Mayow Orchard picnic 14 July 2024

 After weeks of planning, scheming, emailing, designing posters, video meetings with our partner organisations, our team was ready for the picnic. This was the first  Friends of Mayow Park (FOMP) picnic and we chose  to locate in the orchard we planted in 2012.  We wanted other park users  to get to know this special place.

With fingers crossed that the weather would be warm and dry Yogi, Mike and Alona (not Viv as she was away on holiday)  met Rebel Kitchen (RK) and The Orchard Project (TOP) staff and volunteers to set up our stalls.

Yes! The weather turned out to be perfect for us.

RK brought their own gazebo and plenty of freebies to give away including their branded raw juices. With the picnic in mind they also brought plenty of picnic mats for our anticipated guests. The mats were a hit with our visitors.

TOP brought two apple peeling machines for the longest peel activity. They also brought two amazing face-painting and body painting artists.

FOMP’s orchard activities included  Yogi’s wonderful colours of nature art and a fruit tree hunt.

The Mayow Park croquet club joined us and offered an opportunity to have a go at croquet.

We wanted to give people a chance to spend time in our orchard and discover the diversity of our fruit trees while also having fun with RK’s Spin to Win game, face painting and nature art.

During the course of the afternoon more than 80 people joined us, some staying and some drifting through, as well as quite a few children and some with dogs.

Thanks also go to our loyal volunteers who came to help – Pippa posted photos on social media, Robert brought his family and Freda came with her dog Freddy.

The photos below with thanks to Kath from The Orchard Project

exploring the orchard

Team Orchard Project

Spin to win

Orchard fruit tree pruning workshops early 2024

We held FOUR fruit tree pruning workshops in the Mayow Park orchard starting end of January and with our last session on 10th Feb 2024. Why four? A number of people asked to take part and we chose dates to accommodate them. This gave us small working groups so we got to share our skills and  knowledge. Some people had no previous pruning experience and others had a lot. Some people were surprised to learn that it is best to prune stone fruit (cherries, plums etc) in summer as winter pruning can make them more susceptible to silver leaf fungal infections. All sessions were led by Alona.

We started by looking at tools, how we use them safely and tool care; anvil and bypass secateurs, telescopic fruit tree pruners, loppers, saws.  We shared info on hygiene when pruning and why mulching our trees is a good idea. 

We looked closely at some of the trees to check for 3 Ds (dead, damaged, diseased), and 2 Cs (crossing and crowded), talking about which branches to prune and why. Then we got to work, in pairs and under supervision. 

We were lucky with the weather on all four sessions;  despite rain being a daily occurrence we had two dry hours each time. Thank you everyone who came along and joined in.

Susan and Janet

Yogi and Sue

Alex with secateurs

Mike and Sue with a vigorous perry pear

Claudia and Millie with the Core Blimey

Alona with a long-handled pruner

Frank doing formative pruning on the Red Windsor

Jean at work on Conference pear

AS Feb 2024

orchard winter tree pruning 21st Feb 2020

It is half term and we have a weekday event on Friday 21st February from 10.30 am to 1 pm.
Come and join other volunteers at our orchard winter pruning event at the orchard opposite the tennis courts.
Arrive at 10.30 pm for training.
No previous skills are needed as we will show you what to do including how to check the trees, which branches to prune, how much to prune. We will also mulch  the ground under the trees - a task that children can do with parental help.
 There was a huge amount of rain from Storm Dennis last weekend (15th & 16th February) and the previous weekend from Storm Ciara so the ground is saturated. Please wear clothes that you don't mind getting muddy and waterproof shoes or wellington boots.

Tree Dressing 30th November

Friends of Mayow Park invite you to our event:

Tree Dressing

A winter celebration
of our orchard

Saturday 30th November

10am – midday

Decorate our trees using items from nature or by writing a message on fabric.

We’ll have some, but please do bring any
fabric or ribbons to hang in the trees.

❖             Refreshments

❖             Winter singalong!

❖             Tree trail for children

MEET AT THE ORCHARD

(near the tennis courts)

  Free event - donations welcome.

For more information or to offer help, email friendsofmayowpark@ymail.com

Preparing the orchard for winter

We received a pile of wood chips thanks to Glendale Lewisham (the contractors who manage most of Lewisham's parks on behalf of the council) and this motivated us to get to work in the orchard, preparing the fruit trees for winter.

