Category: Orchard

Early Spring in the Orchard

The weather is now warming up (hopefully!) and the days are lengthening. If you take a walk around the Orchard you will see lots of signs that Spring is on it’s way.

The fruit trees are budding and there are some already in blossom. By May the Orchard trees will be clouds of pink and white. The soft fruit bushes are also showing signs of growth and the rhubarb, always the first fruit to grow, is on the move too.

Wassailing January 2024

We were lucky after such a rainy start of the year to have a dry and occasionally sunny day for our Wassailing.

We started the day with a winter pruning session. At 11.30 members and family gathered in the square for the Wassailing. Wassailing is a traditionally way of thanking the fruit trees for last year’s crop and to feed them with bread and cider to encourage the trees to produce a wonderful crop of fruit this year.

Traditionally everyone makes a lot of noise and taps the trees to wake them up from their winter sleep. Every year someone volunteers to be the Green Man. This year we had a Green Woman. In folklore the Green Man represents new life and often attends Wassailing events.

Many thanks to our wonderful musicians, singers and dancers for making the Wassailing such a success. Thanks also to Paul and Sonny for opening their home for us to share lunch together.

A Soggy Start to the New Year

Happy New Year to all of our members and friends!

We are off to a rain washed New Year! The grass areas are very wet so be careful as you walk around. Hopefully the ground will be drier by the time we hold our first work session of the year. Don’t forget about the Wassailing after the work session.

Christmas Orchard!

A few years ago one of our members stared some mistletoe on some of our apple trees. The mistletoe has grown and is a very seasonal addition to the orchard. We now pick and sell the mistletoe in the village green grocers, Lanchester Country Basket. Why not have a wander up to the orchard to see the mistletoe on the trees, especially in the snow!

Revamping the Strawberry and Rhubarb Beds

The strawberry and rhubarb beds have not been so productive over the last few seasons so we decided to relocate them to different parts of the Orchard. Members moved 15 rhubarb plants to their new home beside the main square whilst others cleared out the old strawberry bed. A new strawberry bed has been planted in the triangular fruit bed at the top of the orchard.

Hopefully we can look forward to bumper crops once the new plants are established.

A Productive Orchard!

The fruit and nuts have been ripening during the summer and are close to being picked. The apples need a few more weeks until our fruit picking and juicing day, but the windfall apples have been well sampled! The squirrels as usual are enjoying the nut crop but they have left some for us to pick!

Wild Flower Survey June 2023

We usually complete a wild flower survey every year. Many thanks to everyone who joined in with the survey and here are their results…

We found 47 species of wildflowers up from 31 last year with a few extra grasses. Our best finds were Bittersweet, commonly known as Deadly Nightshade, and Self Heal.

Here are the different species of grasses we found: Yorkshire Fog, Perennial Rye grass, Meadow Foxtail, Cocks Foot, False Oat grass, Crested Dogs Tail, Sweet Vernal grass, Timothy, Creeping Bent grass.