What Will The Harvest Be? - Original Proposals
These are our original proposals for the site at Abbey Gardens:
Introduction
‘What Will The Harvest Be’ includes a period of directed social
engagement and, in time, the creation of a unique permanent garden.
This project, like other important and memorable gardens, will
articulate the site’s histories and offer scope for dynamic change
brought about by both people and nature.
Our proposal brings together the folk-aesthetic inventiveness of
Britain’s amateur allotment-style gardens with historic site
references, cutting-edge green technologies and the opulence of the
classic English ‘civic park’ at its heyday. Our ambition is to
create a garden that is innovative and significant both socially
and horticulturally.
Development Process
Our proposals for Abbey Gardens cover 3 years of development (2008
– 2010). This will commence with a socially engaged period of
project advocacy and hands-on horticultural projects to establish
the scope and ambition of the local gardening community with regard
to the site. During this initial 2-year period an outline design
for the permanent garden planned on site will develop. This dynamic
period will particularly inform the design and sensibility of a
proposed community ‘section’ of the garden.
Overall we anticipate the permanent garden will include both
productive and ornamental areas for the enjoyment and engagement of
both the local community and the general public. Distinctive
features will include trained fruit trees, an earth form
‘amphitheatre’, mixed plantings of plants of local and historic
significance, and innovative service / leisure buildings. The
garden will integrate solar panels, rainwater harvesting,
composting areas, and a ‘wilderness’ area.
The first two growing seasons at Abbey Gardens will see:
• Dramatic short-term planting schemes such as a ‘Harvest Garden’
for 2009.
• One-off events designed to increase community involvement
including an Urban Seed Day and Harvest Walk.
• ‘Tools’ designed to promote the Gardens, such as an ‘Honesty
Stall’ (informal shop) containing garden produce and wildflower
seed packaged from the site.
The enthusiastic Friends of Abbey Gardens (FOAG) have proved a
fantastic and resourceful group key to the proposal and the
project’s future success. The project prioritises developing
sustainable community involvement in the garden, towards the FOAG
and others taking a permanent role in maintenance.
The final permanent design framework will develop from the approved
current Council proposal and will be informed by the successes and
failures of the first two years’ projects. We anticipate the final
garden including plants propagated on site, some from seeds
gathered there.
Progress to Date 2008
Our first steps on site have combined our interest in seed
propagation with the Council’s immediate plans for the land, which
were already in place when we were commissioned: During early
summer the whole site was seeded with a mix of native wildflowers
and grass. However a combination of unfavourable weather and poor
soil has given this limited success at the time of writing.
We have taken a motif based on the site’s archaeological remains, and used it to create a summer seed shape within the turf adjacent to the remains. This was uncovered after the Council seeding, resulting in the germination of the seed bank originally on the site, which has been augmented by windblown seeds and those carried on birds and other small mammals. This has been an effective start, demonstrating our direct engagement with the garden-making process and has begun to involve the friends of Abbey Garden in their first ‘hands-on’ project. It focuses attention on seed-propagation instead of instant ‘civic’ planting, and fosters awareness of the richness of soil life.
On July 12th, we organised a free Harvest Walk to other green spaces in Newham (including West Ham Park & nearby allotments) followed by a FOAG picnic on site. The walk consolidated many of the contacts made this summer and attracted new project advocates and participants. We visited St Mary’s allotments and West Ham allotments making key contacts with both current plot holders and those on the waiting lists.
Further immediate plans
An Urban Seed interpretation/social event has been planned for Aug.
16th based on the ‘seed shape’ and other plants found at the site.
With an invited botanist we will focus on the collecting and sowing
of seed with propagation tips, threshing techniques, seed bomb
making etc. We also hope to visit the West Ham Park nursery as part
of this event.
Plaistow Landgrabbers:
The name for the project was inspired by a photograph of the
Plaistow Landgrabbers featured in 'The
Newham Story':
" ... At this time there was still the view that if you were
unemployed it was your
own fault. Then in July 1906 a group of
local men occupied some waste
ground in St Mary’s Road, Plaistow.
They were led by Councillor Ben
Cunningham. They cleared the site
and laid it out in four triangle shapes and
planted vegetables. It
became known as Triangle Camp.
The men had two aims: to show that
waste ground could be put to good use
and to show that the
unemployed were willing to work.
The Council saw things
differently and served the men with an injunction.
Eventually the
men were removed but they had made their point. Locally at
least
attitudes started to change towards the unemployed."
With thanks to Newham Archives and Local Studies.
Click
here to download a pdf of the original Harvest Garden drawing
(7 Megs)
Click here to
download a pdf of the original Final Garden drawing (7 Megs)
