Orchard 49

Tool Maintenance workshop - 14th Jan 2012

2012-01-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

OTAGS hosted a free tool maintenance workshop on Saturday 14th january in the pavilion. The funding for this was part of the Local Food grant from BIG Lottery. The session was facilitated by Mike Carswell from Urban Coppice.

Eleven of us learnt how to maintain tools, from garden shears to secateurs (these were the too most popular items for maintaining). What was surprising to me, was how relatively easy it was to restore a rusty pair of shears if you have half an hour and a few tools. We used three key things; a stiff wire brush, some wet and dry type sandpaper and a general purpose file (these cost about £5 and last for years if looked after).

For the shears, Step 1 was to take the shears apart - which was very straightforward.
2. Vigorously brush the shears blades with the wire brush to take off the worst of the debris (rust, plant material).
3. Take some sand paper and rub to take off more resistant rust (this didn't take long at all).
4. File the bevelled edge of the shears. This was the part that needs the skill/know how as doing it at the wrong angle will damage the sharp edge you're trying to restore. Mike showed us how, but I'm sure there are plenty of videos on the internet.
5. Reassemble the shears and put a drop of general purpose oil into the point where the shears join and work it in by opening and closing the shears.
6. Rub an oily rag over the blades if putting them away for winter.

Mike showing us how before we got stuck in.

Laura filing one of her shears blades.

Mike working some oil into shears after sharpening.

Mike also talked to us about taking care of tools like hoes, garden forks and spades.

Thanks go to Mike for a great day and to Laura for suggesting the idea, for organising it and for making delicious soup and bread for lunch. Thanks also to Pete Abel for taking the photos.

Christmas came early!

2011-12-24T08:07:00.000-08:00

Orchard 49 had an early Christmas present from Implementations, the UK supplier of PKS Gardening Tools. Debbie has invested in these wonderful tools for her own use and gets a newsletter from the company every so often. The last one mentioned that they wanted to gift some tools to a community project, asking people to write back to nominate their project.

So, Debbie wrote about Orchard 49 and Jane decided to give Orchard 49 the Christmas gift for 2011. We got to choose £100 worth of tools and chose a hydra hoe (as we do a lot of hoeing!) and a nunki weeder - which will be invaluable for weeding around the base of our young trees as they get established.

We've not had a chance to use the tools yet, as the weather in December has been very very wet, but will do early in 2012.

A big thank you to Implementations for this gift, we will treasure these wonderful tools.

Sunny November Orchard Work Days

2011-11-07T11:26:00.000-08:00

We have had three Sunday orchard work sessions with clear blue skies in November. This has meant we've made great progress with preparation for planting in the winter.

We have the area along the fence line ready for more vertical cordon trees to go in (all apple) and the fence line with the bakery, the area around the fig tree have both been dug multiple times to get to grips with bramble etc.

Its looking good! Check when our next work session is happening on the Work Days page, or email orchard49 at otags.org.uk - we will add you to our mailing list and notify you about sessions.

Orchard Progress

2011-09-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me that there haven't been many pictures of the orchard itself on the blog. Today was a barmy 23 degrees C sunny September day so I took some photos. They can be viewed via this link to our Picasa web album.

When growing young trees you are advised to take any fruit off the trees in their early years, so that the trees develop a strong root system. So, when you look at these photographs there isn't much to see, fruit wise. Hopefully though you'll see significant progress in how the orchard looks. We've lots of work still to do but we're getting there.

Here is a photo of the sign Trisha made for us.

Apple Day 2011

2011-09-27T04:51:00.000-07:00

Baking - delicious!

We had a very successful Apple Day on Saturday 24th September. Wonderful home baking by plotholders and community orchard volunteers sold out.

We pressed gallons of apple (and some pear) juice with the help of young and old. Almost all the fruit we pressed was fallen fruit gathered from plots on our site, so not only were we all drinking delicious juice we were using food that would otherwise have been wasted.

Loading press with crushed apple.

Ready to be pressed.

Apple Tasting in the pavilion was also very popular. We asked people on the site to provide us with some apples for people to sample, and we also had a couple of varieties from the community orchard. Even though the trees on the orchard are very young, we had some Fillingham Pippin (a delicious crisp eater) and one very large cooker - Lord Suffield. This is as close as we can get to having a Manchester apple variety. It was created in Middleton and we're very lucky to have a tree as they aren't widely available. Phil Rainford from the Northern Fruit Group provided us with a scion when we had the grafting workshop in March 2010 after a long search to find somewhere with a Lord Suffield tree.

