Feb and March Work sessions in 2012

February and March are busy times for orchards in development.  We've organised some work sessions as follows:

Jobs and dates

Constructing apple arches in the middle of the orchard                Sunday 19 Feb and/or Sunday 26 Feb
Do further prep of ground for trees (esp. by the bakery wall)      Sunday 19 Feb and/or Sunday 26 Feb
Plant trees and other fruit on the orchard                               Sunday 4th March and/or Sunday 18th March

Because its often frosty first thing these sessions will run for a couple of hours from 12.30-2.30 - as hopefully by then the temperature will have improved some.
 

We can't promise to have any hot food for sharing, so please bring something with you for lunch.

 

If you're thinking of coming along for the first time please call or email so we can let you know if we cancel the session due to weather conditions.

 

Email: orchard49 @ otags.org.uk

Call: 07960 713 018

Hope to see you there.

 

Tool Maintenance workshop - 14th Jan 2012

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!

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

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

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

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

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."