WONDERFUL APPLE DAY

APPLE DAY SATURDAY 5TH OCTOBER 2019
By Pippa
Apple Day today in Mayow Park was a great success! Considering the rain last year, this was a vast improvement; a mild grey day and the park looking wonderfully autumnal.
We had 10 varieties sliced up for people to try - 8 apples and 2 sneaky pears! 

Photo by PM

Photo by PM

Although we grow eleven apple and three pear varieties in the orchard, most of the varieties were brought in by the FOMP team, either from their gardens or from the shops.
Unfortunately Community Orchards in public spaces often suffer from people outside the community coming in with large bags to strip the trees of all fruits. This year our supportive park users were watchful, helping to ensure that some fruits remained on the trees, to be harvested at the right time and to be shared at our event.
There was plenty of discussion about the quince variety - mixed opinions on that one for sure!

Under our gazebo we had around 8 volunteers at one point, which is brilliant. In total 13 volunteers helped. Dave was on the teas and coffees which was much appreciated. First Max and Kate, then later George and Tessa made a great slicing team. 

Photo by PM

Plenty of families took part in the apple trail and the story telling (Rich Sylvester - always a great hit).  

Photo by PM

Some wonderful colouring got done too by the smaller children - if only  there was an apple variety as bright as their versions!
Plenty of chat around the tables about apples but also the community in general - sharing connections, ideas and clever plans!
People had fun rating the apples and certainly there were some clear leaders - the Cox's Orange Pippin, Russet and Red Delicious were popular.
Visitors said how good it was to see so many British apple varieties to try - more than you would see in a supermarket - we probably all tend to go for the same ones (or the ones our kids like). It raised the question that, with so many varieties of British apples still being grown, why is it hard to find home-grown on the shelves?
The FOMP team deserve to feel very proud that all our planning and preparing resulted in a well-attended and well-appreciated event and a fun community morning in our treasured Mayow Park! Thanks to the community for your donations too which will come back to you in the form of more events.

photo by AS refreshments table

Photo by AS 

Photo by AS

Photo by AS

And finally, popularity ratings for the apple & pear tasting:

By Pippa

Apple Day is coming soon

The poster below gives an outline of our event on 5th October, starting at 10 am. We'd love to have a few extra volunteers though:

• to help us set up our tables and gazebo, 
• to welcome visitors, 
• to give visitors the chance to taste different varieties of apples and choose their favourite, 
• to point them in the direction of our story teller, 
• to explain the fruit tree identification activity in the orchard
• to provide tea for adults and squash for children   
• 

Come along for a fun morning. 

Get in touch if you would like to help, by sending an email to friendsofmayowpark@ymail.com. 

TREE DRESSING DECEMBER 2018

Article by Pippa Moss.

On Saturday 1st December we were faced with a very soggy morning for our tree dressing event and while we couldn’t quite face putting the gazebo up in the rain we didn’t want to cancel.

We would have had to have the storyteller Rich Sylvester in the bowling green huts but the weather actually got a bit better and we found a really sheltered spot near the bowling green with great tree coverage so we just based ourselves right there on the path and Rich made a dry den in the trees. 

Dry den for story telling. Photo Pippa

He did a few story sessions with some groups of all weather families and people did stop to write lovely messages on our fabric strips. Many were inspired by a great tree poem Alona had found with phrases such as ‘stress reliever, shelter for owls etc’. 

Poem found on Internet. Poet unnamed

We ended up dressing the yew tree behind us but also people walked down to the orchard to tie some up there too.

Of course it wasn’t as busy as usual in the park but it felt like we were saying thank you to the trees and that felt right to me - I get a lot from Mayow Park’s trees - there’s many a morning when I return from a rushed school run and look at the trees and just give a big sigh of ‘thanks for being here and looking lovely’. But they look a little less lovely in the winter so dressing them is a good idea!

Some decorative messages. Photo Alona

Tree message. Photo Pippa

Around midday, a talented local dog walker called Dave came along with his guitar and after a few cups of mulled wine it felt very normal to be having a fun sing-along next to the Bowling Green with confused runners trying to dodge through us!

Mulled wine time. Photo Pippa

Dave led a great sing-along on the theme of trees, accompanied by his guitar. He also included Christmas songs   Jingle Bells and White Christmas

                                                                         Photo: Alona

                                                                          Photo: Alona

Singing rounded off our tree dressing event     Photo: Sarah

Alona and I also gave an interview to Emma from CPRE who is filming and interviewing Friends groups. She said it was so nice to chat to people who were so smiley as they talked about their Friends group. I can’t think why on a wet Saturday in a park with a mulled wine inside me and poetic trees words buzzing in my head I wouldn’t be smiling??

