Our Orchards

The reason we do what we do

We grow lots of fruit. Obviously many varieties of cider apple, but we also have a further 20 acres of desert fruit including pears, plums and cherries. We grow  fruit, on our own land and also rented land. We are most proud of the orchards which we have helped to save from extinction – we are thrilled to see some fantastic results over the years from trees and orchards many might presume beyond redemption.

The importance of orchards when it comes to bio-diversity cannot be overstated. Because they are a permanent habitat, and because they are full of trees they support a huge number of micro-flora, fungi, mosses lichens, insects and therefore song birds, small mammals and thus predators such as badgers, foxes, owls and other large birds of prey.

When winter pruning it is always amazing to see the amount of life going on in an orchard, even when the apples and leaves have long gone. Foxes, badger, hedgehog, pigeon, field fare, blackbirds and other opportunists will be feeding on apples left on the orchard floor.  Commonly we find robins have set up territory and they can get very cross when you deign to intrude on their patch. Dormant insects and larvae are being helpfully removed by beady eyed finches and all the while the worms and bacteria in the soil are breaking down the leaves, fallen fruit and detritus into rich soil for the fruiting trees to exploit in the summer months.

Most of our orchards are traditional large trees and so have an extremely important role in the winter months on stock farms. Because of the natural shelter given by the trees, and because orchards have traditionally surrounded the farmhouse it means that they are the ideal place to put young stock such as calves or ewes with lambs.  By keeping these orchards healthy and pruned it is also helping the farm upkeep of their own stock nursery.