Community Get Together in The Orchard

Talk about being lucky with the weather.  On Sunday morning, armed with spades, hammers, staple and nails the volunteer members of the Conderton and Overbury Community Orchard met on a bright and sunny morning to plant the trees.  It was quite amazing to see the sun after one of the wettest January's in a long time.  Having said that the mission to collect the trees, on Saturday, proved a little more stressful, as the picture above demonstrates, but we got there in the end and collected the trees from Walcot Organic Nursery  

Although the soil was wet underfoot the spirit of the helpers was just brilliant.  The target was to plant 41 apple trees in the ancient orchard being restored partly funded through our Higher Level Stewardship Scheme.  This time we were planting a mixture of eating and cider apples.  Varieties such as Blenheim Orange, Cox's Orange Pipin, Worcester Pearmain for eaters, along with cider varieties such Ten Commandments, and Harry Master's Jersey will make for some very interesting taste discoveries in the years to come either picked straight from the tree or waiting a few months for the fermentation process to be completed!

Derek and Gordon set the planting pattern out and managed to get the main stakes knocked in earlier in the week, tiptoeing around the wet ridge and furrow.  Everybody turned up between 9.30 and 10 am to set up digging, planting and fertilising the trees.  It was great to see the progress across the orchard and by 12 o'clock the job was done!  We are all due to return in a couple of weeks to prune the trees we planted in the previous two years.  It is a great opportunity to see the fruits of our previous years labour growing and needing a little TLC.  I am looking forward to that morning, fingers crossed we are treated to another lovely few hours in the orchard.