Category: Events

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The Beekeepers Tea Party

The Far Orchard Anniversary Event

We are delighted to announce The Beekeepers Tea Party at the Barn on Sunday 23rd April. 1-3pm at The Barn

The Beekeepers Tea Party will be a warm and family friendly event, with tea and cakes, sampling of local honey and a chance to meet beekeepers and talk to them about their relationship with bees. Participants will be be able to make a Bee Hotel to take away, there’ll be advice on planting bee friendly gardens and interactive installations exploring pollinators.

At this time of year when the apple blossom starts to open and pollinators become active, The Far Orchard is keen to deepen our understanding of the pollinating insects in our landscape. Like much of the natural world, insect pollinators are under pressure from pollution and habitat loss and the event offers an opportunity to learn more and to find ways to support them. Without pollinators we would have a much harder time growing the food we need.

This event marks the one-year anniversary of the planting of the Far Orchard and is a great opportunity to celebrate the anniversary and meet with other hosts. Creating opportunities to build a rich and connected community network is a key element of the ethos of the Far Orchard. See HERE for images of the event.

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Apple Pruning Workshop

15 January 2023

Join us for an opportunity to get “up close and personal” with apple trees and gain valuable hands-on experience of the whole pruning process. This workshop will be led by our apple expert Andrew Lear, the Appletreeman. It is ideal for complete beginners, and for those wishing to refresh skills.

The day will run from 10:30am to 2:30pm at the Barn. 

Andrew will go through the different methods of pruning and the reasons for it. You will also be shown all the tools you will need and have their safe use and maintenance explained to you. You are welcome to bring along what you normally prune with, including loppers, secateurs and sharpening tools for Andrew to comment on.

Andrew will be demonstrating on the veteran James Grieve and espaliers in the Walled Garden and other trees in the neighbouring allotments.

There will be ample time to ask questions and become completely confident with techniques. Bring photos of your trees for individual advice. Andrew will also be happy to briefly answer questions on apple tree pests, diseases & disorders.

Wear warm cloths, gloves and strong footwear and please bring some lunch. The Barn will provide hot drinks and some sugary treats such as cake to keep your strength up! Donations to cover costs are welcome.

For more information on Andrew, see his website https://plantsandapples.com/about/

If you’d like to sign up for the workshop please email thefarorchard@thebarnarts.co.uk before 11 January 2023.

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Plenty? A Festival Exploring More and Less

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Plenty? event at the Barn on 22/23rd October. As well as being a traditional harvest festival with apple pressing and juicing, the event explored ideas around how we can work together to live with less to keep planetary ecosystems healthy and sustainable into the future. There was music, film, installation, participatory activities, exhibitions, workshops and talks exploring these themes. https://www.thebarnarts.co.uk/article/plenty

We were there with The Far Orchard Zone, talking about the project and exploring how we might create new networks of care with an ecological focus.

Below: Apple pressing at the PLENTY Festival.

Images Grant Anderson

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The Planting Day

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Barn to pick up their tree on 24th April, brand their tree tag and pin their location on The Far Orchard Map. Andrew Lear our fruit tree expert was busy all afternoon answering questions. It was lovely to meet everyone and start the process of forming The Far Orchard Community. More images HERE

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Getting Ready for Planting Day

We’re getting ready to travel to Banchory for the Planting Day on 24th April. People who are joining The Far Orchard will be able to pick up their tree and brand a tree tag with The Far Orchard Logo. We’ve been preparing the tree tags with wood preservative and hanging them out to dry on our washing line!

The displays of cherry blossom are amazing at the moment, we’re hoping the apple blossoms will be out by the weekend so we can start to find the existing apple trees around Banchory and invite them to join The Far Orchard.

We have discovered that here is a great FruitWatch citizen science project run by the University of Reading at the moment. The public have been asked to track flowering fruit trees across the country to help determine whether climate change is changing blooming patterns and is one of the largest studies of its kind. Fruit trees are highly dependent on insect pollination to produce fruit, and climate change is impacting both the timing of fruit tree flowering and pollinator flight, which may reduce pollination and fruit production. Help is needed to understand how flowering dates are changing across the UK and data is being gathered on the four common fruits including apple.

Taking part contributes to knowledge about the changing climate. All the information is at https://fruitwatch.org/ords/r/livefw/fruit-watch101/home