December Tree Planting

Andrew planted a Jefferson's Gage in the memorial circle yesterday - a fruit tree is a lovely way to remember someone special!

We have received our last order of fruit trees and hope to get them all planted in the next week. There will be 112 heritage fruit trees in our orchard when they are all in place. Thank you everyone, your support has been tremendous!

The Doddington Pippin

 Last weekend we planted the Doddington ‘Pippin’ apple trees in the orchard. This variety of apple grows in a nearby old orchard at Doddington Farm, and earlier this year we sent cuttings from the elderly trees to be grafted at Bernwode Nursery. We received back 9 healthy container grown whips, which we planted on a cold Sunday afternoon.

Dinah's Doddington is planted in memory of Alec Iredale and the wording on the plaque is particularly beautiful:

8th October 1929     Alec Gordon Iredale      4th April 2010

       Alec spent many happy hours in his orchard at Doddington.  

          Friends, please remember him for his love of people,  

          his sense of humour and his passion for wild geese.

The Orchard Milepost

The milepost, which was found close to the orchard entrance, has been restored and returned to the roadside this week.

In Blaydon on Tyne, at the end of the 19th century, our milepost was cast. It was placed along the toll road between Belford and Ford Bridge, where it stood for many years before a passing hedge flail caught it and broke it in to 5 pieces. We suspect the farmer hid the evidence of his accident in the hedge bottom - where, through time, the pieces became buried beneath soil level. In 1986 a man from the council listed all the milepost along the stretch of road but, by then, our broken remains were well hidden from sight.

A gentleman from the Milestone Society enlisted our help to find the milepost in 2009 but, although we got rather battered and scratched from digging through the roadside hedge, there was no sign of it. 

In June of this year we had to move a stretch of hedge to create the orchard access - and there, hidden well underneath the hedge roots, was our milepost. Using a metal detector Darren was able to locate the stem of the milepost – it was a long way beneath soil level.

We had the pieces of the milepost sand blasted to remove rust and then, with advice and help from the Milestone Society, we were able to rejoin the 5 broken pieces using steel putty (amazing stuff) and fibreglass.

The mended post was painted with several coats of white Hammerite – and then I used a small roller (thank you Jeremy) to apply black to the raised lettering. In some places the damage was too great – so I resorted to a fine brush and a steady hand (the ‘O’ in Ford is all my own work!).

 Terry and Paul gave Tom a hand to dig and cement the milepost in place at the orchard entrance. Thank you to everyone who has helped us restore this piece of local history.

Northumbria in Bloom Gold

We’ve just been to the Northumbria in Bloom award ceremony where Lowick Community Community Orchard won a gold medal in THE DURHAM TROPHY for Best Conservation Project. A huge ‘thank you’ to everyone who has supported the orchard – it’s been a tremendous success! 

The orchard was also part of Lowick in Bloom's village entry which was awarded a gold medal as well. The members of Lowick in Bloom have worked tremendously hard to transform our village into a pretty, flowery, cared-for place with a great community spirit. Congratulations to all! 

Organic

Lowick Community Orchard is now part of the Organic Farmers and Growers scheme. It will take 3 years to convert the orchard to organic production, and in this time, the area must be very carefully managed. In the autumn of 2014 the fruit harvest of our community orchard will be certified organic.

If you are caring for a tree in the orchard, it’s really important that you don’t put anything on it without first consulting Tom and Karen info@huntinghall.co.uk Please remember not to take compost, fertiliser, manure, seeds, plants, bulbs, chemical or non-chemical treatments to the orchard.

We're really excited about this step; registering a community orchard with an organic scheme is unusual, and makes our orchard quite unique. We hope everyone will enjoy this green adventure and help work towards a very environmentally-friendly harvest.

A Birthday Picnic in the Orchard

It was Tom's birthday on Friday. We celebrated with a picnic in the orchard!

A Blessing, a Picnic and a Concert!

On Sunday the 17^th of July, Rev. Victor Dickinson led a small service to bless Lowick Community Orchard.

We processed around the orchard

Electra sang beautifully

And next, our picnic!

The following concert in St. John the Baptist Church, Lowick, was a great success. Over 100 people filled the church for wonderful performances by recent and present students of of St. Mary’s Music school Edinburgh.

A huge ‘thank you’ to everyone who made our event so special and such a success!

Music for the Orchard

You are invited to a

Musical Performance

in St. John the Baptist Church, Lowick

on Sunday, 17th July at 7 pm

The concert will be preceded by a

Blessing of the Orchard

and

picnic

in Lowick Community Orchard

at 4.30 p.m.

5 talented, award-winning young musicians,
recent and present students of

St. Mary’s Music School, Edinburgh,

will perform  a selection of works

for harp, voice, clarsach

and Northumbrian smallpipes

Tickets: adults £5, children £3

available at the performance or in advance from Hunting Hall

To raise funds on behalf of

Lowick Community Orchard, Lowick in Bloom

and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain

For further information or tickets, please contact

Tom and Karen Burn, Hunting Hall, Beal

Tel.: 01289 388652            Email: kburn.huntinghall@btinternet.com

Our Performers
Top photograph: Electra Lochhead, Clara Hyder and Roberta Burn

Above: Alice Burn and Emily Hoile, finalists in BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Musician of the Year.
Above: (with harp) Roberta Burn

Planters, a roadside sign and hedge

Thank you to everyone who came along and helped in the orchard today - it was tremendous! Above you can see the new planters, made from poplar wood grown on the farm and at a good height for wheelchair users. Graham, Paul and Tom made two of these planters in the centre of the orchard. I feel the photograph should have the caption '3 men in a boat'!