The Lord Suffield apple was huge - a testament to the advice to thin your crop to get a smaller number of larger apples... I took all but one fruit bud off when they formed and the result was a very large fruit. Yes, I know that strictly speaking you shouldn't let any fruit form on very young trees, but if you can't locate any trees like the one you have locally, isn't it important to get an idea of what the fruit looks and taste like?

Its a yellow cooker and everyone who tasted a slice of Lord Suffield said it was a good cooker - the sort that would cook into a delicious puree - and that it was not too tart either, so wouldn't need much sweetening.

Visitors to the community orchard might have spotted a wonderful "Orchard 49" sign on the shed door, crafted from recycled materials by Trisha Church - thanks, its wonderful.

Thanks also to all the volunteers on the day, the bakers, the cleaners and gleaners for making the event such a success.

Dehydrating tales

2011-09-20T02:46:00.000-07:00

Laura describes her first experience of using the dehydrator featured in the Low Carbon Preserving workshop held on 10th September 2011.

"I began using the food dehydrator last week and am very pleased with the results so far. I already have a tin full of dried apple rings which should see us well into the winter. They're so delicious that I have to make myself eat fresh ones and save the rings for later! I'm particularly pleased that these are all local Old Trafford apples given to me by allotment neighbours so there are no food miles involved and the cost was to happily pick apples in the autumn sunshine - what a bargain!

Tomatoes dehydrated

There is a satisfying, therapeutic effect from coring and slicing dozens of apples to neatly arrange on the dehydrator's trays. It offers the dual luxuries of daydreaming while also feeling very productive. Apples rings are first dipped in a solution of water and lemon juice to keep their colour, then dried on a clean tea towel before going into the dehydrator. It does take some time but the result is worth it. If we can manage not to just eat them all I plan to make cakes with them in a few months time.

Tomatoes are particularly rewarding to dry (and less time-consuming than apples) as it's impossible eat all that my plants produce. I really prepared for this tomato season by abstaining for months beforehand but there are still only so many variations on tomato-based dinners one can eat!! In addition, they shrink massively so I have 40 or 50 tomatoes stored in one small jam jar. When I've done the lot (they are still ripening) I'm going to store them in olive oil and they should keep until this time next year; although I expect we'll scoff them long before that. My tomatoes are small so I have just cut them in half which was quick and easy.

How it works

Elderberries are a faff to handle as they're so small. They're tender when fresh and then even tinier when dried. However I enjoyed foraging for them and will enjoy making biscuits with those delicious little fruits later.

The rose hips that I found when I was getting the elderberries will make a lovely infusion throughout the winter. Rose hip tea is excellent for warding off colds (full of vitamin C) and looks really pretty in my glass tea pot!

I have just put in a load of damsons to dry, which were also given to me by an allotment neighbour. These I washed, dried on a tea towel and slit up the side. I'm hoping they will dry ok - so far they seem to be turning leathery and prune-like. I couldn't face destoning them as they are so small and I've already dealt with 2 gluts of plums this summer. A friend has a gadget for destoning damsons which I may borrow next time.

I'm really pleased with my turn with the OTAGS dehydrator. I urge anyone with a glut to consider borrowing it. It's fun and productive and the end result is very satisfying. I haven't really started using my dried produce yet, besides a few cheeky nibbles, as the point is to store it for a while and concentrate on all the fresh stuff there is still about. Anyway I love seeing it on my shelves as a reminder of all that happened this growing season; it's comforting to know too that it'll be a while yet before I resume shopping in Unicorn or the Manky Superstore."

Low Carbon Preserving Workshop

2011-09-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

Saturday 10th September saw OTAGS hosting a preserving workshop in association with Cracking Good Food. The aim of the session was to show how you can manage gluts of produce without spending hours cooking chutneys! Vicki Leng, local cook and preserving enthusiast took participants through how to dehydrate apples, salt beans, pickle cucumbers and dehydrate tomatoes all in the 3 hour session.

The essential piece of equipment we used during the day was a dehydrator. It has 14 square feet of drying space, and is designed to run on a low heat (the temperature range can be set between (29 - 68 °C) whilst at the same time running a fan to dry the food out. So unlike dehydrating food in your oven its energy efficient and you can then store food in jars without the need to run a freezer. Food preserved this way will keep for at least 9 months, so you can be eating sun riped tomatoes that you've grown long after the UK tomato growing season has ended. If they are really really dry you can just jar them once they've been dehydrated. Or if they have some moisture remaining pack them into small jars and cover with olive oil.

