FEBRUARY 2020 - PERISHING PLASTIC

We have a bit of a love - hate relationship with these clear plastic spiral tree guards. 

We use them extensively during initial planting of trees and hedges to help protect the young bark of plants from damage from voles or rabbits.

They have their merits but they are plastic, they degrade and eventually break and become unsightly.

This is our East Boundary with a hedge planted about over six years ago, photographed in 2016.

The young mixed native hedgerow plants were growing away nicely protected by the spiral guards.

After 5 or six years the spiral tree guards reach the end of their useful life...

We've spent the morning removing the remaining plastic from the East boundary hedge and this has tidied up the look of the hedge and has helped remove moss , grass and vegetation from getting compacted against the bark.

The spent plastic spirals are not wasted - we've found a local company that can recycle them so they'll find an alternative future use in another product.

An elite team of our volunteers spent a productive morning planting three apple trees at Colwall C Of E Primary School in the hedge line between the staff car park and the adjoining farmland.

This is the start  of providing a few trees to help with the school's landscaping ambitions. These three at the front of the school, with more to follow at the rear - near the forest school area.

The trees that have gone in are a James Grieve, a Worcester Pearmain and a Bosbury Pippin. 

All are on M25 (vigorous) rootstocks so should grow to be big trees in due course.

 It's a great opportunity to help combat climate change by getting more trees in the ground together with helping to positively develop and improve the school environment. 

This is a partnering project between Colwall C Of E Primary School, the Malvern Hills AONB and Colwall Orchard Group.

Colwall C Of E Primary School is providing us with the opportunity to plant trees in a new location, the Malvern Hills AONB is generously funding the cost of the trees, and Colwall Orchard Group is supplying the tree protection and volunteer labour to do the planting.

Never believe what you are told about how easy it is to propagate willow! 

We thought it was as easy as plunging pencil thickness stems into the soil and they would root and grow without fail.

Sadly we were wrong, and our horticultural pride was sorely dented when version #1 of our Willow Worm, planted a year ago at Colwall Village Garden, failed to grow.

 Being hardy country- types we had immediately blamed the weather - a dry spell after planting was (without doubt) the culprit...obviously nothing to do with the previous workmanship! 

Now, we are nothing if not a tenacious bunch (some might say stubborn), so a re-match was always going to be on the cards...

Undeterred, and buoyed by fresh pollarded willow supplies once again purloined from Rita's garden, and with renewed leadership from Martin, version #2 of the Willow Worm grew phoenix-like from the site of our previous disaster during a regular Friday morning volunteer session.

In terms of form and colour it's undoubtedly a gem.

Version #2 of the Willow Worm boasts not only the tunnel structure replicated from before, but also now has the 'destination' of an igloo structure at the far end.

As a play location for local children it's the must go place to be!

However, with regard to the key question - Whether it will grow? - only time will tell!

Thanks to Rita for materials, to Martin for instruction and imparted wisdom, to our volunteers for their patience and humour, to Les for photography, and to Dottie the dog for ongoing Trufflehound services.

The third Sunday of the month sees our hardy volunteers working at Colwall Village Garden in a three hour regular morning session. 

Here Paul braves the cold and showery weather to cut up logs which we have used to make log piles for wildlife. 

Elsewhere on the site Sue helps keep that pesky grass cut short.

This is part of our maintenance regime in order to ensure that our newly seeded wildflower meadow areas within the main community orchard have a chance to germinate and thrive.

No, not the famous singer, but John, another stalwart volunteer, managing to look remarkably fit and happy after sterling work transporting logs round the site.

We hope that the log piles will provide a good winter habitat for mammals, amphibians and insects.

In preparation for this Saturday's Colwall Mistletoe Fair we've been busy and creative. 

Forget Santa's little helpers - our own wreathmaking wizzards have been hard at work. 

Well Done for the collective efforts of Wendy, Mhari, Jacques, Maria, Martin, Rita, Philippa, and Julie.

We've made about twenty wreaths which will be ready for sale on Saturday 7th December outside Provisions of Colwall, Walwyn Road, Colwall - 9am to 1pm.

These will sit alongside our other local merchandise to include jams, jellies, chutneys, fruit juice and honey.

Not to mention lots of lovely bunches of mistletoe to add that festive fun!

Whether your house is modern or traditional we've tried to cater for all styles so visit us, browse, buy and get those perfect Christmas decorations.

We hope to see you there!

A wet and miserable autumn evening saw Colwall Orchard Group's top team of chutney chefs happily hard at work in the Apple Packing Shed.

Looks fab to me, team!

The perfect accompaniment to a warming winter curry... 

Lovely!

...we've also been making batches of our favourite jam varieties.

Look out for us, and our produce, at the Ale House Christmas Craft Fayre on Saturday 23rd November at Colwall Ale House near St. James the Great Church, Colwall.

A somewhat wet Friday morning found us at the wonderful Farr's Field orchard harvesting surplus apples. 

With sincere thanks to the owners  Carol and Jonty Pearce for their generosity and hospitality.

