Cob Oven workshop April 2012

On Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st April a group of plotholders and local people came together to learn how to build a cob oven on the allotment site. Local Food funded the 2 day workshop, which was run by Annabel from Earthed .  The workshop ran from 9-5 on two days, so everyone who participated put in hours of hard labour.

The photos here show the oven in its final form. Its full of sand right now, but once its dry this will come out and it can be fired up.  More photos of the whole process of making the oven can be viewed here.

The oven is going to be a huge asset, as we can bake pizza, bread and other things in it - which will be great for open days and socialising on the site.

Sculpture with a nature/orchard theme

See the apple with a visitor?

Grafting Workshop March 2012

Saturday 10th March 2012 saw us hosting another grafting workshop at the allotment site.  We welcomed friends from Rylands Kitchen Garden, a community allotment project in Longford Park along to make some trees as part of the Longford Park Centenary celebrations.  We also hosted Anna visiting from Glossop who is developing a communty allotment, plus 4 Orchard volunteers, and Rob from Moss Brook Growers who was attending to graft some Morello Cherries.

The session was run by Tom Adams from Shropshire.  It will take a while to know if our efforts have been successful, but we had a wonderful day learning how. The session was funded by a Local Food grant.

Here are some photos of Tom and participants busy grafting pear, apple and cherry.

Lorna taping up the graft point

Anna  cutting the rootstock

Hilary using a handing tool to graft

Claire tidying up her scion before joining it to the rootstock

Tom taping up the graft point on a cherry

Trees planted March 4th 2012!

Despite the weather we planted more trees at the community orchard today.  It stopped raining long enough for us to press on with the work.

Big thanks to everyone who helped: Lorna, Claire, Pete, Richard and Debbie.

We planted:

Apple Acklam Russet
Apple Balsam
Apple Golden Spire
Apple Hunt's House
Apple Merlin's apple
Apple New Bess Pool
Apple Newton Wonder
Apple Rosemary Russet
Apple Sisson's Worksop Newton

Pear Beth
Pear Onward

Cherry Stella
Cherry Morello

Quince Portugal

These were all purchased with the grant from Local Food which is part of the Big Lottery Fund's Changing Spaces programme to help communities enjoy and improve their local environments.

Some of the apple and pear trees were planted beside arches and will be trained to grow up and over the arches. The idea for this came from the Garden Organic orchard at Ryton Gardens.  It will take many years for them to reach this size, but the picture shows what we have in mind.

Apple Arch at Garden Organic's orchard

An added bonus today was a surprise visit from Peter Nichol from the Northern Fruit Group. Peter came to drop off some scions for our grafting workshop next weekend, but we asked him to help us prune the trees,  many thanks!

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.