Vicki showing Claire, Dave and Roy how the tomatoes are coming along in the dehydrator.

Similarly, Apple rings are really easy to process with the dehydrator - simply core, thinly slice, dip into some water with lemon juice to stop them from discolouring, load into the dehydrator for 3 hours then pack into sterilised jars.

We also salted beans, which was quick and straightforward. Vicki explained that this isn't a technique that enables you to serve up green beans that will taste the same as those you cook freshly picked in the usual way (e.g. steam). Rather its one way of managing part of your bean glut that doesn't require freezer space or use of fossil fuels. Very simply, using a clean sterilised jar we packed sliced green beans (french or runner) in layers with salt. A layer of salt followed by a layer of beans, then another layer of salt until the jar was full. After the beans and the salt have been in the jar overnight you can top up the jar packing more beans and salt in, as the salt draws the water out of the beans which makes them shrink.

We tasted some salted beans that Vicki had de-salted earlier in the day and while they didn't taste like fresh beans adding them to soups, stews and chillis would certainly work... once you've rinsed them to remove as much salt as possible.

The session was funded by our Local Food fund grant for Orchard 49. Thanks to Laura for organising the workshop and to Vicki for sharing her knowledge with us.

Preserving workshop full

2011-09-08T01:27:00.000-07:00

Our Preserving workshop on 10th September is now full. Vicki may repeat the workshop, in association with Cracking Good Food (charged for, not free). If you are interested get in touch with us or Cracking Good Food.

Budding Session

2011-08-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit group came to show us how to propagate fruit trees using budding. A small group of us gathered to learn how to do this. We began by practising on some prunings from trees on the site - to try our hand at the technique.

Some say budding is easier than grafting (which Peter has also done with us). Only one of our number really got the hang of this technique. It involves making a horizontal cut in the bark (through to the cambium layer), called the top of the T, and then cutting down from the middle of that down the tree. Then comes the fiddly bit. You then very carefully open up the T section you've made in the tree (rootstock) to expose the green wood beneath. Budding knives have a special area on their blade which is supposed to make this easier, but it was tricky!

Pete making his T section cut on the rootstock

The next step is to get your budding material (the variety you want to create) and you slice off a bud from the material (this is really neat as unlike grafting it means you can create lots of trees from one branch of a tree, because it has lots of buds on it). Again though, this was very fiddly and you needed to be really careful not to touch the green wood underneath the bud - as it needs to be spotless in order to stand a good chance of taking.

Once you've taken your bud off your branch you then tease out the core of the bud - as you want the two trees to join - and doing this helps with the joining.

Once that has been done you then slide the bud into the T section you've created, slice off any spare wood at the top, bind it up with grafting tape and wait. Watering well is essential to give the process the best chance of success.

Once we'd practiced we went and did some budding on some trees in pots and then went over to the orchard to bud some more of the rootstock. Sadly, the plum rootstock was too dry, so it wasn't feasible to try budding onto these.

We will have to see if these bud grafts take - time will tell.

Summer Pruning session

2011-08-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

We were lucky to have a warm sunny day for our summer pruning session on Saturday 20th August. Rod Everett from Middlewood Trust came down to run the session, which focused on tackling stone fruit trees. We also talked a little bit about pruning apples to encourage more fruit, but the majority of the day was spent pruning plum and gage trees which needed attention. Click on this link to view the photos of the day.

Thanks to Rod for a great session, to Laura for organising it and to Vicki for the wonderful empanillas (spanish style pasties).

The session was made possible with Local Food funding.

Up and Coming Events

2011-08-11T06:10:00.000-07:00

Summer Pruning Session Saturday 20th August 2011

Rod Everett from Middlewood is visiting Seymour Grove Allotments to run a Summer Pruning session which will focus pruning plum, cherry and apple trees. This is a free event funded by Local Food grant funding.

Budding Session Monday 22nd August 2011

Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit group will be demonstrating how to propagate fruit trees using budding. We will be focusing on apple and plum.

Low Carbon Preserving workshop Saturday 10th September 2011

Vicki Leng will be showing how to preserve food using minimal energy, with bottling and dehydration. This is a practical session run in association with Cracking Good Food. It is a free event funded by Local Food grant funding.

For more information about any of these events please email orchard49@otags.org.uk

Apples: British to the Core

2011-06-19T07:12:00.000-07:00

Horticulturalist Chris Beardshaw uncovers the British contribution to the history of our most iconic fruit. He reveals the 'golden age', when the passion and dedication of Victorian gardeners gave us more varieties than anywhere else in the world. Chris also finds out how the remarkable ingenuity of a small group of 20th century British scientists helped create the modern mass market apple.

