Update Tuesday 23/8/11:
If you’d like to join us for the foraging walk on Wednesday, you have 3 options:
We’ll do some foraging and scouting and then rendezvous afterwards for a social at Doctors on Forrest Road at 8.30pm.
See you then!
Please join us for Abundance Wednesday on 25th August, 6-9pm. Foraging/picking/flyering/scouting walks! All singing all dancing Abundance action!
Rob, Ross and I will lead 3 separate walks in different parts of the city to do some scouting and flyering of private gardens with fruit trees as well as any foraging/picking available (possibly berries, possibly some wild apples and plums). Then we’ll all meet centrally for a beverage.
Rob’s going to do his neighbourhood (starting in Hillside) and I’m keen to flyer the Grange/Newington and to go to the Hermitage of Braid. Ross has yet to pick an area, we’ll get back to you. I’ll e-mail meeting points once Ross has let me know.
If you want to join in, it’d be good if you could let me know so that we know who to wait around for. I can text you or call you if it’s easier than checking e-mails.
Valla
UPDATE Next drop-in: Wed 17th August: Making the Abundance banner and customising t-shirts or pinnies or whatever you like with our new logo. Location: Room 3.24, St Leonard's Land, across from the Bongo Club on Holyrood Road,
I'll bring my sewing machine and other accessories and material for the banner but please bring anything that you have too.
Also if anyone wants to create an Abundance t-shirt or pinnie or whatever, bring that too.
Give me a ring on 07594 824 558 if lost,
Valla
To celebrate the coming harvest season, Abundance Edinburgh will be having an afternoon bring and share picnic on the Meadows including tasting the 2010 Abundance cider and apple juice pressing with some of our new equipment!
Please join us from 1-4pm on Saturday 27th August near the The Meadows Pavilion, Jawbone Walk, Melville Drive. Bring your favourite picnic food and we’ll supply the appley goodness.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Say Hi to Valla!
Abundance Edinburgh is pleased to introduce their new Abundance officer, Valla Moodie.
Valla will be helping to organise this year’s harvest season - helping coordinate pickers and pickings, doing events, giving talks, picking fruit, foraging, making jam , eating pies, having a Bundance…
To get in touch with Valla about any of the above, please contact her at valla@abundanceedinburgh.com or on 07594 824 558.
Abundance Edinburgh recently received a grant from Zero Waste Scotland to help prevent good fruit from going to landfill. We’ve used our grant to purchase juicing equipment which we hope to manage as a community resource.
If you or your organisation would like to make use of some of this fantastic equipment during the harvest season then get in touch. If we’re not using we’d like to see others put it to use.
We hope that this new kit will help other start fruit harvesting projects in their own neighbourhood. More information about the equipment we have can be found on our equipment page
12 litre cross beam press
The rack and cloth press
UPDATE (19/07/11) : Applications for this position have now closed and we will be interviewing candidates shortly.
This year as part of a Climate Challenge Fund project, Abundance Edinburgh are working with Transition Edinburgh South to hire an Abundance Officer to help co-ordinate the harvest.
Our hope is that a paid worker will be able to do all those jobs that volunteers can’t easily do, and will help us work more easily with other organisations. That means more fun picking opportunities, and a better use of the fruit we do collect!
We are looking to have someone in post before the end of July, so please be quick if you intend to put in an application…
More information about the post can be found in the Abundance Officer advertisment.
After a winter slowly fermenting out in the snow, the abundance cider from our 2010 harvest was recently brought in and put into bottles.
I am glad to report our resident brewer Pessi has done a wonderful job, and has turned a mixed batch of Edinburgh apples into a sparkling tasty Edinburgh cider. It’s got a fantastic flavour to it – a class above what you get in the shops…
As the Summer goes on we plan to offer bottles or tastings to folk who helped us or donated apples in 2010.
The key to our success this year was that the cider was put outside to ferment in the cold temperatures. This ensures that the fermentation happens slowly, and lots of the natural sugars of the fruit is retained. We used the wild yeast from the apples, and blended the result of two different batches to give the cider a complex flavour.
Come along to one of our events this summer, and let us know what you can taste in it!
One of our members Kim wrote a song for our wassailing event during the winter. Here he is performing it at one of our recent dinners. You can hear more of Kim’s songs here.
