I’m Elinor and I volunteer at the Greenway Orchard and I’m also the treasurer.
So if you could tell me a little bit about the history of the orchard.
The orchard was established in 2016 by TCV and the council, TCV are The Conservation Volunteers. I became involved many years ago now because PSBL which is Plaistow South Big Local had taken it over from TCV.
Then a few years ago we applied for a grant, at the time it was called the Community Assemblies, but it’s now called People Powered Places and this path that we’re standing on, part of the money used to do that. There are picnic benches and the play equipment, a bench across there on the path of the actual Greenway. That’s all come out of the funding we had. We did apply for funding for the top field earlier this year but we didn’t get it. We wanted to turn it into a Wildflower Meadow.
This is actually a new addition, it’s an apple tree it’s been recycled from Plaistow Park, the memorial section, they were replanting some of the trees, I know the gardeners so they gave me that one, we put it in here so yeah we’ve got various trees and we did have a further down a walnut tree but some people aren’t always particularly nice to the area, and they’ve snapped it in half.
I know these small trees here, these were all planted when they did the orchard but some are too big so they would have been here already, so there’s a cherry, apple, then you have some plums, and coming back here, there are different types of apple we’ve also got one at the end, another apple tree which is an old English apple variety.
What are you growing in here?
In this one we have chard, this is chard, Tyra a volunteer, particularly likes the chard. I’m not keen, and there are some potatoes in there as well, but I find once you’ve had potatoes in a bed you can’t ever get rid of them, you land up with more and more all the time. So actually, potatoes are really easy to do, if you get some that are started to sprout, if you cut the sprouty bit with a bit of the potato, I tend to put it in water and leave it for a little bit and it’ll grow roots and you just shove it in the ground and they grow, so yeah!
Chips for everyone?
Of course, so these are the potatoes and they’re mostly from the potatoes that I’ve chipped and brought here, they’re doing quite well.
You’ve got blackberries along here as well?
Yeah although it depends on the climate because one summer a couple of years ago they were all coming along really nicely I was looking forward to picking those and then we had a very dry spell and as there isn’t actually any water at the site they just shriveled up so we didn’t get a harvest from the from the blackberries.
You’re going to try and extend the path, is that right?
Yeah, unfortunately the path is not very long but it was quite expensive and you can’t go to the same funding to continue it, you have to get funding from elsewhere, I wanted to take it down sort of double the length it is now take it further down.
So what’s your future plans and what would you in like ideal world what would you like to see happen?
Well, less vandalism for a start, possibly some more funding, I was thinking of maybe getting a more mature tree. Also finish this path off and put the flower garden in, that I would like. I think for mental health as much as anything it’s quite nice to sit and look at the flowers.
Do you have any school groups coming in?
No, not yet it was suggested the only trouble is insurance. Our insurance only covers us when we’re here working, it doesn’t cover anybody else just wandering through.
We do have some gooseberry and raspberry plants that I’ve put in because I wanted to have more fruit. I like the idea of being able to pick the fruit if you’re just walking through
So we do extend further. Do you want to go as far as the end? Go on, let’s go and have a look. I want to have a sandy path from here onwards, possibly in the future. We did try to cut back the other week so that it was a bit clearer to walk through, but as there aren’t many volunteers, you can only do so much.
The container was given to us by TRIO, a gas company, because the gas pipes used to run all the way along the fence this side of where the hospital is, and it got capped, when they capped it, they gave us the container and they paid for it to be delivered, which was really nice.
I collect fruit from these trees, they’re like little tiny plums, I call them cherry plums, but only because they’re cherry sized, you can tell they’re plums because of the stones, I make jam from them, but I come and pick them up once they’ve dropped, obviously give them a good wash!
That’s the end of the orchard, and this was, but because there aren’t enough people to get down here to do things, a flower meadow. I think the council used to cut the grass on this side, but they don’t anymore, it was suggested that they didn’t cut here and unfortunately it’s just gone wild, and we don’t have the manpower to actually do anything.