Here is our new roadside sign. Martin, on the left, dug the holes (and the ground was hard and stony) and Tom used quick drying cement around the posts.

 To comply with planning regulations for the orchard entrance we've had to remove a section of roadside hedge and replant it further back to improve visibly for drivers.

          A couple of years ago we had a gentleman from the Milestone Society (yes- it really does exist) staying in one of our holiday cottages. We'd spent some time unsuccessfully searching for the missing milepost, which records showed to be along this stretch of road. When Tom came to remove the hedge a few days ago we found this:

We were delighted with the discovery of the top of the old milepost! Tom brought it home late one night and put it on the kitchen table. There's nothing like a heap of soil and cast iron on the table at 11 o clock at night! Today, with the help of Darren and his metal detector, we discovered the remaining missing pieces. The whole post had been completely buried. We're going to see if we can get it repaired, repainted and replaced.

Digging up the buried milepost.

We achieved such a lot today. Thank you very, very much to all our helpers!

Access

We've been putting a layer of whin dust on the orchard paths today. 

Tom let me loose with the roller!

We've also had a deep layer of concrete laid in the car park gateway. 

Before we can use the car park we have to remove a stretch of hedge on either side of the gateway to improve visibly. We've recently had this surveyed to check there aren't any nesting birds or interesting plant species in the hedge. A huge 'thank you' to Roger Manning who carried out the survey for us. 

Paths for extreme wheelchair sports

Tom and Stewart, with his digger, have been marking out more of the orchard paths and filling them with hardcore today. The job was begun in March but had to be stopped when heavy rain turned the ground to a quagmire.

Today they’ve finished the work in very dry conditions. Unfortunately, at the moment you’d have to be a very confident wheelchair/pushchair user to tackle these tracks; the fine layer of whin dust that will cover the rough stones is missing and the tractor has left random ‘speed bumps’ and man pits. Tom has even replaced a signpost in the middle of one of the paths in slalom style. Hopefully we’ll get the top layer on and rolled flat in the next few weeks.

Tom’s also had to re sow and roll some of the grass seed. Where the heavy machinery had churned up the wet ground in March the autumn sown grass had died. We have bought some ‘floristically enhanced’ grass seed to fill in the gaps.

All 82 trees are alive! There are green spikes sticking above tree tubes throughout the orchard – and even a sprinkling of blossom. Hunt House, an old variety of apple used by Capitan Cook’s men to prevent scurvy on long journeys, must be the slowest fruit tree in the orchard (in Northumberland?) to grow. We have two trees of this variety and I have been convinced they were dead... but I’m happy to say I found a tiny (and I mean tiny) bud on the last leafless Hunt House today. Tom and I have been watering the trees each week (with occasional help gratefully received from friends and family) and were pleased to see how well the new mulch mats kept the ground moist around the trees in these very dry conditions.

Last night's sprinkling of rain should help the new grass seed germinate and give the whole orchard a much needed drink. Everything's growing!

Yesterday we showed the Britain in Bloom judges around the orchard (we've been included in the Lowick in Bloom entry). I'd only been given 10 minutes to describe the project - so I had a trail run before the judges arrived to make sure all my notes were in order. Unfortunately, during my practice I left my telephone in stopwatch mode on top of the truck whilst showing my imaginary judges through the trees (it must have been an odd sight!). I returned to find Tom had driven the truck away and my telephone has vanished :( Never mind, the real judges were very enthusiastic so I hope the Lowick in Bloom entry does well this year. The village 'In Bloom'  team always work tremendously hard and we wouldn't have made the orchard if we hadn't been inspired by the community spirit the Lowick in Bloom ladies had created in the village.

On this sunny Wednesday morning representatives from HospiceCare Northumberland arrived in the orchard armed with snowdrop bulbs that had been donated by local people and a garden centre. They've planted a double row along the top footpath so (providing Tom doesn't take them out with the tractor) they should look super in the Spring. Many thanks Angela!

Buckets and buckets of water...

Tom and I have just watered all 82 trees! We gave each tree half a bucket - it's a long way to the top of the orchard carrying 6 gallons of water at a time! It was satisfying to see the new shoots starting to appear on the newly planted 'twigs' and there's even a tiny sprinkling of blossom showing!

Planting our Orchard

Our orchard has trees! 52 people met in a field at Hunting Hall farm yesterday to plant Lowick Community Orchard. It was a tremendous effort! Local people, from the ages of 2 to 80, worked tremendously hard through April showers to plant 82 heritage fruit trees. Each tree had been sponsored by a member of the public, and there were some wonderful old varieties included; an Isaac Newton apple tree, which is said to be propagated from the tree in Isaac Newton’s garden under which 'the notion of gravity came into his mind occasion'd by the fall of an apple,'; Hunt House, a fruit that was enjoyed by Captain Cook’s men to prevent scurvy; Bloody Ploughman, an old apple associated with the story of a poor ploughman who came to a sticky end, and many more fruit varieties. A huge thank you to everyone who helped make this day so successful; your support was wonderful!


A full set of photographs of the day's events may be found on the Hunting Hall Facebook page.