Orchard Revival

Scotland's charity for traditional orchards

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Help Highland orchards get on the map

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A map of Isle of Eigg Community Orchard

A map of Isle of Eigg Community Orchard for our field volunteer information packs

We are putting final touches on the orchard maps for our local Orchard Inventory volunteers. Each one of 1741 Scottish orchards identified in the Inventory’s desk study has its own map which is used by a volunteer to verify its current location, size and condition during the field visit. Katherine Bellamy, our GIS guru, is working on the last few maps for the 129 of the Highland orchards right now. We asked her to pick a couple that caught her eye.

Community Orchard on Isle of Eigg, planted in 2010, is one of the youngest in the Highland and Island area. Despite its young age it has some fascinating history behind it. Since its community buy-out 19 years ago, the island has become world-famous in environmental and land-reform circles and the orchard seems to have been established as a part of the community initiative for the island to go green.

Photo of people planting trees in a brown field

Community planting the orchard on Eigg. There are more photos here. (By isleofeigg,CC BY-SA 2.0)

The orchard still seems to be in fine fettle today. How do we know? It regularly features on social media around May each year as one of the Highlands and Islands bluebell beauty spots!

Image of a flowering apple tree with bluebells flowering underneath

Eigg Orchard in May this year (By @EiggOrganic)

Another of Katherine’s favourites was an orchard at Letterewe Estate. It won her prize for the most remote mainland location as it can only be accessed by boat across Loch Maree. This one is much more mysterious. All we know about it is that it appears on the Ordnance Survey maps from 1860 and it was likely a part of the Estate’s walled garden at the time. This is quite exciting as it may still contain some very old fruit trees. But we won’t know for sure until somebody pays it a visit!

We need local field volunteers to verify the findings of our desk study by visiting orchard sites like these in the Highlands and elsewhere in Scotland. For the full list of the areas we need help with please, and instructions on how to get in touch, please see our previous post.

Newburgh Orchards feature on Landward

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Nick Nairn is doing a piece on undervalued local food.  Choosing the apple as one of three local foods, Landward came to Newburgh a few weeks ago to film. It is after all the place that probably most deserves the accolade ‘fruit town of Scotland’.   As well as filming in the Community Orchard, they also visited a town orchard of a member of Newburgh Orchard Group.

See it all on Friday 24th October, at 7pm on BBC2, and thereafter on iPlayer.

Orchard Gathering 2014 announced

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Orchard banner

 

How do we celebrate and grow the orchard movement in Scotland as part of the local food revolution?

Click here to book now on Eventbrite

You are cordially invited to take part in the first Orchard Gathering on Friday 7th November. This will be an open event calling people together from across Scotland who are passionate about orchard trees, their fruits (and nuts), and how we strengthen the culture, knowledge and skills of keeping them. We believe the following things will happen at the event:

  • sharing experiences and knowledge
  • building energy and enthusing folk
  • making new connections and sparking new ideas
  • working together to further the orchard movement
  • eating good food, having a great time

These are exciting yet demanding times. All over the country, old orchards are waking up and new ones are being planted, yet at the same time the supermarkets retain their stifling globalised influence: despite the apple being Scotland’s favourite fruit, our shop shelves are bare of Scottish-grown apples. But the orchard tree, and the apple in particular, has deep roots in our culture, and seems poised for a resurgence.

We will be using innovative participative leadership techniques to ensure that everybody present has a voice, and also harvesting the fruits of all the conversations as we go along, taking notes, photos and video that will be uploaded to a website of the event.

This is an event in two halves: discussion and celebration – you are invited to both. Once the purposeful, focussed daytime part is finished, we will move on to an cultural evening with music, storytelling, dinner, a play and ceilidh.

Tickets are by donation from £5 for the daytime and £5 for the evening (£2.50 unwaged).

Click here to book now on Eventbrite

This is a collaborative event hosted by Fife Diet, Orchard Research & Enterprise CIC and Forth Environment Link.  For up to date event info please visit any of the three websites:

PROPOSED PROGRAMME (to be finalised)

1000: Registration, tea, coffee, freshly pressed apple juice

1030: Welcome circle including an interactive map of Scotland’s orchards and update on the National Orchard Inventory.

1130: What has been achieved so far?

In this session we will explore and discuss what is happening across all sectors of orchard growing, generating the agenda on the day to fit the programme to the people.

1300: Lunch with practical demonstrations and stalls featuring:

  • Strategy meeting for National Orchard Inventory
  • Book launch of Apple Hunter’s Handbook by Fife Diet Seed Truck
  • Celebration of Forth Valley Orchards initiative
  • How to preserve your fruit
  • Toffee apple tree

1430: What is needed to help grow the orchard movement?

Gathering everyone together, we will use the World Cafe format to discuss how to grow and strengthen the orchard movement.

1600: Next Steps

What do we think are the key next steps? How much can you commit to making them happen? With a summary and closing speech by Fife Diet’s Mike Small.

1700: Day event closes

1730: Sit-down dinner with an orchard fruit theme.  With a welcome by Mrs Mash the Storytelling Cook.

