Have you ever wondered what variety that pear tree in your back garden is? Or why the apples on your neighbour’s tree never get picked?
This community orchard project aims to do four key things:
• Create a map of all the ‘top’ fruit trees (like apples, pears, peaches but not bushes like blackcurrants) currently growing in Farnham
• Hold community ‘fruit-based’ events such as harvesting, fruit identification days (you may have a ‘lost’ variety growing in your garden!), community juicing, educational trails, and apple days.
• Encourage the planting of fruit trees in gardens and public places, to be shared by the community.
• Create a community orchard by restoring an old orchard or by replanting a new one.
Benefits:
Projects like this one are already taking off across the country (see links below).
They are important and people enjoy them because they:
> Promote Community well-being
Community food projects such as the orchards project help to improve people’s access to healthy, affordable and sustainable food.
> Are Educational
The community orchard project will offer a range of educational opportunities, courses and events. It aims to encourage healthy eating by raising awareness, and will help adults and children to learn about the origins of their food.
> Encourage Biodiversity
Orchards are also important habitats for wildlife. In 2007 orchards were designated a Priority UK Biodiversity Habitat by the UK Government.
What we are doing now:
The first stage of the project will map the top fruit trees already growing in Farnham, recording where they are and what variety they are. “Top fruit trees” means apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, nuts etc.
How can I get involved?
Whether you own a single tree or an entire orchard we would love to hear from you. We’d also love to hear from you if you don’t own any trees at all but would like to get involved! Simply email Paula Burgess at farnham [dot] orchards [at] googlemail [dot] com, or call us via the Contact page.
Other Orchard related Links:
If you would like to find out more about what other similar projects are doing, you can look here:
Common Ground – http://www.commonground.org.uk/
Sustain Orchard Project – http://www.sustainweb.org/page.php?id=122
Natural England – http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/
And if you find any other links that you think we would find interesting, please let us know!
I was at the Bourne Residents’ Assocation meeting on Monday night and was particularly keen on the idea of planting more fruit and nut trees locally. It occurs to me that to have an impact on a wider scale, Farnham Town Council (and possibly Waverley Borough Council) could change their approach so that any new trees they plant would, as a default, be fruit or nut trees. Is this something you have considered exploring with them?
Also, it would be great if Finn could share the slides he showed on Monday.
Many thanks
Jo
Hello Jo,
Yes, planting fruit and nut trees is an important and very easy thing to do.
We have been in conversation with Farnham Town Council and Waverley.
Farnham gave us 10 minutes to present at the start of one of their meetings and have not been very responsive towards us since then.
Waverley have been in deeper conversations with us (and the other two Transition Towns in the borough) for the past year or so. They are already doing some good things, and could do more in this area, but are restricted (shall we say) by other priorities, especially since the budget cuts.
We have also met and spoke with the management of Alice Holt Forest. Again they are already doing many things in line with a Transition agenda, but are constricted from doing more by top down hierarchy.
So, yes we have talked to them about it, and no they haven’t done anything yet, and yes it would be an easy and important thing for them to do, and if you would like to help us continue the conversation that would be great!
))
You can see notes on our meeting with Farnham Town Council here: http://transitionfarnham.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/meeting-farnham-town-council/
There are also notes on Waverley meetings on the website, see, for example, http://transitionfarnham.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/notes-from-tonights-meeting-3/
And notes from our meeting with Alice Holt are here: http://transitionfarnham.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/alice-holt-forest/
I can of course make the slides from Monday available. I will put them on the internet, and email them to you separately.
Best regards,
Finn
Hello again Jo,
I have added a copy of the presentation to this post:
http://transitionfarnham.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/talk-to-the-bourne-residents-association/
Best,
Finn
Hi Valerie,
If you want to send the details of your trees (with just your name and post code) – please email them to me using farnham [dot] orchards [at] googlemail [dot] com and I will make sure they are added to the map.
Regards,
Paula
Old pear & damson trees in my garden – I’d be interested to find out what varieties, how to care for them, and to have them added to map.
There’s also a self-seeded apple tree across the road from my house, and a self-seeded damson by the taxi rank at Farnham station: community fruit trees already in place!
Val
Nice start Paula!
I don’t know of any fruit trees (except Rosalie’s Greengage) and sadly I would not recognise most anyway (unless an piece fell on my head). I might be able to contribute on the mapping side (as per our earlier discussion and tree icons).
Are you going to include nut trees?
Or a guide to planting / keeping fruit trees. I would be interested in grubbing up a couple of sprawling cob nut trees and putting in something more manageable and productive (sorry squirrels!).
TTFn
Tom
Well done Paula,
I will get the logo, as per the concepts we discussed yesterday, to you soon.
Casper
Cool! I’ve got lots of apple and ‘not sure what’ trees around me. Would be great to get them on the list and start learning about what they are.
Eloise
Thanks Robert,
I already have a copy of the Sustain book! Am looking forward to reading it during my vacation.
Paula
Hi,
SUSTAIN have published a report on our Orchard
Heritage. Details at http://www.sustainweb.org/publications/info/162/
It’s a good resource for Paula Burgess.