What a year 2026 was!

 What a year on the Orchard!

It is September and the evenings are drawing in, which means our work sessions will be coming to an end soon.  A perfect time to reflect on our Orchard time this year.  

Orchard 49 volunteers have been having a quite the summer this year. We had a very welcome boost with new volunteers who were inspired to join our Tuesday sessions after coming on the orchard tours during the Autumn and Summer open days.  It cannot be understated how important the orchard volunteers are for keeping the trees healthy.  More hands really do make lighter work.  So, a shout to all of us - in no particular order, Lorna, Kelly, Liz, Pete, Lisa, Fatima, Lil, Vivian, Luz, Alex and me, Debbie.  Between us we've given 166 volunteer hours to the orchard up to the end of August.

More unwelcome visitors of the moth variety

We had a second unwelcome pest making an appearance in fruit on the orchard and across the allotment site, Codling moth.  This is the first year that orchard fruit have been significantly impacted by it, leading to lots of premature fallers on the orchard.  

If you've noticed this with your apple and pear trees, to break the breeding cycle it is necessary to do a number of things. Firstly regularly remove fruit with codling moth damage (on the ground and those you can reach on the tree).  By cutting out the damage you can still eat the apples, just best not to bite into one unsighted!  We've been making chutney and cooking with Orchard fallers.

Advice is to not leave them on the ground to rot down as the cocoon larva burrow into the soil then pupate and the moth mate in the spring. We are not composting them on site either for the same reason.  

The second action we are taking is using fruit tree grease which is applied around the trunk of each tree so the mating process doesn't happen. This will be done in September/October time. Other biological measures can be used (nematodes) but this is impractical on the orchard. Supplies can be purchased from Garden Naturally.

Other work

Aside from dealing with moth, some of our other work this year:  we've summer pruned the trees along the fence line path, showing our new recruits how to do this. Lisa riso printed some fabulous cards with orchard volunteer drawings which are available to buy. We cleared around all the trees numerous times and mulched them. With funding from OTAGS Phil has been replacing the rotten posts along the path and putting up posts for a new raspberry bed. Pete has been making a low brick border edge along the boundary with the bakery, replacing rotten scaff planks.  We have relocated the blueberry bushes which were being overshadowed by the now mature trees.   Preserves are being made in preparation for the autumn open day, using figs from the orchard and some special edition Withington Welter apple butter. We harvested the damsons last week too so there should be a small batch of damson chutney available.

The lovely bench in the middle of the orchard, which was installed in 2013 has been restored thanks to a grant from St John's Sunshine and the wonderful maker Katherine Fernie. Thanks to Julie Fletcher for her work removing, transporting and reinstating it.  

The weather!

Our trees have coped remarkably well in the drought conditions but some have produced very different fruit because of the lack of rain (small, some floury that are usually sweet and crisp). Codling moth and plum moth have impacted on the harvest. The rise in moth damage is probably due to climate changes, so keep checking any fruit trees you have in your garden.