New orchard in a day....

.. well, almost. A group of about 12 volunteers managed to dig, rig and plant over 50 cordon apples on a fine afternoon.

Today, the first working party gathered to establish the new 'NCOG orchard' at the 'Sawmills' site on the Hutton-in-the-Forest Estate. The purpose of the orchard is principally to:

• provide a site for workshops in orchard management, particularly summer pruning of trained forms;
• be a source of reference apples for identification and display purposes, in particular at the Hutton-in-the-Forest Apple Days; and
• be a source of scion wood for grafting.

The group achieved far more than we thought we could. All the ground was dug, all the canes for three rows of cordons were tied in and 53 trees planted. We were helped by the ground being better than it initially looked and by a fine spell of early spring weather (not to mention some slices of cake :-) ).

Hopefully the pictures say more than words can.

A further working party is planned for 25th March, which should easily finish the job (weather permitting).