If you hurry you can watch the programme on iplayer

What is in it for me?

2011-06-19T06:59:00.000-07:00

Claire McAllen talks about volunteering on the community orchard

It was back in April 2010 that I first heard about the community orchard when an email arrived out of the blue inviting me to come and help. It later transpired that my details were obtained from the allotment waiting list. I had put my name down the previous autumn. After having my 3rd baby I decided I needed to do something for ‘me’. I wanted to get involved with something that I enjoyed doing and that would get me away from the kids for a little while. I gave up work to take care of the kids and although I love spending time with them I needed to spend some time not being mum just being me. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I had never volunteered for anything before and my actual gardening knowledge was limited. The first work day that I attended in May involved lots of digging, it was hard work but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and couldn’t wait for another session so I would pitch up when I had a bit of spare time and needed to get away from nappies and snotty noses. The people I met were great too, really friendly and like minded it was nice to have adult conversations.

Despite the idea being to get away from the kids my teenage daughter, Ayla came along for one of the work days. Ayla is a girl whose idea of exercise is playing Pokemon on her Nintendo DS. I was quite surprised when she asked to join in, but even more surprised when she told me how much she had enjoyed herself! Saying that, ‘It was good exercise and really quite fun’.

Volunteering is very enjoyable and rewarding, getting away from it all for an afternoon, getting some exercise and making lots of new friends in the process. I have been lucky enough to get an allotment plot. Helping at the orchard has meant that I had a realistic expectation of the level of work involved initially with a new allotment.

The sight of a plot waist deep in weeds and various bits of debris can be very disheartening to any new ‘allotmenteer’ but not me! It was a case of here’s my spade let’s get dug in! I will still be helping out at the community orchard and can't wait to get planting, pruning and pleaching, and of course eventually eating scrummy apples!

Summer Pruning session

2011-06-08T08:28:00.000-07:00

We will be offering a summer pruning session the weekend of 20/21 August (TBA). The session will cover how to summer prune, to encourage fruit growth. Rod Everett from Middlewood will be running the session, if you'd like to come along or would like more information, please email on orchard49@otags.org.uk

Planting completed

2011-04-07T05:19:00.000-07:00

January-March 2011 was a busy time for us. We had lots of trees to plant on the community orchard. Challenging weather conditions November-January meant that our planting window was quite small.

All the trees we had to plant for the 2010-2011 dormant period are now in the ground and florishing. We planted 30 trees, 17 of which are cordon trees - they will grow along a fence line as a way of demonstrating how fruit can be grown in smaller spaces. So, we currently have 13 trees planted in the top half of the orchard. All but 9 of these are trees we grafted.

The trees we grafted ourselves (in March 2010) and planted are:
(Pollination group in brackets)
Lord Derby D
Yorkshire Cockpit C
Lemon Pippin D
Allington Pippin C
Bossom (Mid)
Stripped Beefing C
Queen Cox B
Minshull Crab C
Lord Lambourne C
Burr Knot C
D’Arcy Spice D
Crispin (10)
Downham Pippin D

All the above are cordon trees

Ashmeads Kernel D
Bee Bench ?
Eccleston Pippin ?
Laxton‘s Superb D
Lord Suffield B
Plot 52 ? This is a tree on our site (on plot 52) yet to be identified.
Tydeman’s Early Worcester D
Withington Welter C

And we purchased and planted:

Duke of Devonshire B
Fillingham Pippin B (grafted by Peter Nichol locally)
Flower of the Town B
Grandpa Buxton B (grafted by Peter Nichol locally)
Greenup's Pippin B
Keswick Codling B
Ladies Finger of Lancaster C
Ribston Pippin D
Tydeman's Late Orange D

Work days and sheds

2011-03-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

We are having a work weekend 19th-20th March to plant the trees bought from a specialist nursery - we only have a little time left to get this done as the trees need planting in their dormant season.

If you're interested in coming along we'll be there from 11-2 pm Saturday and 11-1.30 Sunday. Lots to do, so if you can spare an hour do come. There will be soup and bread on offer to warm you up if its cold. If the weather is kind we may do all the trees on Saturday, but there is lots more to get on with on Sunday.

Other news - we now have a shed. A big thank you to Julie, Trisha and Chris who levelled the ground, laid the slabs and put up the shed. This means that we have a place to keep orchard bits and bobs, plus a shelter from the elements. It needs some guttering and a water butt is on the way so we'll have some stored water to keep the trees happy when its dry.

