We here at Kindling love what Manchester Abundance do and over the years we have had the pleasure of working with them on a number of projects.
Abundance Manchester.
Since 2008 Abundance Manchester has been harvesting unwanted fruit and veg from gardens and allotments in the south of the city. It is distributed, often in bike trailers, to projects that can make good use of it. Since 2010 the group has also looked after the 15 year-old Kenworthy Community Orchard in Chorlton.
Soft Fruit Course.
On Sunday nine volunteers enjoyed an afternoon’s expert guidance on pruning stone fruit trees, primarily plums and damsons, from the chair of the Northern Fruit Group, Hilary Dodson. Abundance workshops at Kenworthy are always a very practical combination of learning and doing – both because that’s the best way to pick up the skills, and also because the orchard is managed solely by volunteers, and training days are when most of its maintenance is carried out!
Hilary began with the basics of removing dead, diseased and crossing branches – this is to give the trees an open structure allowing air to flow freely, and to reduce the spread of any disease. Unlike apples and pears, stone fruits are pruned in the summer months as winter pruning can leave them prone to a disease called silver leaf. They need time for the pruning cuts to heal up before winter, so mid August is about as late as you can safely leave it. We started on the large stand of plum trees, which generally crop well (not this year though – like everything, they have been affected by the terrible weather) As well as pruning the plums themselves we tackled the sweet chestnut hedge behind it – over the years it’s been encroaching on the plum trees cutting out much needed light and air. The results were pretty impressive – many hands really do make light work! Similar work was carried out on the damson trees. Hilary explained that damsons naturally have a more bushy dense structure, and that they generally require less pruning, but after several years of neglect there was still plenty to remove.
Most of the participants had done some fruit tree pruning before, but it was invaluable to have Hilary on hand to provide guidance and reassure us we were working along the right lines. She’s also offered to run a grafting course over the winter, and provide scions (for creating new trees) which she knows thrive in the North of England. This will help not only teach us a new skill, but also means we can restock the orchard with varieties that do well in northern conditions and at a fraction of the cost of buying trees from a nursery.
Kenworthy Community Orchard.
Kenworthy Orchard is a community orchard with public access, just outside Chorlton Waterpark in South Manchester. It was planted in 1997 as part of the Kenworthy woodland, one of four community woods created to celebrate the Co-operative Bank’s 125th anniversary that year. It contains around 100 fruit and nut trees, plus several beds of soft fruit. It is administered by the Mersey Valley Wardens but funds to look after it have been scarce, and the orchard has therefore suffered from neglect.
In 2009, after stumbling across Kenworthy, Abundance Manchester ran a pruning workshop at the orchard. Discussions on the day led us to investigate the management of the site and having discovered the lack of it, decided to do something about it. In November 2010 a small group visited the site with Rod Everett of the Middle Wood Ecological Trust. His advice, along with other experts we have consulted, helped determine the priorities for its maintenance. Since the summer of 2010 Abundance has been looking after the orchard by running practical training days and volunteer days including apple pruning, stone fruit pruning, organic feeding of the trees, soft fruit pruning, installing rabbit guards and tree and bush planting. Our success has been partial – the orchard is still in some difficulty with several of the trees dying (having been ‘ring-barked’ by the rabbits), and continuous vandalism of new young trees and the rabbit guards can make it a difficult task. We’ve taken to disguising new trees instead of celebrating them! However we have made much progress, with 4 new trees planted this summer (2012) and going strong. About 50 people have benefited from workshops and practical training days, and we remain committed to keeping the orchard not only alive but developing it for the benefit of the community.
For more information please visit: http//:abundancemanchester.wordpress.com
For more information about Kindling's Big Dig please click here.