Sunday 17 March 2024

March, and spring is (nearly) here

Today's working party (can you be a working party if there is only one of you?) dodged the showers to flatten plenty of molehills, and enjoy the signs of spring in the orchard.




Monday 15 January 2024

January, and Wassail!

January in the orchard, and it's time to prepare for spring. Pruning of the apple trees is well advanced (we'll do the stone fruit later), and last Sunday saw a band of grease applied around the trunk of every tree to deter crawling bugs.

And, it being our January working party, the orchard was wassailed in the hope of a fruitful year!

Friday 24 November 2023

Autumn colours

Our November working party was held amid the autumn colours, which seem to have lasted this year. We harvested the apples from our Api or Lady Apple tree, one of the very last to ripen in the orchard, along with a few medlars.



Thursday 21 September 2023

Visitors from Nepal

We were recently delighted to welcome some visitors from Nepal. Both are farmers who work with a local charity to help remote malnourished people to grow their own crops. The charity is connected to the UK via PHASE Worldwide and people in our NHS to help support the health work in these remote populations. They may now consider growing apples, but altitude may be an issue! We wish them every success in their endeavours.



Monday 21 August 2023

Cutting back the shelter belt
























Only a couple of volunteers made our August work party, but we managed to cut back the shelter belt. These trees were planted as tiny whips around 10 years ago, and now form a dense hedge on the lane side of the orchard.

Sunday 9 July 2023

High summer

And the grass is lush. Always plenty to do at our working parties, but also plenty to enjoy. Later flowering trees seem to have a reasonable amount of fruit, but some early flowering varieties suffered from the late frosts.




Tuesday 23 May 2023

3-way Orchard Visit

Sunday 21st May saw our "3 Way Orchard Visit" to Baslow, Tideswell and Bradwell Community Orchards. Of the three, Baslow is probably at the lowest altitude and the most sheltered, reflected here in the blossom on Court Pendu Plat. You'll find links to Baslow Jubilee Community Orchard and the Tideswell Community Orchard in the panel on the right.

Court Pendu Plat is a very old French variety, known since at least the seventeenth century. It's not especially vigorous, as can be seen here and in the picture of our own tree lower down in this post.

Baslow had several Ellison's Orange trees in full blossom.


Tideswell is the highest, most exposed and youngest of the three orchards. Nevertheless, it is in good health and the trees are all growing well.

We ended our visits back in Bradwell. This is our Court Pendu Plat which is about to flower - it is full of buds, even if it's not obvious!

We have two quince in the orchard which have beautiful flowers. This one is Serbian Gold.
 

Sunday 14 May 2023

Blossom in the orchard

A glorious morning in the orchard saw some compost mulch applied round some of the trees, and a little bit of tidying up in the soft fruit bed. And delightful blossom to enjoy as well!

Sunday 26 March 2023

Pruning complete!

Our March working party was postponed by a fortnight following the heavy snow earlier in the month. With the somewhat milder weather, the stone fruit trees are budding fast and it was time to prune these. Having already pruned the apple trees in late winter, that completes our winter and spring pruning!

Sunday 8 January 2023

The turn of the year...

And we're back in the orchard, busy pruning the apple trees; a hardy group turned up today, and we managed to prune a few more trees before the rain got too intense. Here's one we did earlier...




Monday 17 October 2022

Apple Day success!

A big thank you to everyone who supported our Apple Day event - whether by coming along, helping, making jams and chutney... whatever you did to support us, thank you!



Sunday 9 October 2022

Apple Day - Saturday 15th October!

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness...

With Apple Day coming up next Saturday, today's working party focused on picking the fruit. It seems generally to be a good year, so come and join us next Saturday as we mark Apple Day!






Sunday 24 July 2022

Tidying up behind the strimmers

A team turned out this morning to help rake up the grass cut yesterday, and to undertake a bit more strimming. No wonder the team are resting on their rakes, the compost bins are now full!

Saturday 23 July 2022

Three men went to mow, went to mow a meadow...

Our annual strimmer hire and onslaught on the grass started today. Three hardy souls turned up for a morning spent strimming which, along with efforts previously, saw the orchard grass cut. The taller grass seen at the top of the picture is the top of a reasonably steep bank closer to the bee hives, which is an area that we do not cut. Now to rake it all up...