Hope to see you on the orchard soon.

Grafted Trees Planted

2011-02-19T01:49:00.000-08:00

All but one of the trees grafted during the workshop in March 2010 have now been planted in the top half of the orchard. We're waiting delivery of the seven trees we ordered from a specialist nursery - which should be dispatched soon. Three of these need planting as bush trees and four will go along the fence and be grown as cordon trees.

We have some duplicate trees (where we grafted more than one of the variety) and these trees are going to be put in pots and offered for sale at our plant sale in May.

Other news: the shed will be going up next weekend, and once this is done there will be tools for people to use stored in the shed.

February Work Days

2011-02-11T01:41:00.000-08:00

We are having more work days in February to get trees planted. As always, they are weather dependant (frozen ground or pouring rain don't work very well!), so always call to check if in any doubt!

We've planted some of the trees, but there are still more to go in the ground and we really only have February (and early March) to do it.

We'll be there most Saturdays* until the trees are planted - from 11-2 pm. You don't need to commit to the whole time, an hour would be great!

Call 07960 713 018 for more information.

* Not during OTAGS seed potato weekend (19-20th Feb).

January Work Days

2011-01-18T12:26:00.000-08:00

We are planning to have three work days in January to get trees planted. We will be on the orchard on 22nd and 23rd January between 11 and 2 pm and again on 29th January between 11 and 2 pm.

Laura Mackay is making soup for the 22nd/23rd January sessions, so do come along. If the weather is very poor please give Debbie a call on 07960 713 018.

By way of inspiration, here is an artist's impression of the orchard - we need your help to make it so. Thanks to Julie for doing this great artwork.

Grafted Tree news

2010-10-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

This week, with the help of Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit Group, the trees that were created at our March grafting workshop were pruned. Mainly this involved pruning out the growth underneath the graft, where the rootstock was growing vigourously. This was also an opportunity to look closely at how the trees were growing and to take the tape off a few to see how the union between the rootstock and the scion had taken.

For first time grafters there was some very good work (said Peter). None of the plum grafts took, but the rootstock has bulked up over the year, offering a better chance of success next year. The other interesting development is that where the grafting failed some of the rootstock has branched out - providing two stems on which to graft. This means we could grow a damson on one side and a greengage on the other (for example). These are called family trees, and are available commercially, but we will be able to choose material from particularly tasty plums or apples available on the allotment site or from other communtity orchards locally to graft.

We have 30 apple trees, some of which are duplicates. The most prolific grafters were Teresa and Natalia who both created 6 trees with Pete creating 5 trees.

New Path and Fencing

2010-09-19T04:11:00.000-07:00

On Friday 17th September OTAGS community orchard volunteers worked with Wates Living Space NW to lay a path and construct fencing for the orchard. We were lucky to have great weather on the day. For more on this see the Partnership Working page and the photos of the various stages of this job.

Thanks to all who took part.

Making progress

2010-09-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

Our last work day (4th September) was very productive. Many thanks to everyone who came and helped. We had 8 people working hard. A new volunteer, Ayla helped dig up potatoes planted to use the ground while we get ready for planting in the winter. We hope to see her again at another work day (and hope you enjoy those potatoes)!

Our grafted trees are growing well too - so well that their tags needed adjusting, as the girth of their stems had grown so that the tags were squeezing the bark.

We have a community day on Friday 17th September when Wates Living Space will be coming to the community orchard to work with us on laying a path and fencing. The fencing which will be used to plant some of the grafted trees.

For some photos see the Work Days page.

Work Day Saturday 4th September

2010-08-29T07:52:00.001-07:00

We will be having a work day from 2 pm on 4th September in preparation for having the path and fencing work done the following week. Do come along if you can spare and hour or two.

Apple Day Celebration October 16th

2010-08-25T06:10:00.000-07:00

OTAGS will be hosting an Apple Day on October 16th from 12-3 pm. This is a new event which we hope will become regular, with apple tasting and juicing (using our new apple press). After the success of the See More Trail at our Open Day in August we will be running another See More Fruit Trail as a way of encouraging people to walk around the site - with a series of fruity clues to entice them.

Fruity pies and cakes (baked by plotholders) will be sold along with the usual refreshments.

As always we need people to help make this happen. If you'd be interested in helping on the day please get in touch debbie.ellen@gmail.com!

Where: Seymour Grove Allotments, Warwick Court, off Kings Road (next to Kings Road Primary school), M16 0JG.

When: Saturday October 16th 12-3 pm.

