This autumn was the second time that the Closing Loops team coordinated Share the Harvest, inviting everyone in North Lancashire to join in and celebrate the diversity and abundance of local fruit like apples and pears. The festival aims to raise awareness and reduce food waste by running events and workshops around harvesting, processing and preserving them.
Starting with 16 events in 2023, this year saw the festival grow to 44 events and activities held across Lancaster District. This was made possible with the help of 65 volunteers working for different organisations, community groups or as individuals.
A total of 1,424 people participated in events and activities that were part of the campaign, over 13,000 were reached online and over 600 engaged actively online and on social media. A whopping 2.6 tonnes of fruit was harvested and either redistributed through the Eggcup network or juiced, and 1,339 litres of apple juice and 482 litres of cider were pressed. Cheers to all who participated for their amazing efforts!
Just like last year, Share the Harvest kicked off with a small fruit picking gathering of three apple trees in two private gardens in Bowerham in Lancaster. Read more about the host’s experience in 2023 and try her recipe for a Gleaners’ Cake.
The programme ranged from big markets and festivals like Lancaster’s Harvest Market, Christ Church Apple Festival and Leighton Hall Apple Day to smaller apple picking activities by individuals and groups of volunteers of the North Lancashire Gleaning Network, an apple puree cooking demo, apple pressing with schools and home apple pressing.
A day of activities at Lancaster and Morecambe College covered the whole loop from harvesting apples to pressing juice, cooking and baking with apples and finally composting the leftover apple pulp to make a fermented soil improver. You can read more about how the event went and see some lovely pictures in this blog post. And LUSU Green organised a big campus fruit rescue together with Lancaster University EcoHub, and part of the harvest was used by students with the EcoEATS project.
A selection of recipe cards were printed sustainably with the Morecambe Community Riso Press and were handed out at events. You can download recipes here, or send in your fruity recipe for next year to Closing Loops Food and Chefs Network Coordinator Silvia at silvia_cl@globallink.org.uk.
Closing Loops Engagement Coordinator Nina said, “This second year of coordinating Share the Harvest was a great success, and we are already looking forward to even more activities, people and apples being involved in autumn 2025. The fruit theme has proved incredibly popular and it lends itself very well to bringing local communities together for a great range of fun and active outdoor activities.”
So save the date for autumn 2025 and get in touch anytime if you’d like support with an idea for a harvest event or activity, for example fruit picking or a workshop sharing skills in cooking and preserving fruit. Financial support as well as harvesting equipment and know-how will be available again to help community groups organise fruit picking events and workshops.
A number of useful toolkits on organising fruit picking and gleaning activities and what to do with harvested fruit – from eating and cooking to composting – were put together by the Closing Loops team and displayed at events:
Closing Loops is a five-year National Lottery funded project working across Lancaster District to support creating systems that reduce waste and create a circular, regenerative local economy.
If you would like to join gleans as a volunteer with the North Lancashire Gleaning Network, or host gleaning events in your garden, orchard or farm, please get in touch with Jay on jay_CL@eggcup.org or take a look at www.foodfutures.org.uk/share-the-harvest.