Our plan was: remove grass around the trees to a radius of 1 metre from the base of each tree, chop up comfrey leaves at the base of the trees, then a thick layer of wood chips 10cm deep (or 4" in old measures).

With our team of volunteers and good weather, the work was completed very quickly and the trees now have a thick blanket around them ready for winter.

APPLE DAY 6TH OCTOBER 2018

We had a very successful Apple Day last year (2017). All our orchard fruits had been 'taken' weeks before so we had none of our own to offer the community to taste. Instead we bought in some heritage apple varieties from Brogdale in Kent and some from local greengrocers. The most popular proved to be a variety bought in Lidl and called 'Zinga'.
This coming Saturday, people will be encouraged to walk round our orchard trees, to learn about the varieties we are growing and perhaps to feel motivated to volunteer to care for our orchard at our workdays.
Our story teller last year, Rich Sylvester, proved to be a great hit with young children and their parents and will be back on Saturday.
We could do with more volunteers to help on the day with refreshments. See you on Saturday.

ORCHARD CARE SUMMER 2018

What a summer it has been. After a particularly cold winter, followed by   an exceptionally wet spring, who would have thought that this past summer in southern England would be so very hot, humid and without rain?

This took its toll on plants, including trees. The Mayow Park orchard trees were showing signs of stress. The oldest trees were planted early in 2012 and the others were planted in early 2016. A plea was sent out asking for orchard carers to water selected trees and six people came forward, three of whom were helping out for the first time.

The need to provide 20 litres to each tree once a week, rather than frequent small amounts, was explained and understood. Small amounts of water dampen the very top of the soil but 20 litres should soak down and reach the roots.

There was one difficulty; no easily accessible water supply. Over the past few years our orchard carers have found ingenious ways to bring quantities of water to the trees including bringing a large water container in a child’s buggy and carrying 4 lots of 5 litre spring water bottles  filled with tap water in a shopper’s trolley bag on wheels.

One orchard carer put pen to paper to reflect on the task they had agreed to take on.

Well, my young son comes home from school every day with messages about the environment...all the things we shouldn't be doing, using plastic, driving the car etc etc. While I appreciate the eco drive in school it was getting me down a little...all this negative talk. So when I saw a post asking for help with the young trees in the park I thought this might be a lovely thing to do together that was actually going to have a positive impact on our local environment.

I have to say I was a little overwhelmed at first with the logistics of getting 20 litres to our designated tree every week but I realised a little hodgepodging with a bike trailer and tub trug and smaller jugs it could be done relatively easily. We did get some slightly odd looks filling up at the cafe toilets but my chatty son was quick to explain what we were up to, to anyone who paused long enough to let him. The dog also liked to join in...I'm sure the tree won't miss the few laps of water he stole too much. As the summer went on my son's enthusiasm did wane a little, so we introduced ice lollies post watering as a reward. We enjoyed them beside our tree hoping that he was also feeling refreshed and cooler after our efforts.

Thank you to that family for all their efforts. The good news is that the younger trees, with that bit of extra TLC, avoided serious dehydration. The older trees (planted in 2012) without individual carers had a much harder time. They had more fruit drop than usual during June and many of the remaining fruits showed peck marks from winged birds (possibly the parakeets) who were suffering from lack of food.

Unfortunately the remaining UNRIPE fruits on all the fruit trees were  picked off one day in July by person or persons unknown, with no fruits remaining, not even windfalls. We had hoped to share some apples with park users at our Apple Day on 6^th October and to compare the different tastes. Our default option is to buy a number of commercial varieties for tasting instead.

Lovely day for orchard work

It was really cold and the ground in the orchard was frozen when we arrived but the sun slowly worked its magic and ice turned to mud.
We had 8 adults and 4 children at our workday, some adults already experienced in orchard pruning and some learning skills for the first time. The children got stuck in to remove grass encroaching into the tree pits and then to mulch the areas they had cleared. In 1.5 hours we managed to check tree health, prune apple trees trees, adjust tree guards, remove weeds and add mulch. We had a fun session.

Volunteers setting up at the start of the morning

three children collecting wood chips for mulching

Come to Our Tree Dressing Day on 2nd December 2017

We are planning to have another Tree Dressing  Day, similar to the one we held in December 2016.
Here are the details.

