On the 10th of February a digger began making the hard standing area for cars. Eventually there will be a new access from the road into the car park– but we must wait for planning permission to be approved before this can be tackled.
Once some of the hard standing was in place, Graham Cross brought his mini digger to create the orchard paths. With help from Tom on the tractor leading sub base, Graham dug out and filled most of the footpaths that will eventually wind between heritage fruit trees. Unfortunately, at the moment, these paths are island walkways through a very muddy field. The heavy machinery was making the area into a quagmire, therefore we have had to abandon the unfinished job until the ground dries up.
Last week Tom sent several cuttings of the Doddington Apple tree to a nursery where they will be grafted on to MM111 rootstock. This autumn 6 young Doddington Apple trees will be returned, ready for planting. We’ve 76 heritage fruit trees ordered from R. V. Roger Ltd. – therefore, altogether, we have over 80 trees for our orchard. Thank you to everyone who has helped us achieve this goal! As several slightly smaller trees have been chosen for the orchard, we will still be able to accommodate a few more. Please let us know as soon as possible if you would like to sponsor a tree this spring; contact details can be found on the website www.lowickcommunityorchard.org
We hope to invite everyone to join us to plant their sponsored trees in the orchard next month (probably the 19th and 20th of March). We're not going to finalize the date until we see how the ground dries - but please watch this space for further news!
A friend kindly gave us some snowdrop bulbs last year. It’s great to see them peeping through the rough, muddy orchard ground – a promise of things to come!
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