1900: The Forgotten Orchard. A play for all ages by Eco-Drama. Followed by a tasting of all of Scotland’s apple varieties

2100 – 2230: Ceilidh with Hud Yer Wheesht ceilidh band, plus others – feel free to take a turn!

Click here to book now on Eventbrite

With thanks to players of People’s Postcode Lottery for the funding to make this happen. Forth Valley Orchards Initiative is funded by CSGN. Header photograph by Clementine Sandison.

Orchards the Ongoing Cinderella: Omitted from new SRDP: Act Now!

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Tree-money-logoThe Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) is the Scottish Government’s mechanism for distributing land-based payments from the EU funding pot.  A new programme runs from 2014 – 2020, and its shape and detail are being consulted on until the end of the February.

Leaving orchards out of this programme effectively means that the restoration, replanting, maintenance of our traditional orchards is very unlikely to be funded under the SRDP.  That is a blow to the very many of us that are working towards an orchard revival, because SRDP is the biggest pot of land-based funding by far.

As an orchard community we need to make our voices heard.  The easiest way to do that is to make a formal comment on the Consultation.   It’s not hard – here’s how:

1. To have a look at the documents, go to ‘Section 9: Agri-Environment-Climate Scheme’ (page 50) of the draft proposal:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0044/00440079.pdf

So no mention of orchards here.  The other part that should be relevant is Annex C “Agri-Environment-Climate Scheme OPTIONS. Provisional list for consultation”  (Page 11) of the Annexes:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0044/00440080.pdf

While farmland birds, game cover, habitat for waders, ancient woodland cover, hedgerow restoration amongst many others are important – so are the omitted orchards that are still being lost in Scotland.

2. Go to  https://consult.scotland.gov.uk/eu-rural-development-policy/srdp-2014-20-stage-2/consultation  It looks like a big list –  but you only need to fill in two sections.  The first one is ‘Information about you’, and then,

3. Go to ‘Section 9: Agri-Environment-Climate Scheme’.

Click how dissatisfied you are with the Scheme, and then write some comments.

You might want to say how you value traditional orchards for their cultural heritage, how lovely the Spring blossom looks, how you look forward to the first fruit on the season, how there is a growing interest in using the produce, and training local people in orchard management.

And how their omission from the forthcoming programme of the SRDP will have serious negative consequences for an orchard revival – especially for the larger old heritage orchards with the highest biodiversity.

4. Click on the Finish/Submit button and that’s it.  Cross fingers and hope that the comments are acted on. The closing date is 28th Feb 2014.

Together we can make a change for the better.

Heritage Pear meeting at Harlow Carr

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large pear river tyre swingThe steering group of the Heritage Pear Project is meeting at Harlow Carr, near Harrogate on Saturday 8th March.   The meeting is intended to agree how to move the project into its next stage, and put in place the measures to record the UK best heritage pear trees.  If you are interested please contact heritagepears@orchardrevival.org.uk

Inventory Finds Orchards Galore

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shapeimage_3Work on creating a National Orchard Inventory for Scotland is progressing well.  The GIS Deskstudy has been working its way across the whole country.  We use aerial images, historic mapping, OS data as well as our background knowledge of orchards and that of our collaborating partners.  As of the new year 2014 we have identified over 1000 candidate orchards across Scotland.  In the following second phase, we will be carrying out field verification of these sites over the next couple of years. Contact us if you’re interested in becoming involved in the survey:  inventory@scotlandthefruit.org.uk

The National Orchard Inventory project is being implemented by CW Hayes Associates in partnership with Orchard Research & Enterprise, Borders Forest Trust, and National Trust for Scotland, with support from People’s Trust for Endangered Species.  It is an SNH funded research project.

Tags

#ORinventory Apple Day apple wassail BBC blossom day Carse of Gowrie Christmas Clyde and Avon Valley Landscape Partnership Clyde Valley Orchards CW Hayes Associates fife diet forth valley orchards Fruit Festival fruit leather fruit tree wassail gathering heritage Highlands historic orchards inventory Jane Lewis job Local Facilitators National Orchard Inventory for Scotland opportunity orchard Orchard Inventory orchards orchard surveys pear pears and apples Perth remote orchards scotland scotlandthefruit Scottish National Orchard Inventory seasonal recipes South Lanarkshire survey area report using up a glut volunteers wassail wassailing songs Wester Ross WREN

Tags

#ORinventory Apple Day apple wassail BBC blossom day Carse of Gowrie Christmas Clyde and Avon Valley Landscape Partnership Clyde Valley Orchards CW Hayes Associates fife diet forth valley orchards Fruit Festival fruit leather fruit tree wassail gathering heritage Highlands historic orchards inventory Jane Lewis job Local Facilitators National Orchard Inventory for Scotland opportunity orchard Orchard Inventory orchards orchard surveys pear pears and apples Perth remote orchards scotland scotlandthefruit Scottish National Orchard Inventory seasonal recipes South Lanarkshire survey area report using up a glut volunteers wassail wassailing songs Wester Ross WREN

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