A fruitful endeavour: Community Orchards

When, last May, The People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) revealed the results of their five-year project that mapped traditional orchards across England, there was good news and bad news.

The good news, according to Steve Oram, PTES’ geographical information system mapping officer, was that, “Over the course of five years the profile of orchards has been raised significantly. People are getting more interested in local food and old fruit varieties”.

The bad news is that nearly half of the traditional orchards catalogued are in poor condition: neglected, overgrown and even, in places, barely possessing trees. The picture could be bleaker still, says Oram, as figures are biased towards those in a good state.

“These are easier to spot from the air and people notice them more. Where orchards are neglected, we don’t get told about them because nobody cares about them.”

Indeed, the counties that have conducted the most ground surveys are those with the most orchards in poor condition.

That the situation isn’t worse must in great part be down to Common Ground, the charity run by Sue Clifford and Angela King, which has generated much of the increased interest that Oram describes. Fearing the loss of our rich heritage of fruit production, they established Apple Day in 1990—now a firm fixture in the October calendar for many organisations across the country—and have their sights on creating new traditions, as suggested in their Community Orchard Handbook. Tree dressing or blossom celebrations, anyone?

The Handbook, aimed at anyone interested in creating or renovating an orchard for the benefit of their neighbourhood, was first published in 2008 and re-released earlier this year to include updated resources. It spells out the advantages of traditional orchards over modern, commercial enterprises. Commercial orchards contain “close-packed ranks of bush trees…permanently staked, heavily pruned and growing in bare, herbicide-scorched earth”.

Meanwhile, prime traditional orchards (and community orchards are invariably traditional orchards) are managed extensively; chemicals used sparingly, tall, well-spaced trees reach the mature, veteran stage (when they may possess wounds, dead branches and hollowed trunks), and the grass beneath is grazed or cut for hay.

The first three chapters of the handbook are a slightly repetitive elergy. If you haven’t grasped our huge variety of native fruit (hundreds of varieties of plums, pears, cherries and nuts, and up to three thousand varieties of cider, eating and cooking apples), their connection with our history (the Court Pendu Plat apple, for example, is believed to date from Roman times) and that, because some varieties thrive only in a very small area, they contribute to local distinctiveness, another of the authors’ campaigns, then you really haven’t been paying attention. But it’s lyrically written, and anyone with an interest the history of fruit, orchards and their contribution to the landscape over the centuries will find plenty to digest, even if not reading the book for its main purpose.

It’s quite likely, though, that by the time you reach Chapter Five, when it gears up to the practical matters of running a Community Orchard, you’ll have a strong urge to rush out and create one. Which is, of course, exactly what they want. And if your project involved rescuing an old orchard, from the PTES’ point of view this would be all the better. It presents a slightly different challenge from planting a new one (a distinction covered in the Handbook) but is more valuable, at least to start with, as a wildlife haven.

Traditional orchards are so important to wildlife that in 2007 they were included among the sixty-five Priority Habitats in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (UKBAP), a government programme arising out of the Convention on Biological Diversity at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

PTES Orchard Officer, Anita Burroughs said: “The mosaic of habitats that comprise a traditional orchard provide food and shelter for at least 1,800 species of wildlife, including the rare noble chafer beetle which relies on the decaying wood of old fruit trees.”

The handbook includes a chapter on how to conserve and attract wildlife which, as with other chapters, is full of experiences of orchard groups around the country. It also suggests ways to carry out a wildlife survey; results may arm you against the threat of development and draw in a greater variety of people and organisations to fund and support the project.

But while the importance of rescuing, or creating, a complete ecosystem, not to mention preserving our apple varieties (most orchard groups like to plant fruit trees with local connections) are major plusses for community orchards, equal value is attached to producing a harvest. Plenty of ideas are offered on where to get pruning advice and what to do with the crop.

All this takes effort. “People can be enthusiastic about the idea,” warns the handbook, “but getting them to become involved on a regular basis isn’t easy.”

Typically, though, it’s more concerned with solving the problem than bemoaning it. “The key is to organise activities that will draw in people with different interests and skills at different times – anything from pruning and scything to photography, historical research, fundraising and festival.” By the last page you’ll be armed with a good idea of how to start to research parish history and local fruit varieties, hold instructional courses, wassailing and blossom events, and communicate with the wider community through newsletters, cards and calendars. Although the PTES found only thirty-nine confirmed community orchards in its survey, a look at Common Ground’s online gazetteer shows far more. And the growing interest is an encouraging balance to the bad news that the PTES found far fewer traditional orchards than expected.

Surveying from the air the 3.5 million hectares of England, they discovered traditional orchards amounting to 16,990 hectares, instead of an estimated 25,000 hectares. And this is a fraction of the area that orchards used to cover.

Natural England estimates that, since the 1950s, 63 per cent of orchards have disappeared. In some counties it’s more: Gloucestershire has lost around 75 per cent, Devon nearly 90 per cent and Kent over 90 per cent. Orchards have fallen victim to housing developments, cheap imports, and other crops. The re-release of the Handbook couldn’t be more timely.

It’s difficult to fault this book, although (a common fault nowadays) it would benefit from an index. The authors describe it as offering guidelines, rather than a template, but anyone thinking of establishing a community orchard would be foolish not to pay close attention to the points made, and will find helpful resources abound, both as website links within the text and in an appendix bursting with example legal and policy documents, ideas for funding, sources of equipment, and contact details of national and local groups.

The chapters abound with examples of how community orchard groups have organised themselves, involved locals and kept interest going. It’s nothing if not a testament to the energy and enthusiasm of the dedicated groups who are re-establishing important habitat in their community and bringing neighbourhoods together with community action, and a call to action for the rest of us.