Forest for Cornwall is holding a valuable series of practical orchard management workshops for landowners and community organisations.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)-funded workshops give people the hands-on opportunity to practise orchard management techniques – including formative and maintenance pruning, the right tool for the right job, pests and diseases, and best practice.
Michelle Lawson of Resilient Orchards Cornwall CIC, is leading the series of three workshops at different orchards on behalf of Cornwall Council’s Forest for Cornwall team.
The second workshop was held recently at Gillyflower Farm which is establishing a 40-acre mixed orchard and potager garden just outside Lostwithiel.
Michelle set up Resilient Orchards Cornwall in response to a lively groundswell of interest in community farms and orchards.
Her aim is to provide advice, support and practical help, to diversify the variety of fruits grown, and to ensure plantings are resilient to the challenges faced from climate change.
Anyone who has a site or an orchard in need of restoration can get help, and trees are available free through the extensive Forest for Cornwall programme. A new community orchard is currently being developed at the Trenoweth estate in Redruth.
The third orchard management workshop is scheduled for Saturday 15 February on the Duchy of Cornwall orchard at Tregurra, on the outskirts of Truro. The first took place in early January in the orchard at the National Trust’s Cotehele House in the Tamar valley
The 40-acre orchard at Gillyflower Farm is maintained by Tess Dickinson and Dion Swann and contains 14 different varieties of apple, including the famous Cornish Gillyflower, cherries, gages, and mulberries.
It was devised by Eden Project founder Sir Tim Smit and horticulturalist Philip MacMillan Browse who have a plan to bring large-scale commercial orchards back to the Fowey valley.
Cornwall has a long history of fruit growing and cider making. Unfortunately, many farm and village orchards have been lost over the years as a result of new building developments and changing farming practices.