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!

Celebrating Easter in the Orchard 3rd – 11th April 2021

The orchard has been decorated with hand painted Easter Eggs to celebrate Easter. Members, family and friends of all ages from 18 months to 97 helped to decorate the eggs. A walk around the orchard showed the amazing variety and creativity of everyone who joined in with the event.

As well as spotting the Easter Eggs, you could lookout for ‘rabbits’ and Peter Rabbit. Families who took part were able to claim a chocolately treat donated by Lanchester Wines. We hope you were able to come up and wander round. If not, you might like to see some of the decoreated eggs in the photos below.

A Haven for Wildlife

The orchard proveds a variety of habitats for our native wildlife, but it’s not just the community orchard that attracts the creepers, crawlers and fliers. In the centre of the orchard is the thriving Margery Flatts Allotment Association. It’s not all vegetable growing, a few members also grow flowers. One of the allotment members has had a wonderful display of flowers and was able to catch some of the wildlife they attraced this summer on camera.