Saturday 16 July 2022

Summer in the orchard

High summer in the orchard... and the grass needs cutting! We've also been busy summer pruning some of the more vigorous apple trees to constrain them slightly. This has included pruning out branches that cross over or rub, allowing more light into the trees so that the fruit can ripen.

Happily, there seems to be some fruit coming along nicely.


Sunday 15 May 2022

Joint visit to Baslow and Bradwell orchards

Today saw our joint visit with Baslow Jubilee Community Orchard. Originally planned as a three way visit with Tideswell Community Orchard as well, Tideswell unfortunately had to drop out at the last minute. Seven of us made our way over to Baslow, whose orchard is a little different to our own. It is located more centrally in the village, and the group have planted trees along Over Lane.

The main orchard is arranged around an open space, with the trees grouped by fruiting time along one side and in the other two corners.




Their "Court Pendu Plat" is almost as late a starter as ours - but theirs is at least in bloom, while ours was showing just a couple of "green shoots".

After a most interesting and enjoyable visit, we returned to Bradwell to share our orchard with the Baslow group. In the last week, our quince trees have decided to flower and how very pretty they are too.

Sunday 8 May 2022

Springtime in the orchard

A glorious morning in the orchard for our working party today.






Thursday 5 May 2022

3 way orchard visit - 15th May

On Sunday, 15th May we'll be visiting Baslow Jubilee Community Orchard and Tideswell Community Orchard, before welcoming members of those groups to Bradwell Community Orchard. Members will be aware of this from recent e-mails, so please do get in touch if you'd like to join the visit.


Tuesday 12 April 2022

Spring in the orchard

Despite some recent frosty mornings, spring has definitely sprung in the orchard...





Sunday 9 January 2022

January - time to wassail!

Today's working party saw a hardy group of seven turn out to undertake some pruning. We also applied a grease band to all the trees to stop moth caterpillars climbing into the trees in the spring. And, as it was our January working party, we also wassailed the orchard in the hope and expectation that our labours will be fruitful.




Sunday 17 October 2021

Apple Day at Dick's Yard

Many thanks to all those that helped out in any way for yesterday’s Apple Day. It was a great success with lots of interest from villagers and visitors alike. 

We made just over £170 from the sale of apples, jams, chutney, herb pots, delicious crumbles, tray bakes, cakes and the ever popular freshly pressed apple juice. Demand was so great that we had to go back to the orchard to pick even more apples for juicing.

We had a great display of many of the orchard apples thanks to all those that picked and stored the mountain of apples we harvested this year. There are still plenty of apples in the orchard which can be picked as they ripen in the coming weeks. 

Many thanks again for everyone’s hard work. 






Monday 11 October 2021

Apple Day!

Join us to celebrate Apple Day this coming Saturday:

Saturday 16th October 2021

12:00 noon – 4:00 p.m.

Come and celebrate Apple Day at Dick’s Yard (by the traffic lights)

See, taste, and buy many different types of apples; bags of apples from the Orchard for sale; enjoy a glass of freshly pressed apple juice; homemade cakes, jams, and jellies for sale.

Friday 1 October 2021

Calling any local beekeepers!

We have had bee hives in the orchard almost from the day the orchard began. These have been looked after by a couple of different beekeepers over the years, and more recently we have hosted some hives on behalf of another beekeeper. She has now moved on, and so we currently have no hives in the orchard. Space for hives is at the top of the orchard, and the orchard can accommodate up to five hives. So if you are (or know of) a beekeeper who would like to put hives in the orchard, please get in touch!

Friday 17 September 2021

Harvest, and Apple Day on 16th October!

At our last working party, we were busy harvesting apples, plums and damsons in readiness for Apple Day. There are still some trees where the apples are not quite ready yet, so there will be more apples to enjoy before long. We'll be marking Apple Day this year on:

Saturday 16th October 2021

12:00 noon – 4:00 p.m.

Come and celebrate Apple Day at Dick’s Yard (by the traffic lights)

See, taste, and buy many different types of apples; bags of apples from the Orchard for sale; enjoy a glass of freshly pressed apple juice; homemade cakes, jams, and jellies for sale.