Open Day - 14th August 2010

2010-07-30T03:04:00.000-07:00

Old Trafford Amateur Gardeners' Society is holding an Open Day on Saturday 14th August at Seymour Grove Allotments, celebrating National Allotments Week. Come and see the orchard!

Our gates will be open from 12-3 pm . You can find us on Warwick Court, Off Kings Road, Old Trafford, M16 0JG (Warwick Court is beside Kings Road Primary School)

On offer on the day:

Seasonal produce donated for sale by plotholders (subject to availability given the dry conditions this season - so come early!)
Home made cream teas, with allotment jams
Car Boot Sale
"See More" Trail for kids
Take a walk around our allotment site, see how our gardens grow
Find out about the Community Orchard - get involved!
Enjoy some quiet family time in the fresh air

All proceeds from the day go to Old Trafford Amateur Gardeners' Society to run the allotment site.

June and July work days

2010-06-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

We have organised two more Community Orchard work days in June and July. If you haven't been down yet it would be great to see you. Also, if you have family or friends who are interested in growing fruit who might like to get involved in the project please let them know about the work days - as we want the project to be open to people who live locally.

Dates for diaries:

Saturday June 19th 2-6 pm
Saturday July 3rd 2-6 pm

NB If its pouring down then we won't be there. If in doubt, give me a call on 07960 713 018

Directions: plot is in the far right hand corne of the allotment site. Access is via Warwick Court gate, off Kings Road (next to the primary school). If the gates are shut please ring me and I'll come and let you in - 07960 713 018.

Progress is being made; during the last work day (well on the Sunday as the Saturday was rained off) we worked at taming some of the long grass and a particularly dedicated volunteer spent hours digging out all kinds of rubbish from the bottom end of the orchard (9 wheel barrows to be precise, from an area about 3 ft by 13 ft), taking advantage of a skip provided by OTAGS for the whole allotment site that weekend.

We have also planted some crops in the top half of the orchard where the ground has been dug numerous times, removing the mass of bindweed and couch grass. Also, a couple of dedicated volunteers have been offered some space for one growing season to use ground that would otherwise have lain fallow prior to planting trees there next winter.

Hope to see some of you on the orchard soon!

Orchard News

2010-06-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

Debbie was invited to speak at the Garden Organic Annual General Meeting on Saturday 22nd May. She told people about the community orchard and the meeting was very interested in our hopes and aspirations. There was a lot of interest shown in our efforts to grow trees from scratch, a process known as grafting.

This is what is done if you want to be sure to create a tree with the same characteristics as another. So for example, you have a tree on your allotment plot that is disease free and very productive, but you don't know what it is, as the tree was already there and not labelled. To make a new tree you graft (join) a cutting from the tree you have with the rootstock of a disease free plant to make a new tree. Using rootstock like this means you'll be sure to get trees that are a suitable size for your location.

In March 2010, we held a grafting workshop at our allotment site and made around 60 trees. Some were taken by participants to plant elsewhere, but the majority were planted out on the orchard. By early May most had taken - which means we have lots of trees to plant along the fence line as horizontal cordons in November-March.

29th May Work Day
The Saturday was a bit of a wash out - but a few of us made a day of it on Sunday instead. There was a skip on the allotment site and we dug out 9 wheelbarrows worth of rubbish, rubble, glass, and metal from the bottom end of the orchard. Its a bit like an archeological dig - you don't know what is going to be discovered next!

We hope that the worst of the rubbish has now been removed and future work days will be about tackling weeds instead. Watch this blog for details of up and coming work days.

29th May Work Day

2010-05-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

We are holding another orchard work day this coming weekend - if you're free it would be great to see you. We will be on the allotment site 12-4 on Saturday 29th May. As its been so dry - and therefore the ground is very hard, we won't be concentrating on digging (unless you are very keen!) but there is plenty to do at the bottom end of the orchard which wasn't worked on much last year.

Hopefully there will be a skip on the allotment site which we can use to dispose of any rubbish unearthed during the day. We'll be tacking bramble that has sprouted (digging it out if its possible), clearing away the remnants of an old building and general clearing of the very bottom end of the orchard which has been used as a dumping ground over the years.

If you're able to spare and hour or two it would be great to see you. If you're just curious to see how things are shaping up please come along - you can see all the trees that were grafted at our grafting workshop in March - most of them have taken - which is very encouraging, as we were all novices at grafting.

