Author: simonandeleanor

Earth Hour 26th March 2022

It has been three years since we celebrated Earth Hour together in the orchard. Earth Hour is an international movement originating in Australia in 2007 in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature. Every year at the end of March, people are encouraged to turn off their lights between 8.30 and 9.30 pm to highlight the impact that climate change is having on the world.

This year members of the orchard and allotments turned off their lights and headed up to the orchard with coffee and cakes to share. It was a beautiful clear night and Simon Johnson, an orchard member, lead a tour of the night skies. Every time we celebrate Earth Hour in the orchard we see a shooting star. This year we spotted a spectacular meteor blaze across the sky leaving a bright trail behind it. Well done to the Martin family for spotting it!

Work morning in the orchard

Now that Spring is approaching there is still lots of work and maintenance to be done. Chris Davis led our session. First he pointed out that some of our apple trees have a disease called canker. This is very damaging to our apple trees and can easily spread. Chris pointed out examples and explained how to deal with it. This involves cutting away the affected parts of the tree. If any members visiting the orchard see canker on the trees, please let Chris know.

Chris also lead a quick demonstration on pruning before the orchard members began pruning our apple trees.

And finally… our soft fruit bed received a well needed prune.

Earth Hour 26th March 2022 at 8.30 pm

After a two year gap, we are going to celebrate Earth Hour together again in the Orchard! Our orchard and allotment members will be switching off their lights, and settling down in the dark, peaceful surroundings of the orchard to celebrate Earth Hour together.

Earth Hour was started in 2007 by WWF and partners as a symbolic lights-out event in Sydney to raise awareness of climate change, Earth Hour is now one of the world’s largest grassroots movements for the environment. Held every year on the last Saturday of March, Earth Hour engages supporters in more than 190 countries and territories, all taking action to ensure a brighter future for people and planet.

For more information please click here to visit the Earth Hour website

Wassailing January 2022

Our traditional Wassailing day took place again on a chilly but fairly dry day. The Green Man attended and we feed the trees with bread and cider and made lots of noise to wake the trees up from their winter sleep. Hopefully the bread and cider will encourage a bumper crop of apples this year. We were lucky to be accompanied by some wonderful musicians and singers who added to the fun. Many thanks to them!

December 2018

The final month of a very busy year! This is what we have achieved with the hard work of all our orchard members. A big thank you to everyone who have made the following possible…

  • completion of the dry stone wall seated area
  • creation of a forest garden around the seated area
  • planting of native wild flowers
  • GPS mapping of all the fruit trees completed
  • development of the orchard website
  • purchase of an apple storage rack
  • labelling of trees with new labels begun
  • building of a willow bower at the end of the nut walk
  • an interpretation board for the entrance designed and produced

We would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we are looking forward to a very busy 2019.

Winter Time in the Orchard

It has been a snowy start to the New Year in the Orchard. Fortunately our last work day was on Saturday 24th February and we were able to begin the pruning and make more preperations for the seated area in the Forest Garden.

The trees and fruit bushes are still lying dormant waiting for the warmer spring weather. Even if we humans aren’t busy in the orchard there is plenty of evidence left by the wildlife who make the orchard their home.