Beginnings

In 2008 Old Trafford Amateur Gardeners' Society (OTAGS) committee decided to adopt a hard to let plot on its site in Old Trafford. This plot, number 49, had not been properly cultivated since 1995 so it seemed a good idea to develop the plot into a community orchard.

We have lots of ideas about how to do this, including growing trees from scratch, by grafting onto rootstock using scions from other established community orchards in the area. We feel this will be an interesting approach, rather than buying them from nurseries and thought that it would be interesting to record this process and share it using a blog.

We hope to submit a bid for Local Food Funding to enable us to buy equipment for the orchard and the site (e.g. an apple press to make the most of all the apples already being grown on the allotments) and to run some workshops (e.g. a grafting workshop next year).