Great Fun on Apple Day (in Mayow Park)

After all the planning and preparing, Apple Day arrived today. It may be mid-October but we had a warm, mild day with temperature in the low 20s, ideal for an outdoor event.
Volunteers arrived in plenty of time to put up the gazebo, set the tables and prepare the apple varieties for tasting. Our story teller, Rich Sylvester, arrived and chose a wonderful lime tree within our orchard area where he set up his story telling den.
The tennis courts beside our orchard were busy too, with parents bringing children for tennis coaching. This was great for us as  parents found out about our event and all could join in either before or after their tennis session.
The orchard sign had been installed on 11th October, in time for the great unveiling today. It has illustrations provided by some pupils from St Michael's Primary School, a local school.  One of the local Perry Vale Ward councillors, Cllr Alan Till,   offered to unveil the sign and he invited a couple of children to help him. One of these two  children saw his illustration in the sign and looked really happy; he had been one of eight children who contributed orchard-related pictures.

Our story teller gathered adults and children and recalled some apple names. He gave out pairs of wooden rhythm sticks so that people could chant and clap out the rhythms - Lane's Prince Albert . . . Cox's Orange Pippin . . . Winter Banana . . . with these wonderful rhythmic beats and chants everyone followed Rich to the story den. Try it yourself - it sounds rather soothing.

story telling

 Meanwhile, back at the gazebo, many people came to learn and wonder at unusual apple names that they had never heard of. They had the chance to do a taste test and decide which variety they preferred.
The apples we brought were cut into small pieces so that as many people as possible could taste them. Some varieties had been purchased from Brogdale, on the edge of  Faversham in Kent. As it happens, Brogdale is  holding a national Apple Festival this weekend! get along there if you can.
If you don't know of Brogdale they grow over 2000 varieties of apple as well as other fruit. Their fruit is not grown commercially but groups like friends of Mayow Park and other organisations can order small numbers of heritage fruit for events such as our Apple Day. We ordered four varieties from Brogdale and more varieties were harvested from local gardens or bought from our local greengrocer.It was a joy to see so many children who LOVE eating apples and who wanted to taste as many apples as they could. Could it happen that they may grow up wanting to grow their own fruit? will they be our future Mayow Park orchard carers? It seemed that Zonga, a fairly new variety grown in Kent and bought from our local greengrocer, was the most popular.

For those who wanted to learn more names of apples there was an Apple Variety Treasure Hunt. In and around the orchard appeared large cut-out cardboard apples with unusual names written on them. The task was to find all 15 cardboard apples and note their names on a sheet. To encourage a slower pace participants were asked to also add any item found in nature next to the apple variety named on the cardboard. Everyone who returned their sheet was a winner!

Well done to all the volunteers who put in time and effort. Verbal feedback from visitors was very positive. 

tree dressing photos 1 - story teller

Photographer Simon, sent by The Orchard Project and  Helping Britain Blossom, took some great photos.
We have been told we are welcome to use the photos but please always  acknowledge Helping Britain Blossom.

Helping Britain Blossom was officially launched in October 2015. See  http://www.theorchardproject.org.uk/news-and-events/launching-helping-britain-blossom
On this website it says:

Helping Britain Blossom is all about helping local people create, restore and access orchards to enjoy and use for good in their own communities. A community orchard isn’t just a collection of trees, it’s a powerful way to bring people together.

At The Orchard Project, we’re really excited to be a founding partner with the opportunity to work with communities from all over the UK. Helping Britain Blossom will use our successful community orchard project model. Together we will share knowledge, skills and resources, supporting each other to reach out to communities to campaign for better use of public spaces whilst building healthier, happier and more sustainable communities.

And our Mayow Park Tree Dressing event is featured in the Helping Britain Blossom website: :
 http://helpingbritainblossom.org.uk/tree-dressing-day-in-mayow-park-community-orchard/

I will post a selection of photos as three separate posts . Here we feature the story teller

workshop to prepare for story telling 

In the woods with Amanthi for the story telling session

Tree Dressing event 4th December 2016

Exciting news!
The Friends of Mayow Park will be holding a tree dressing celebration with a difference - it will be held in the orchard. People will be able to make objects using items found in nature to hang on the tree guards of the orchard trees. Or they may prefer to write messages on fabric to hang around the trees.
To make this more of a celebration, Amanthi Harris of Storyhug will be helping children to create objects to use in her story telling session.
This celebration is for all ages, for anyone who loves trees.
We had a request to have singing around the trees and  thought that singing winter songs would generate positive energy. Ideas for a sing-along include White Christmas, Deck the Halls, Frosty the Snowman. If you know anyone who plays a musical instrument and can join us on the day, that would be great.

So, what is Tree Dressing Day? It was initiated by Common Ground back in 1990 and they chose the first weekend of December, which is also the final weekend of National Tree Week. It is a chance for people to come together and think of the role that trees have played in shaping the locality and their impact on our lives.
At the simplest level tying strips of cloth or yarn is enough. Some people will have seen 'yarn bombing' where trees are decorated with bright fabrics and yarns.
Tree dressing day is an opportunity to come together and share tree stories.
Mayow Park has some very old trees, a whole range of mature trees  and also an orchard of young trees.
Let's celebrate our trees.