The Season started early in 2011. We had picked so many apples by mid August that we needed to set up a pop up juicing day on Chiswick High Road. Thankfully our new press had just arrived so it had its first public outing.

By the time the schools started after the summer break we had already organised at least 7 picking outings per week through September for local schools and volunteers. Little teams from Belmont, Cavendish, Grove Park, St Peters, Strand-on-the-Green and William Hogarth Schools trotted off to local gardens to help people with their over-flowing trees. We had brilliant comments from the kids about what fun it was, and how they now knew how to pick fruit, and from tree owners about how nice the kids were and how happy they were that the fruit was going to a good place. For us it was not only a mind-blowing logistical enterprise, matching trees, with kids, with catchment areas, with school and work timetables, with equipment logistics… but also quite a physically strenuous month.

Throughout autumn 2011 Abundance London picked over a tonne and a half of fruit that would have gone to waste. We were very glad that we booked the Fruit Fair for October 1st because our storage space was overflowing with stored apples.