Call me (Debbie) on the day if the gate isn't open - 07960 713 018 - and I'll come let you in. You can find us on Plot 49 (past the community plot on the far right hand corner of the site) Seymour Grove Allotments, off Warwick Court, Kings Road (Warwick Court is next to Kings Road Primary School).

Debbie

Grafting News

2010-05-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

The 40 trees we created at our workshop in March are almost all growing. I've been surprised by the speed with which this has happened. One of the new trees, a variety called Lord Suffield is also flowering.

I thought this was astonishing, but our local Northern Fruit Group expert, Peter Nichol tells me that its very common. It all depends on the type of wood you have on your scion (the bit you take from a tree and join by grafting with the rootstock). If its got fruit buds on it (rather than growth buds) it will flower - even though its just a twig. We just need to rub any fruit off so they don't grow on.

Other news - we had a work day on the early May bank holiday and got a lot of work done. Some of the twice dug ground is going to be used by volunteers who don't have an allotment to grow a few crops that will be finished by Nov-January when the trees will be planted.

Last weekend we took advantage of a skip on the allotment site and disposed of all the debris that had been dug up (plastic, glass, rubble) - so the plot looks much tidier now.

Orchard work and information day

2010-04-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

We are holding a work and information day at the orchard on Sunday 2nd May. We'll be there from 12-4 pm.

You are welcome to come along and help out with digging/clearing or to simply find out more about the project. Diggers, please bring a garden fork, gloves and some study shoes/boots.

The gates to the site have to be kept locked for security, but give me a ring and I'll come and let you in. The entrance is at Warwick Court, off Kings Road (next to Kings Road Primary School)

My number is 07960 713 018

Hope to see you there. If you can't make it, but would like to be involved, please email plot49@otags.org.uk

Debbie

Grafting Workshop

2010-03-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

On Sunday 13th March OTAGS hosted a grafting workshop. This is how new fruit trees are made. You use 'rootstock' supplied from a specialist grower (so its disease free), with the rootstock chosen based on how small or large you want the tree to be. Then join material pruned from the tree you want to reproduce on to that rootstock - with a graft.

Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit Group came to show us how and a very productive time was had by all. After spending an hour or so practising how to join the two pieces together, we set about the task of making trees for the orchard. By 3 pm we had grafted 40 trees.

It will take a few months before we will know if all of these have taken, but Peter re-assured us by saying that if any don't work he will show us how to bud - using the same rootstock.

For our orchard it was important to learn how to do this. Buying local heritage trees is expensive, and often they are not available. The idea is that a group of us will be able to continue to practice this skill, pass it on to others and make more trees for the orchard and to sell during our events, raising money to develop the allotment site.

We grafted: Allington Pippen, Ashmeads Kernel, Bee Bench, Bossom, Burr Knot, Crispin, D'Arcy Spice, Downton Pippin, Eccleston Pippen, Lemon Pippin, Laxton's Superb, Lord Derby, Lord Lambourne. Lord Suffield, Minshull Crab, Queen Cox, Stripped Beefing, Tydeman's Early Worcester, Withington Welter and Yorkshire Cockpit. All of these are apples which we grafted on to MM106 rootstock.

We also grafted some unknown apple and unknown plums, damsons and greengages varieties growing on our site. Later in the year we will host an apple identification workshop, where some of these varieties can be identified.

Autumn Progress

2009-11-06T03:26:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since anything was written here. There has been a flurry of activity on the orchard plot, thanks to Community Payback. There was a team of people helping to clear the plot over a period of 2 months. This has made a huge difference and leaves us with more than half of the area dug over once. There is plenty more digging to be done, but the really hard work has been done on part of the plot. This means we will be able to plant trees in the tree planting season should we get good news on our funding bid. We expect to hear next week, so fingers and toes crossed.

Thanks to the Community Payback team for their work.

More volunteers!

2009-06-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

At a recent OTAGS committee meeting we discussed the lack of progress / scale of the task to clear the orchard plot so that we can plant some trees in the winter. The problem is that most people need to spend all available time getting to grips with their own plot - so finding time for the orchard along with all your other commitments is hard. SO, we thought it might be worth contacting people on our waiting list (which is 52 and growing) to see if anyone would be interested in getting involved. Our rationale for this was that it's a community project and would also give people an insight into what is involved in bringing an over grown allotment into cultivation once more. The orchard plot is certainly over grown - at times digging you seem to unearth more bindweed than soil!

We had a very encouraging response to our email - 14 people got in touch and said they'd be interested in coming to help and we held our first regular session on Saturday 13th June. Five volunteers came and worked really hard for 2-3 hours, so hard in fact it was a job getting them to stop! Everyone enjoyed being out in the sunshine (good weather always helps!).

