Roots to Fruit on BBC1's Inside Out

On Monday Inside Out featured a fascinating piece on London's orchards and our orchard made a brief appearance!

You can watch it on the BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01nr50q/Inside_Out_London_05_11_2012/

Apples galore!

Today was the London Apple Festival at Camley Street Natural Park and what a fun-filled apple-fest it was, with apple bobbing, apple tasting, apple pressing, apple peeling and much else apple-related! 

Just a few of the (over 100) apple varieties available to taste:

A very noisy machine pulps the apples.  The pulp is then pressed to make the most delicious apple juice I have ever tasted.

With just a little help my talented five-year-old won a competition to see who could produce the longest single peeling - using an ingenious machine that peels and cores the apple whilst simultaneously carving the flesh into a yummy apple spiral.  His peeling was 139 inches long - more that 3 times his own height!

Some of the longer peelings on display:

The peeling machine in action:

Your chance to name a new apple variety

This autumn the London Orchard Project are launching a new variety of apple, specially developed for London.

What's more they're going to be planting 100 of the new trees in orchards in public spaces, parks and schools across London - including one in our orchard on the Jack Dunning Estate!

Working closely Trees for Life the new variety was carefully nurtured from a single seed and has taken ten years to develop.  It looks like this:

Feeling inspired?  Can you think of a name for this new London apple variety?  Tweet your suggestions to @LondonOrchard and then follow them on Twitter, for the announcement of the winning name.

Not on Twitter? You can email your suggestion to orchard@thelondonorchardproject.org – a chance to make your mark on Britain’s apple history!

Meadow and wildflowers coming soon...

Wild flowers are rapidly disappearing from cities - and that means bees, butterflies and other pollinators are suffering. But just imagine if, instead of grass, wildflowers and meadows were planted in all those redundant green spaces we see everywhere around us.  Step up River of Flowers, an exciting project that's right up our street. 

River of Flowers is a not-for-profit company that supports the creation of wildflower meadows.  They are trying to create a real river of (wild)flowers in our capital.  And guess what?  They want to help us create our own wildflower oasis on the Jack Dunning Estate beneath our orchard trees.

Watch this space for more news...

Picture from here

Goodbye Hannah, goodbye Anna ... welcome Wendy!

The trees in our orchard rely on the hard work of a small band of carers for their very survival - with a little help from Mother Nature!  For the past seven months dedicated tree-huggers have tended and watered them.  Huge thanks and a round of applause to: Liz, Karl, Alix, Rosa, Luis, Tim, Anna, Hannah, Glyn and Nicky. We can hold off on the watering until Spring now whilst the trees sleep over the winter.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/princesstheater/3530252342/

In the last few weeks two tree-huggers have moved away.  

Without Hannah there would be no orchard on our estate - she approached the London Orchard Project back in 2011 and badgered Hackney Homes, managing to get us a grant of £1,000. 

Anna watered "her" pear tree on Halidon Close diligently and was an enthusiastic member of the team.  I hope they go on to find other projects and will spread the word about urban food-growing.

Now we welcome Wendy to our merry band.  She will be tending two new(ish) pear trees on Dean Close.  I've just discovered that she is a qualified agriculturalist - a great addition to the crew!

More tree-huggers needed!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ayol/6198545366/sizes/l/in/photostream/

If you'd like to get in touch please contact me!

Pruning ... and fruit?

In mid-August Lewis and Amber from The London Orchard Project made a follow-up visit to the Roots to Fruit mini-orchard to inspect our trees, see how we were doing and show us how to prune the plum trees for the first time.  Tree-hugger Nicky came along, keen to expand his tree knowledge and we were both interviewed for a short film about the LOP.  I'll share the link when/if it gets onto their website.

Guess what we spotted whilst pruning...... plums!  Four ripe plums on the Blue Tit - a beautiful dark blue (just like the one in the photo) and a couple of unripe ones on the Victoria.  Quite unexpected as our trees are young and we were not expecting to see any fruit on any of them for a year or so. 

Jolly delicious they were too - a taste of many future harvests to come.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brankomaster/3788465557/sizes/n/in/photostream/

Mulch, mulch, glorious mulch...

Doesn't look very exciting, does it? But, do read on, our trees have finally been mulched!

What is mulch?
Mulch is a glorious substance!  Put simply, it is a layer of organic material spread around the tree to retain moisture in the soil, suppress weeds, and keep the soil cool.  Over time the mulch breaks down and provides nutrients for the tree. 


