Apple Press

The St Andrews Orchard Group have obtained an electric fruit shredder and a large apple press. These were paid for by a grant from the St Andrews Common Good Fund and are available to anyone who lives in St Andrews. The trugs of apples in the picture were crushed and juiced in half an hour and produced 60 litres of juice.

Second planting in St Andrews Commonwealth Orchard

Fortyeight fruit trees were planted in March 2011 to complete the St Andrews branch of the Commonwealth Orchard. We had pupil and teacher volunteers from Canongate, Greyfriars, Madras additional support and Madras Eco club. We also had some community councillors and members of the public helping. The day was dreich but, all of the trees were planted.

Fruit Tree Planting Wednesday 30th March

Hi,

As part of Madras' Eco day we are planning to plant 50 more fruit trees in Stanks Park (behind Mac's papershop on Lamond Drive). We will meet at 1pm in the park and please bring a spade if possible.

If you require any further details pease contact me.

Spring tree planting on Wednesday 30 March 2011

We have 50 mixed fruit trees and plan to plant them on Wednesday 30 March. The trees will be planted in Stanks Park, alonside the 28 trees planted last spring and the planting will be organised with Madras college as part of their efforts to secure a second Green Flag. I will post more details closer to the date.

Henry Paul
henrythenav@hotmail.com
07977-131635

2010 AGM - Sunday 17 October at 3pm in Botanics

The St Andrews Orchard Group will be helping out at the Apple Day at the Botanics on Sunday 17 October. We will hold our AGM, immediately after the day has finished, at 3:00pm in the Glass Class.

Please contact me if you have any agenda items you would like to discuss.

We have secured funding for 50 more fruit trees and we are looking for suggestions for different sites in St Andrews. If we do not have any other suggestions we will plant the trees in Stanks Park with the other 28 trees planted in March this year. The first batch of trees are doing well and only two appeared to have died.

Fruitful Scotland Volunteer Day

10am -3pm at Elmwood College Farm, Cuparmuir, KY15 5RN.

FREE - bring a sandwich - families welcome. Tools, gloves etc will be provided.

Come and volunteer on the new Orchard planted at Elmwood College as a training orchard to help people learn skills. The day will consist of some practical work, maintaining and developing the newly planted orchard. There will also be an opportunity to be shown how to do bud grafting - which is how apple trees are propogated. The volunteer day will be led by John Hancox, director of the Commonwealth Orchard, and Chair of Scottish Orchards, with Iain Hunter of Elmwood College.

We will also bring an apple press to make some juice - always popular with children.

Scottish Orchards is a new Scotland wide group (www.scottishorchards.com ) which aims to support fruit growing in Scotland and is open to anyone with an interest in growing, picking and using fruit. As well as preserving old varieties of fruit - the traditional skills of pruning, grafting and preserving fruit need to be continued. Passing this knowledge to younger people is very important. If you'd like to join Scottish Orchards or find out more about volunteering please contact John Hancox - john@commonwealthorchard.com 0778 6063918