rd July, 2009 at 9:17 am by Nina

Busy weekend (27th & 28th of June)

We're making progress at Abbey Gardens and a huge thanks to everyone who came down last weekend with all their seedlings. We have a VERY impressive selection to use in the garden.

Although some of the raised beds are still being constructed from next week we will be officially starting our Garden Club sessions led by Chris
chris 'at' whatwilltheharvestbe.com

These run at the following times - all welcome - there's a variety of jobs from mulching to planting, everyone can help out - beginners or experts!

Free Garden Club Sessions (June - Nov 2009)

Saturdays 10.00 am - 2.00 pm
Tuesdays 10.00 - 1.00 pm
Thursdays 5.00 pm - dusk

This weekend (27th & 28th of June) we have a bumper two day session -
Chris will be leading there all day Saturday (10-5)
and Nina will be there all day Sunday (10 - 5)
All welcome, why not bring a packed lunch & join for the day.

On Sunday you might also want to visit our friends at Three Mills where FOAG have a stall as part of the The Story of Three Mills Island event.

Looking forward to seeing you on site

Posted Friday 26th June, 2009 at 11:11 am by Nina

It's fun to 'trespass' kids...

Sandwiched between the slow progress on What will the Harvest Be? Somewhere had a day at the seaside c/o our Jaywick Parklands project, helping redesign the diverse green spaces around this down-at-heel but very inspiring bit of the Essex seaside.
We took Year 11 kids from Frobisher School on an unorthadox ramble across where once the local trainline went - and found that though the land is now in local development authority ownership - certain local factions believed otherwise. An informative scene where our merry band were challenged by a man on horseback failed to temper enthusiasm for the adventure...

Posted Thursday 18th June, 2009 at 11:09 pm by Karen

Abbey Gardens Needs You!

We really need volunteers this week (15th - 19th of June) to help us construct and fill 800M of raised beds.
If you have a spare day, or even an hour after work, come down to the site and we will find a way for you to help out. It's helpful to let Chris our Garden Club Leader know you're coming (chris 'at' whatwilltheharvestbe.com or 07723 733056), but you can also just drop by and ask for Nina, Karen or Chris. The wonderful construction team (led by Danny from City Wood) are happy to accommodate helpers in their team, or you can just get stuck in to the literal mountain of topsoil we need to move.

We take all types of help and a massive thanks goes to Joan who today bought down home made buns for the whole team - they were massively appreciated.

Hope to see you on the wheelbarrow line.

Posted Wednesday 17th June, 2009 at 10:29 pm by Nina

Watch us work or ...

Thanks to a neat bit of work by the lovely Dorian Moore, brothers French & Keith Roberts at Newham you can now watch us work at Abbey Gardens ... and it's very hard work!

*Click here to see the live webcam*

Better still you can come down and help in person!!

Posted Monday 15th June, 2009 at 9:15 am by Nina

Day one - a tube strike and it's raining

At last we have started to layout the shape of the Harvest Garden at Abbey Gardens.

Day one was quite challenging! This is the team committed to marking out the site despite the rain and tube strike ...

Posted Friday 12th June, 2009 at 10:14 pm by Nina