Once we had planted our beautiful trees the next step was to be watering and mulch.  The watering was the easy bit; at least the mechanics of it was easy.  In reality, it meant carrying large watering cans and other receptacles full of water over to the trees at least twice a week.  Thanks to our tree-huggers (trumpet role!) Anna, Hannah, Nicky, Liz, Tim, Glyn, Alix, Luis and Rosa (with assistance from Jim, George, Thomas & Joe) the trees are thriving.

Mulch proved more difficult.  Hackney Homes kept promising to deliver a load of mulch and then let us down more than once.  Luckily, the heavy rain this summer meant that the mulch was less of an issue than it would be in a very hot summer.  After much prompting from Lewis, our tree guru, we finally got our act together and purchased some Strulch from Crocus.  Strulch is made from organic wheat straw and is used by the RHS and the Eden Project - no other recommendation needed!

On a beautiful morning in August some of our wonderful tree-huggers got together and spread the mulch around all the trees.  Result: trees as happy as hippos wallowing....

Blossom & Buds

Spring has sprung and the trees have settled into their new home on the Jack Dunning Estate.  

The apricot and one of the plum trees have just started blossoming.

One of the pear trees is just breaking into leaf and the other trees are not far behind.

Full speed ahead on the watering now, with some new volunteers on board who have each adopted a tree and agreed to water it.  15-20 liters a week - even if its been raining!

Roots to Fruit in the Hackney Gazette

A photograph from our planting day on Saturday can be seen on page 2 of this week's Hackney Gazette, together with a short write-up.

Trees planted

We had a really good day on Saturday planting our trees.

To start us off, Lewis, from the London Orchard Project, demonstrated the whole process: from digging the hole to planting the tree to building the guards (the macho bit). 

After that it was all hands on deck.  Including some young helpers.

Delicious cakes and mulled apple juice (laced with rum for the workers) sustained us despite the rain, which increased as the day went on. Somehow, it didn't seem to matter one bit.



Thanks to Lewis, Sam, Glyn, Tim, Tom, Hannah, Syed, Magic, Jim, Joe and all the neighbours who stopped to say hello and encourage us.


The hard work starts here!  As soon as the buds burst we have to give each tree 15-20 litres of water weekly, EVEN IF IT HAS BEEN RAINING.  So volunteers for watering duties please sign up by e-mailing us.

Our Trees

People have been asking about the trees ...

We shall be planting eight trees, five alongside Augustine's Court and three on the raised ground at the end of Halidon Close.
Our trees have been selected to maximise success and provide a long harvest season, many of them traditional English varieties that have worked well on similar sites.

 

	Apple: Discovery, Fiesta & Howgate Wonder - three traditional English varieties, the Discovery apple crops early, the Fiesta is later and the Howgate Wonder is a large cooking apple
Pear: Conference & Louise Bonne of Jersey - an English variety and an old French one, with attractive blossom
	Plum: Blue Tit & Victoria - two typical english varieties, both good for eating and cooking
Apricot: Tomcot - Very good crop of attractive crimson-flushed fruit ready for picking mid-July

Are you a "Tree Hugger"?

As well as planting the trees, we need to make sure they are looked after.  That's why we need "tree huggers" or volunteer carers to help us with watering, pruning and inspecting the trees for insect infestations and other damage.

If you would like to volunteer please contact us via the blog.

Picture courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ayol/6198545366/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Prepare for planting

Just over a week to go until our planting date - Saturday 18 February.  Lots to be done before then...

Leaflets have been delivered to half the estate and we've put some posters up on the estate noticeboards.  More leafleting tomorrow!

After that, full-on bun-baking - using this recipe - yum!

Welcome to our pear-shaped blog!

  

Roots to Fruit

A new community orchard on the Jack Dunning Estate, Hackney, E9

Roots to Fruit is a new community orchard.
Thanks to the London Orchard Project, the Jack Dunning Estate in Hackney is getting a community orchard, allowing us to grow our own apples, pears, plums and apricots and rediscover the pleasures of eating locally-grown fruit. 
The trees (8 in total) will be planted on the grass verges outside Augustine's Court on Tresham Walk.

Get Involved

  Come to our planting day

 Saturday 18^th February 1pm-4:30pm

Outside Augustine’s Ct. on Tresham Walk

Help plant our fruit trees and enjoy apple cakes & mulled apple juice!

Everyone welcome