The Orchard revisited (Repost from 2013)

Originally posted on our Landshare Blog and several other places, heres a look at the Orchard Amy and myself planted way back when! I was SO proud of everyones efforts and all the years of preparation that brought us to this point, I still am and im sure the Orchard is now producing twice this amount 3 years on....

Bumper Apple Harvest

Posted on November 1, 2013 

This September we had the biggest harvest of Apples from our new Orchard to date. The Apples & other fruit trees have been planted over the course of 3 years, the last trees being planted in the spring of 2012.
They grow on a very testing site, exposed to the wind and on heavy clay soil. The fruit trees have had a tough start, but a little bit of tender care and the damp summer of 2012 meant they got their roots in properly, and are now starting to perform as they should. Undeniably it’s been a good year for fruit all round, even our small Vegetable garden Orchard has produced fruit and these trees were only planted in the spring of this year.
One of our volunteers has taken on responsibility for the large Orchard almost entirely and over the course of winter 2012 – 2013 he would come down to see me and tell me about how the pruning was coming along, retie any trees that had come loose, repair rabbit guards etc.

Apple blossom in spring

In the spring he mowed, keeping the grass low improved the air circulation around the trees and took out competition for moisture and nutrients. The spring show of blossom, although later than normal was incredible. There is nothing more beautiful than standing surrounded by fruit trees in full flower. The scent on a still day can make your mouth water!
Finally in mid August, our volunteer, Peter started coming back from the Orchard laden with boxes of Apples. At first it was a trickle, then a veritable flood of Apples. Once the kitchen had their fill and they had made Apple pie, Apple crumble, Apple juice and of course offering up our Apples au natural, we started to offer them for sale in our shop …. And still the Apples kept coming! It was beginning to feel a bit like a scene from the Magicians Nephew with crates of Apples stacked waist high and Peter warning me there was more to come, much more.

Some of the young trees laden with fruit.

At this point we had to get inventive as we had way more fruit than we could ever deal with so we contacted a local business, Biddenden Vineyards and consulted with a lovely chap called Julien, who offered us the solution of juicing our Apples. So a date was set for collection and a collaboration of the Rangers team and the Veg garden saw a bright Thursday morning in late September, and an army of Volunteers set off for the orchard with our hastily assembled Apple crates. Less than 2 hours later with big smiles the Orchard had been virtually picked clean.

A happy team of volunteers

We had estimated having about ½ a ton, we had underestimated, on final weight we had just under a ton of fabulous Apples. These were sent off for pressing and within 3 days we had our very own bottles of Apple juice. This means we can carry on enjoying the fruits of our labour, if you’ll excuse the pun, right into next year. Well, I say that, that’s if there’s any left as we’re selling it in our shop, and by all reports it flying out the door!

Me, and a lot of fruit juice!

Finally a quick note about the storm the other night, there were some casualties, relatively minor ones compared to how bad things could have been. A few small trees have gone down in the garden and wider estate, causing very little collateral damage. The worst thing to happen to the Vegetable garden was that we lost both sets of the south ends of the polytunnel doors, the wind had, despite our best efforts, ripped the locks off the doors, snapped the reams of baling twine we had wrapped around the handles for extra security, pulled the anchor points clean out of the ground and then proceed to thrash the doors back and forth till they cried mercy. Thankfully it appears that’s the worst it did and it shouldn’t take too long to replace them with something bigger, better and more resilient.

Lou – Senior Vegetable Gardener

Organic Veg the No-Dig way (repost from 2013)

Originally written for the Landshare Blog way back in 2013, this was subsequently reposted in several locations and the information included went on to make up part of the talks I give to groups about growing vegetables Organically and using the No-Dig method. I thought you all may like to see what we did there.

Apologies for the quality of the pics!

Our no-dig veg garden 6 months in...

Posted on July 12, 2013

An unusual year

So, halfway through the year, ok a little over but close and how is our No Dig system progressing? Some of you who visited us in previous years will hopefully be pleasantly surprised at how we’ve changed. We started converting our field over to 4ft wide beds at the end of last year and putting in place a system of composting and mulching them. This is how things looked in 2012…

The beds being converted over…

and in 2013…

Our team spent a lot of time getting the beds converted, and there is still more work to do, but so far we really are seeing the benefits. Working in this method allows you to grow veg in a more consistent and easier to manage way. There are some crops that at present we are not attempting, such as potatoes, carrots and parsnips. We will grow these again in the future once we have built up a decent soil depth but we are having some enormous successes with other crops such as Kohl rabi, Onions and Leeks.

Kohl rabi ‘Azur Star’

Onion ‘Bedforshire Champion’

Leek ‘Northern Lights’

We also converted our tunnels over to the No Dig system last year, the soil had become exceedingly depleted and had no structure to it at all. We had started to find that even our Tomatoes were struggling to produce decent vines, so copious amounts of manure were added. Its worth bearing in mind when trying this yourself, that not all crops love a high Nitrogen soil and that it can sometimes cause a chemical imbalance, locking up certain nutrients like Magnesium. In a covered environment this can be easily dealt with but when growing organically its best to avoid overfeeding plants in the first place. We planned our crop rotation very carefully to avoid problems and we are getting great results despite the cold start to the year. Below is a picture taken in late July 2011 showing how stressed our Tomatoes were.

and now….

We are proud to be harvesting from them already and the difference in growth is phenomenal!

We also are providing our onsite restaurant with delicious organically grown Cucumbers, and this year we are growing 4 different types. In the cutest cucumber contest its a close run race between Iznik F1 and Passander F1, producing a perfect Cucumber for your lunch box! Or for something a little more substantial you might want to try Louisa F1 or Camilla F1.

‘Iznik F1’

‘Louisa F1’

We have been having an enormously abundant year for fruit as well. In late April I despaired that the weather would improve and by late May I had almost given up, but it hasn’t done our fruit any harm whatsoever. We have produced over 30 kilos of Gooseberries alone, all to be cooked up into yummy desserts by our Restaurant. Not to mention all the Strawberries, Redcurrants, Blackcurrants and soon to be available from our Farmers Market stall, Raspberries! Below is a picture of our Loganberries and in the distance the North Downs.

One thing gardeners may want to keep an eye out for at this time of year is Gooseberry Sawfly. Able to decimate your plants in a day, they don’t just eat your Gooseberries they will go for your Red & White currants too! Organically you have very few options open to you as they must be dealt with quickly. The best and easiest option is to lay a old sheet under your bush and shake/flick the leaves till the horrible little blighters fall to the ground. When you think you’ve cleared one area move the sheet to the next and repeat process. Here’s the grim bit, once your plants are clean of the larvae and your sheet is covered in them you can then deal with the pest in an appropriate manner. How you choose to do this is up to you, but I suggest you don’t release them back to freedom. I would normally expect them a tad earlier in the year but it appears our unseasonable weather has knocked them out of kilter too.
I could include a Thousand more beautiful pictures of our lovely Veg. Garden as each one tells its own story but I run the risk of revealing my inner Nerd. Why not come and join us instead? See for yourself this unique venture into vegetable gardening and admire the best view in Kent …. well unless you climb to the top of the Tower that is.
Louise – Senior Vegetable Gardener

Disclaimer: Things will have changed a lot since this was written, so if you visit now do not expect to see things described above. Fruit varieties & placement may have changed as i believe bed layouts have also.