We'll be hosting sessions every Thursday evening and on Saturday (11-2) through the summer.

You can see photos of the orchard by following this link: Orchard photos

Global Exchange Community Action Day

2009-05-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I wrote anything about our progress on the orchard. We've had a clearance weekend (early May Bank holiday) and on Saturday 16th May we had a group of 14 people from Global Exchange who came to help. We spent from 11-2 pm working on the site (before the rain came down in sheets) and made a dent on the weeds. There was iron work buried in the ground and shards of glass surrounding the roots of weeds so it was slow work. The photo at the bottom of this post shows how much was cleared by the end of the session - which just goes to show how much work we have ahead of us, as we won't have 14 willing volunteers digging again (until the next Global Exchange group in Manchester perhaps!).

The photo in this post is of the team of volunteers who came to help. Thanks very much for all your help and enthusiasm.

Credits are:

Left to right, back row (standing): Claire Ord, Dave Rose (host home), Sehrish Naseem, Michael Cresham, Shahzada Aamir, Hannah Nunn, Riaz Hussain, Shaista Bano.

Left to right, middle row (two girls stooping):Laura Gisby, Rabia Naz Alvi.

Left to right, front row (squatting):Mark Waters, Natalie Baker, Ali Hassan, Maria Jabeen, Sarwat Sughra.

The extent of our progress with 14 people digging and clearing on 16th May. The whole area is approximately 440 sq metres so there is a great deal still to do!

The best laid plans...

2009-03-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

The idea of creating an orchard from scratch is interesting, but the more I learn the less practical an option it seems to be. Last Monday I cycled down to Timperley to meet up with Mary Eastwood, who has been growing fruit trees for decades. Mary keeps rootstock plans on her allotment and propagates trees using this home grown rootstock. She kindly volunteered to show me how to graft. We spent a morning in her living room (as there were 50 mile an hour winds outside) with me practising the art of grafting on various twigs from the Beech Drive community orchard.

So why doesn't it seem practical to create an orchard from scratch? Well, the main issue is relying on amateur grafted trees as the basis for an orchard... it takes two years to reach the point where a grafted tree is ready to be planted out (as a maiden) and then opinions differ about how long you should leave a tree to develop before allowing it to fruit (some say up to seven years!). What a waste of time and effort if part way through this process the tree dies, or the graft fails? You have to start again.

The other key issue is space. Once grafted, to stand the best chance each tree needs to be planted in the open (i.e. not in a pot) with between 2-3 feet between trees so that they can grow on. On a small allotment this is a good deal of space to give up! The orchard site itself is not yet ready to be used - a thorough digging over would be needed to get an area ready to plant the grafted trees, and the grafting needs to happen now.

So ... my thinking now is that we need to buy some trees to plant between Nov-January 2009/2010 and also graft some of our own as well. These can be added to the orchard if they are healthy, or we can offer them for sale to raise funds for the allotment society - if we have enough to do this. It may not be possible to squeeze in any grafting this year, but we will certainly do some next year. Better get busy writing a funding bid ...

Developing an orchard from scratch

2009-03-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

What do we mean when we say we want to develop an orchard from scratch? Well, instead of buying trees from a nursery this way involves obtaining rootstock and grafting the variety of tree you want to grow onto the rootstock. Rootstock is used to control the size of a tree. You can buy apple trees suitable for growing in a container that will only develop a small rootball (e.g. M27) or you can grow a tree that will stand 15 feet high (M25).

Establishing an orchard this way is a slower process, but if you have limited funds its a cheaper way of doing it. Another bonus is that it develops new skills - how to graft. Another aspect of this is actually growing rootstock itself. Until recently, I was completely ignorant of this aspect of tree fruit horticulture. There are places around the country that grow rootstock and sell it to people who want to graft to make new trees.

Why then not have a try at doing this ourselves? Our allotment society holds plant sales to raise funds for our site, so if we can learn how to grow rootstock, and graft to make new trees we can then sell these to raise money for the site. The other advantage of adopting this approach is that we can create new trees from existing healthy vigourous trees on our allotment site. Hopefully this will lead to fruit trees that are well suited to the local conditions.

There is a small window in the year when grafting can take place, when the sap starts to rise - this is the time to graft. Its weather dependent but happens late March to early April, generally speaking.

If you want to learn more about rootstock, the different types and what they are suitable for visit the Trees For Life Website for more information.

Beginnings

2009-03-06T05:20:00.000-08:00

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).