For more information about Farr's Field Orchard please see www.farrsfieldorchard.co.uk

Sometimes Colwall Orchard Group gives you the opportunity to relive fond childhood memories. 

Here Andrew Spray gets (very carefully!) re-acquainted with tractor driving - helping move the bale arm crates containing our precious harvest. 

And what a crop!

A mixture of Herefordshire Russet, Spartan and Fiesta apples to be used for juicing. 

This has turned out to be a bumper harvest year for us, due to the hard work of our volunteers and the kindness of various fruit tree owners who allowed us to pick their fruit.

THANKS GUYS!

Q.Whats better than harvesting apples?

A. Harvesting apples with some youngsters to help!

Here, children from The Downs School, Colwall show off the fruits of the labours following a Sunday morning session picking apples from the small orchard in the school grounds. Later the children visited Colwall Village Garden to learn more about apples and to do some fruit juicing.

These children from the Downs School obviously have far better memories than ours...

Enough said.

Another day. Another visit. 

Children from Colwall Primary School enjoy their packed lunch at Colwall Village Garden during a break in their visit to do apple picking and juicing.

It's lovely to pass this practical knowledge onto a new generation.

With thanks to the children, their teachers and adult helpers, and to our volunteers for making this all happen.

Nobody can accuse us of being boring.

In a complete change of mood we were wowed by the a cappella wonders of Serenata. 

This fantastic singing group generously did a fund-raising evening gig, on our behalf, held in the stunning surroundings of the Ale House, Colwall.

Celebrating the harvest season, Serenata whisked us around the world on a spirited musical tour of the bountiful fruits of autumn.

The evening began with gifts of fruit from the singers to the audience and continued with songs, poetry, readings and humour.

A truly atmospheric and memorable experience.

Our lovely bar staff take a quick break from proceedings.

A massive THANK YOU to Serenata, and to our volunteers who helped with preparing and serving the food and drink, and with all of the other myriad things required to get the show on the road.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening that we would hope to repeat again.

We love Apple Day!

A firm favourite amongst our Members and visitors alike, we were, for a change, blessed with good weather for the annual Apple Day event this year.

The sun shone, visitors came in good numbers, our new cob pizza oven got fired up and the apple juice flowed. 

Perfect!

A strange year for apples in these parts.

Some trees were laden with fruit, but frequently this year there were stories of a poorer crop than last year. 

Welcome to the precarious and engaging world of fruit growing. 

Nevertheless we had gathered in crates and trugs of fruit from local orchards and many of our visitors arrived with their own surplus fruit to be juiced and pasteurised.

Colwall Village Garden is a special place and the visiting kids enjoyed the freedom to romp around in a safe and relaxed place, and to play in an orchard environment.

There's free access to the site throughout the year and increasingly this is becoming a fun destination for kids to picnic and play.

We like good equipment.

This electric scratter, manufactured by Speidel, is the first part of the process to extract juice from fruit.

The scratter breaks up the whole fruit into a coarse pulp which is then pressed to extract the juice.

Replacing an old  hand- cranked scratter we find that we are able to extract far more juice using this new piece of kit compared with the old one. 

We setup some apple-related games - in this instance Pin The Wriggly Worm to the Apple - for all to enjoy.

Our Apple Catapult, erected within the community orchard,  once again proved to be on target for both young and old alike.

Our recently completed cob pizza oven had its' first proper use on Apple Day and we served a steady stream of delicious home-made pizzas.

A big thank you to our volunteers Deb and Laurence (pictured above) whose sterling work on the landscaping and supporting structure, made the cob oven available for use on time.

Thanks too to all of the other volunteers who made Apple Day happen this year - we couldn't do it without you!

See more on the construction of the cob pizza oven, below.

A beautiful day in September found us working at the idyllic location of the Beauchamp Community at Newland, near Malvern.

In the picture above we are pruning a large old apple tree in their veteran orchard.

Our fruit tree expert, Tim Dixon, spent a couple of hours passing pruning tips onto members of the Beuachamp Community's gardening club - here working on some young plum trees.

There's nothing like working with good kit and on a large veteran apple tree like this we're very glad of our fantastic Niwaki orchard tripod ladders and our long handled pruning saws to get the job done efficiently and safely.

Not a new dance craze hitting Colwall but instead the start of the ancient art of cob making.

Clean clay is wetted, broken down by trampling, and mixed with sand and straw to make the wondrously simple building material called cob.

This was the start of a two day practical course in which we learnt the art of constructing a cob pizza oven which will be an additional attraction at our Colwall Village Garden site.

Recycled wine bottles are added to the base of the cob oven structure. 

These help to retain heat when the oven is fired up.

Our thanks to our numerous volunteers who were readily able to provide these essential building materials...!

Our tutor - Matthew Lloyd of The Fabulous Cob Oven Company - getting to grips with some of the more skilled  parts of the construction process.

It was lovely to be in the company of a talented craftsman.

More information from him at www.coboven.co.uk

Finally, a massive THANK YOU to the generosity and vision of Alan and Virginia Seddon who made this project possible.