Community Orchard Looking Fruitful

As we have all forgotten what rain actually is, a small team from Hythe Civic Society and HECG visited the orchard today, to see how the trees and hedging were bearing up in the dry and very hot conditions.  Happily,  the trees are looking good, and much of the hedging is growing on, although there is some of the more recent – second line planting – that has not survived.  To give everything a boost, we watered all the fruit trees and much of the hedging – focussing on the plants that were showing stress; this needed at least 500l of water moved around in watering cans!

The trees flowered beautifully earlier in the year, and the result is a generous crop across plum, pear and apple varieties…so heavy a crop that, for the good of the trees, we thinned the fruit a little.

Wild flowers are still showing very well – knapweed and spear thistle in abundance but also bryony and more…enjoyed by some carder and buff-tailed bumblebees that were foraging.

Our next challenges are to lay out a pathway properly and to design, commission and erect the information boards that will help visitors to understand what they are enjoying.  We very much hope to be working with staff and students from Brockhill Park Academy on both these projects later this year.

More immediately, the fruit will ripen over the coming months, and we would hate it to go to waste…we have some ideas and will publish these shortly.

Please find out for yourselves what a beautiful space the orchard has become – and enjoy your visit!