Bowling Park Community Orchard

We will make a start on pruning the soft fruit, raking up fallen leaves to keep disease in check and digging out weeds are some of the other jobs to do.

The weather was fairly challenging today, for what is an important day of end of summer management. 

However, as ever, we achieved a great deal with our dedicated volunteers and the invaluable contribution from workers from IGS Construction, who had a day out of the office to help us. 

We cut the meadow area in the event space using the scythes and mowed area around the stone bench. Almost all the hedges have been cut, with the arisings piled ready to be taken to the Household Waste site for composting. The ongoing task of harvesting was a key element of the day. 

There is still more end of season vegetation cutting to be completed, plus more work around the shed. We will tackle these tasks on Friday 11th October. 

Getting the inside of the shed ready for action, as the harvest gets into full swing.

A visit to the orchard to carry out a wide variety of seasonal tasks including mowing paths, scything under hedgerows, weeding around trees and spreading excess straw from the new straw bale apple shed under trees about to shed their apples.  The cordon trees were pruned.  Work on the apple shed continued, with shelving being constructed ready for this year’s harvest.

As well as ongoing orchard maintenance we will be preparing the site for summer playscheme visits and harvesting the rest of the soft fruit.

We concentrated today on vegetation clearance, weeding under the fruit trees and readying the site for use by summer play-scheme groups in August.

Levelling the area around the shed and feeding and netting fruit bushes as well as general orchard maintenance.

We worked on levelling the uneven ground around the new apple store, netting fruit bushes, cutting grass paths and weeding paths around the growing beds.

We will be doing general orchard maintenance, mowing, feeding trees, weeding, netting bush fruit etc 

As well as orchard management; grass mowing and weeding around the fruit trees. We continued with the apple store shed, using boards to make the floor; finishing the construction of the door and fitting it. We also created the living roof. Mixing soil and gravel, and raising it onto the roof as the growing substrate, we planted it up with a variety of stonecrops and will add some thyme later.

Probably peak blossom today (regarding dates for group tasks anyway). 

There are a few notable trees which appear to be having a bit of a rest; Belle de Boskoop, Winston, Howgate Wonder, Lady Henniker and Allington Pippin all have little or no blossom. The Durondeau pear has been badly affected by frost with on a few blossoms escaping unharmed. 

Not much to report on the work front; a vaguely vertical (but less that satisfactory) door frame and the start of a not very satisfactory door (rather warped and not really square, but hopefully will do at least to start with).  

A few more onions planted. 

The covering of snow this morning did not deter our visit to the orchard, even if we were a bit late to set off. 

Unsurprisingly (to me), we didn’t make great progress with the floor and door of the Apple Store, but it was very helpful to do more measuring, adjusting and chin scratching on site rather than in the workshop. The issues with the door revolve around the choice of hinge and how to avoid the obstruction of the straw wall verses the design of the door (weight, using materials we have or buying new stuff, or keeping an eye out for a door in a skip!). 

However, it seemed a good day to clear some of the trees on our boundary so we coppiced the Ash by the Bramley and felled the Field Maple near the pond. Clearing these will help more light reach the tree and pond respectively. 

Today we concentrated on pruning the apple trees.

Last winter we had to cancel a few planned sessions due to the inclement weather and some of the trees are getting too crowded. We took  lower branches off Belle de Boskoop and Winston to help access to get under the trees. As always, we start by removing dead, diseased and damaged branches, though there aren’t too many of them. There is still a lot more pruning to do so we will return to this task in the New Year. 

It was a chilly day, so the tasks of turning the compost heaps and digging out nettles were a useful way of keeping warm. 
 

Today we applied the second coat of lime render, using up all our supplies but not quite covering all the walls. 

We bought some more render on 26th November and completed the second coat. The final coat will left until the spring as we do not wish to take any further risks if the weather turns frosty. The covers will stay on for a few more weeks. 
Holiday.
 

Today we applied a coat of lime slip to the outside of the apple store. Unlike when using the clay plaster on the inside walls, we needed to take precautions against the caustic nature of the lime render; googles, gloves and overalls. It all went smoothly (unlike the surface of the walls which are very lumpy indeed). 

For those not involved in the render there were apples to sort, and ground elder to tame. We are weeding the stretch behind Egremont Russet and are thinking of adding more soft fruit here. 
 

Today we applied the second coat of the clay plaster on the inside of the store.

We have a couple of tubs left which we will use on the rougher areas, and the final coat is a lime whitewash to help increase the reflected light levels inside (as well as acting as a herbicide and deterring rodents).

More weeding on around the orchard. 
 

The event runs from 12-4pm.

If you wish to volunteer please let us know in advance. There will only be an early pick up at Culture Fusion (c. 8.30am), so it would help us greatly if you could make your own way there if you don’t fancy the early start. Volunteer tasks include putting marquees up (and down), helping with the juicing, teas and coffees and selling chutneys, apples etc. 

Final site preparations for Apple Day, plus harvesting.

Today we had to postpone our trip to Sydenham Place Wildlife Garden as we needed to carry on with work on the roof of the shed.