Avenue Orchard

I grew up in the city and from a very early age I have sought out wild places and hidden nooks behind walls where nature thrives. Hidden corners where nature has re-asserted itself over hard lines and concrete have been a sanctuary for me.

When I moved to South Tottenham around five years ago, I would regularly walk Minnie, my now ageing Newfoundland, in Downhills Park. Often we walked home past the railway allotments and through a small tucked away orchard on the edge of a housing estate on Avenue Road. Intrigued by who cared for it I wondered how it came to be there. Faded paint on the cement enclosure still names some of the trees that are trained along the grey walls; plum, apple, quince mulberry.

Avenue Orchard

Someone was looking after this hidden pocket of abundance and biodiversity. Sometimes we would pass through and I would notice that litter had been removed and the overgrowing fruit bushes had been pruned back. Eventually, after I joined the local Fountain Area Resident’s Association, I learned the story. Avenue Orchard was established by a group of residents in 2011, who wanted to both grow food locally and connect with neighbours.

Homes for Haringey had given the residents a small grant to develop the wasteland bordering Avenue Road into a community orchard. Local people did all the labour; digging, planting, mulching. There have been various levels of activity over the years, but the trees are now well established. A small group of volunteers still meet once a month to help maintain the orchard and the very productive currant and raspberry bushes. Jeremy Cassidy, one of the original founders of the orchard, leads these maintenance sessions. He trained as a Permaculture designer so is a great source of gardening knowledge.

Avenue Orchard

Earlier this year I attended a fruit tree winter pruning workshop at Cecil Sharp House in Camden, run by Permablitz, a group that organises one-day permaculture-based volunteer sessions. During the day we learned the importance of pruning fruit trees to improve air circulation. I wanted to use some of the knowledge that I had gained there in Avenue Orchard.

Jeremy and I met at the orchard at the beginning of March. It was nearing the end of Winter and Spring was approaching. It was chilly, but already the days were getting a little longer. We wanted to finish any tree pruning before the sap, the life blood of the trees, started rising again. This was one of the last days that we could do it before the beginning of the new growing season.

Jeremy continued the work that he began earlier in the winter cutting back some of the high branches of the silver birch trees, to bring more light into the orchard. I concentrated on clipping out the dead wood and crossing branches of the fig, apricot, apple plum and quince trees.

Avenue Orchard

The hazy blue sky and watery sun meant that it was a cold start, but the physical activity soon warmed me up. We left all the clippings on site to decompose, return to the soil and help improve fertility. Here, hidden behind the estate wall was a small ecosystem, a world filled with insects and growing things. The Spring Equinox was approaching and the trees, that had rested through the winter, would soon be springing to life. Flower and leaf buds were just beginning to appear, signs of life that signal the returning sun.

World events and the cycles of news are very dark right now. There is so much conflict and destruction; ignorance seems to be dominating the world. It can often feel overwhelming. But in the orchard, you can put all that aside for a short period of time. What’s important in this little pocket of biodiversity in the heart of the city, is the changing seasons, returning light and cycles of growth. Across this city, and across the world, gardens are waking from winter, as others continue their natural cycles into decline as their respective summer fades. These cycles continue without me, but being involved and connected and a part of that brings me back to myself, back to reality. I can breathe again.

You can find more information about Avenue Orchard here: Avenue Orchard on Wordpress

Thanks to my sister, the writer Francesca Syz, for help with editing!