Orchard Network

Covering: Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire

Contact:

EEAOP
School House
Rougham
King’s Lynn
Norfolk
PE32 2SE

Tel. 01328 838403

www.applesandorchards.org.uk
info@applesandorchards.org.uk

Project Manager:

Martin Skipper

 

Number of Members:

500+

 

Annual Subscription:

£8

 

Constitutional Status

A registered charity and not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.

 

Charitable Status:

Yes

 

Working with Other Organisations:

• County and District Councils within our region
• National Fruit Collections at Brogdale
• Consultees for Defra Environmental Stewardship Scheme and supplier of trees
• Other community projects in our region

 

Advisory Work Apart from the Identification of Varieties:

• Using our knowledge of local varieties we provide advice and information to councils, landowners, individuals and community groups wishing to plant orchards or just a few trees.
• We also advise on tree pests and diseases, pruning new and old trees and trees suitable for organic orchard systems.

Advisory Work Connected with the Identification of Varieties:

• We offer an identification service for owners of unidentified orchard fruits (except cherries) by post or at events we attend.

• We assist local authority planning departments with tree identification and TPOs where fruit trees are involved.

 

Conservation/Rejuvenation/Management/Propagation of Varieties:

• We propagate all of the apple, pear, plum and cherry varieties that arose in our region and make them available for the public to buy every winter as bare-rooted trees.
• We collect interesting fruit tree graft wood every year to evaluate in our own study plot.

 

Education:

We hold workshops in orchard skills each year, covering the following topics:
• Formative and restorative pruning techniques
• Formal fruit tree training
• Organic fruit tree management
• Grafting techniques
• Fruit identification
• Creating an orchard

 

Community/Amenity Activities:

• Largely advisory – mainly to established and new community orchard projects.
• We do not give talks/lectures.
• Will undertake visits to orchard sites of interest / under threat of redevelopment.

 

Shows/Publicity

• Attend upwards of ten Apple Day events across our region every autumn plus occasional county agricultural shows and similar countryside themed events.

 

Funding

• Our own fruit tree sales
• Membership and other donations
• National Lottery award for publicity material

 

Projects

• Compiling a photographic and written archive of our region’s existing and ‘lost’ fruit varieties and the orchard industry that created them.
• Planning to plant a complete regional collection, or possibly several, in our region.
• Adding to our two evaluation plots (Norfolk and Cambridgeshire) for growing on graft wood collected over the years from interesting specimens.
• Developing our much-visited website.

 

Newsletter

• 2 per annum

 

Publications

• In-house leaflets on planting, formative and restorative pruning, fruit pests and diseases, plus fruit harvesting and storing.