Hamish is back from his holidays but there is practically a Euro-Exit from the core FOAG group all making their way to the continent for the summer holiday period. So, for those of us staying in the UK there is a LOT of produce to harvest ... if you're spending the summer in London you could do a lot worse than some light weeding at Abbey Gardens in return for lots of nice veg - come and join us for a gardening session:
Saturdays 10am - 3pm
Tuesdays 1pm - 3pm
Thursdays 4pm - dusk
Hamish was excited to find this unexpected visitor in our raised beds ... it's a parasitic plant apparently, we think just the 'common' Broomrape but we're not 100% sure. Any experts out there chip in!
Topics: [broomrape ]
The Friends of Abbey Gardens will be having lunch at Abbey Gardens this Saturday 17 June at 1pm.
We have decided to advance this nationwide event and have lunch as part of our regular gardening session. We would like to ask everyone to bring food to share. We will get the BBQ going so feel free to bring anything you would like to cook. We have lots of potatoes and onions to make potato salad and lettuce for the green stuff. If you are lucky we will still have some artichokes left. Any contributions of cakes for pudding will be greatly appreciated!
Sadly Karen and I will both miss this event - Karen is opening her own garden as part of the NGS scheme and I will be away filming on the Essex coast - the regular FOAG gang will all be there though & new visitors are always welcome.
I've been asked to talk about What Will the Harvest Be? as part of a season called (like it) 'This Land is Your Land' at the CCA gallery in Glasgow tomorrow, Saturday 10th July at 3.30pm
Do come if you can. Details here.
Topics: [talk ]
The real high point of the weekend was the arrival of our FANTASTIC new honesty stall, designed by Andreas Lang of Public Works and also one of the founders of the Friends of Abbey Gardens. We immediately stocked it on arrival and it made a brilliant focus at the entrance (also with new gate!) to the garden.
I love the photo of 'team FOAG' from the Open Garden Squares weekend. We had about 100 visitors across the two days. Some were familiar faces but quite a few were new locals finding us for the first time. A handful of folk also came from much further afield via the bigger scheme.
Dasha did us proud with a dill and broad bean pilaf making the most of the first real harvest of the season.
We had a very busy Summer Fair today as our first day of Open Garden Squares weekend : we're the only site in Newham, we have enough tea and cake to feed most of the borough and a brand new honesty stall & webcam (see opposite!) come down on Sunday and visit. We're open 10 -5, free entry and all welcome!
Don't forget this weekend is your chance to visit too!
Come and enjoy Abbey Gardens for the Friends of Abbey Gardens Summer Fair on Saturday 12 June, midday - 4pm
Bring a picnic, take a tour, buy plants for your garden, see the FOAG nature and wildlife photography exhibition, taste our first produce. We'll be serving teas, coffees and cakes. At 2pm there will be speeches celebrating the completion of the Community Spaces grant which has funded repairs to our fence and gate, new grass, fruit trees, honesty stall, sustainable energy provision and many other useful things for the garden.
If you can't make the picnic we're actually open all weekend as we're also taking part in Open Garden Squares, a London-wide event on 12 and 13 June. 10am - 5pm on both days.
... Antje and Fernando weren't the only people to visit last week - the day began with the cyclists from West Ham church starting their Abbey to Abbey ride.
...is a favourite BBC Radio 4 programme of mine. Here's an interesting edition on the appeal of gardens and gardening, on the iPlayer here
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