Hanging up bunches of Mistletoe is a long held tradition. Orchard members braved the rain today to cut bunches of mistletoe to be sold in our village greengrocers. Despite the rain we were able to deliver 15 bunches of mistletoe all ready for Christmas!
Although nearly all of the apples have been picked, and the fruit trees and bushes are settling down for the Winter, the Orchard is still active. If you take a walk around the paths you will be able to find many different fungi. Fungi play an important part of the Orchard’s eco system. Don’t forget to look only though, non of the fungi are edible!
The Orchard is now showing off its Autumn colours. It’s well worth a visit while our fruit trees still have their leaves. The nut walk is particularly colourful as is our Walnut tree.
This year’s wonderful summer has produced a great crop of apples in the orchard. On a bright Sunday morning, orchard members enjoyed the sun, wandering round the orchard picked apples. Our younger members had good fun choosing their own apples and tasting them. Everybody pitched in to help with the apple juicing, and we all went away with bottles of fresh, organic apple juice.
When the Community Orchard was first established, we planted many heritage varieties of apples and pears. We also planted different fruit trees with a long and ancient history. One of these was a mulberry tree. This has thrived over the years and we now get a small crop of mulberries each year.
Recently we were donated a second mulberry tree which we planted beside the Forest Garden. It has already produced a few mulberries and hopefully we will have more in years to come. Many thanks to our donors for this kind gift to the Orchard.
We have all experienced some wild and windy weather over the last week when Storm Floris arrived last Monday and sadly one of our plum trees was blown down. The tree was covered with plums and would have provided a wonderful crop. Hopefully, since the tree was split from the main trunk rather than completely blown over, the plums may still ripen.
Six orchard members got together on a beautiful sunny evening to take part in our annual wild flower survey. Armed with reference books and apps we surveyed the whole orchard.
We identified 57 species, up from 53 species last year. Some plants such as Deadly Nightshade, Camomile, Harebells, Alkanet, Herb Robert, Hop Trefoil, Red Campion Rosebay Willow Herb, Tufted Vetch, wild carrot and Woad were not spotted this year.
We are so pleased that our species numbers are up again and how diverse the Orchard environment is!
On a warm, sunny evening, the Boys Brigade paid a visit to the Orchard. After a guided tour of the Orchard, the boys split into work groups to help with jobs around the site. One group pruned the willow bower and another group helped weed an allotment plot and the strawberry bed. Their help was much appreciated
Afterwards, the boys made good use of the fire pit, toasting marshmallows. We left them playing games and making good use of the grassy spaces. We look forwards to a return visit from them in the Autumn.
Usually we celebrate the Summer Solstice in a shower of rain, but not this year. The sun shone for the whole event. We listened to wonderful music provided by an Orchard member and his friends and listened to poems about the solstice. Another member had prepared a quiz testing our knowledge about the sun.
In Scandinavia, it’s traditional to weave bracken crowns, so many of us added them to our sunhats. The shared lunch was amazing and we managed to get the tents down just before the rain!
Our wild flower meadows are now in full bloom and you can wander through the meadows along the mown paths. We have lots of native wild flower and grass species growing in the Orchard, how many will you be able to identify?
Lanchester Community Orchard 