Ilford Community Apple harvest 2026
Announcing our community effort to pick and use the apples going to waste in people’s gardens. National Apple Day is on 21st October and we will be able to celebrate it with pride this year! See our latest blog update
Fresh apples are delicious and healthy and our home grown apples are zero food miles and free!
We are expecting to collect and use apples from a minimum of 25 trees in Ilford, hopefully a lot more. The good ones we can distribute to the Community Grocer, Food banks and others. The bad’uns we will use what we can and turn to chutneys etc, using all the community recipes we can find, using community kitchens.
To see the areas we are collecting from this year click on the blog or the google form. We have a team of volunteers working on this project and we are all excited about it: Farah, Farzana, Monica, Ros, Ruth, Taz. We are partnering with the Community kitchen at the Wanstead Park Road Mosque Community Centre, Highlands School, Community Action Redbridge (that is funding the project – thanks!) and we will be using a Church kitchen on the Commonwealth Estate.
Why just apples?
We won’t turn down other fruit but the focus is apples. Most of those we pick and use this year will have gone to waste in 2025. We want to start somewhere and see what we can achieve and learn, and we will enjoy the community spirit and connections we build along the way.
Want to join us? Got an apple tree? Register your tree/s on this googleform.