For more information on Tree Dressing Day and the work of Common Ground who initiated this in 1990 to become a national event see https://www.commonground.org.uk/tree-dressing-day/

Great Fun on Apple Day (in Mayow Park)

After all the planning and preparing, Apple Day arrived today. It may be mid-October but we had a warm, mild day with temperature in the low 20s, ideal for an outdoor event.
Volunteers arrived in plenty of time to put up the gazebo, set the tables and prepare the apple varieties for tasting. Our story teller, Rich Sylvester, arrived and chose a wonderful lime tree within our orchard area where he set up his story telling den.
The tennis courts beside our orchard were busy too, with parents bringing children for tennis coaching. This was great for us as  parents found out about our event and all could join in either before or after their tennis session.
The orchard sign had been installed on 11th October, in time for the great unveiling today. It has illustrations provided by some pupils from St Michael's Primary School, a local school.  One of the local Perry Vale Ward councillors, Cllr Alan Till,   offered to unveil the sign and he invited a couple of children to help him. One of these two  children saw his illustration in the sign and looked really happy; he had been one of eight children who contributed orchard-related pictures.

Our story teller gathered adults and children and recalled some apple names. He gave out pairs of wooden rhythm sticks so that people could chant and clap out the rhythms - Lane's Prince Albert . . . Cox's Orange Pippin . . . Winter Banana . . . with these wonderful rhythmic beats and chants everyone followed Rich to the story den. Try it yourself - it sounds rather soothing.

story telling

 Meanwhile, back at the gazebo, many people came to learn and wonder at unusual apple names that they had never heard of. They had the chance to do a taste test and decide which variety they preferred.
The apples we brought were cut into small pieces so that as many people as possible could taste them. Some varieties had been purchased from Brogdale, on the edge of  Faversham in Kent. As it happens, Brogdale is  holding a national Apple Festival this weekend! get along there if you can.
If you don't know of Brogdale they grow over 2000 varieties of apple as well as other fruit. Their fruit is not grown commercially but groups like friends of Mayow Park and other organisations can order small numbers of heritage fruit for events such as our Apple Day. We ordered four varieties from Brogdale and more varieties were harvested from local gardens or bought from our local greengrocer.It was a joy to see so many children who LOVE eating apples and who wanted to taste as many apples as they could. Could it happen that they may grow up wanting to grow their own fruit? will they be our future Mayow Park orchard carers? It seemed that Zonga, a fairly new variety grown in Kent and bought from our local greengrocer, was the most popular.

For those who wanted to learn more names of apples there was an Apple Variety Treasure Hunt. In and around the orchard appeared large cut-out cardboard apples with unusual names written on them. The task was to find all 15 cardboard apples and note their names on a sheet. To encourage a slower pace participants were asked to also add any item found in nature next to the apple variety named on the cardboard. Everyone who returned their sheet was a winner!

Well done to all the volunteers who put in time and effort. Verbal feedback from visitors was very positive. 

Countdown to Apple Day

In the countdown to our Apple Day in Mayow Park, the past two days have seemed a bit chaotic. Yesterday was all about waiting at home to receive the new orchard sign so that it could be installed before Saturday. When it arrived it had to be unpacked, creating a sea of bubble wrap plastic scattered over the corridor floor.
Today, the wait was for heritage apples we had ordered from Brogdale - four different varieties to use for tasting at Apple Day. Luckily they arrived before 9.30am. The apples from Brogdale were specially ordered: you won't be able to find these in your local supermarket.  We will also buy more common varieties for tasting on the day.
Today was already booked as the day that our five bat boxes were being installed.  The bat boxes and the new sign were installed thanks to Steve and Lee from Glendale.

installing the new orchard sign

Job  completed

The Friends of Mayow Park (FOMP) have held evening meetings to finalise arrangements for the day. We plan to set up two gazebos and to have  story telling in the woodland area nearby.We have also planned

• Unveiling the new orchard sign
• Pointers on how to identify apples.
• Apple tasting from a range of varieties.
• Hunt for apple names - search for labelled apple templates hidden in and around the orchard.
• Story telling with a professional story teller

Some more ideas we had for games and activities include apple bobbing and longest apple peel, drawing and poetry writing. Come along and join in.

The event is free and suitable for everyone. It is organised by Friends of Mayow Park. We are always keen to welcome new volunteers to help with events.

The new orchard sign showing all our fruit varieties 

We will not have any of our own apples at our event. Some fell off the trees as part of the natural  'fruit drop' process of thinning out, some because squirrels or birds fancied them  and some were removed by volunteers if they showed signs of brown rot or were too crowded together. All this thinning helps to encourage larger fruits. But that still left  plenty of apples, pears and three quinces, none of which were ripe or ready for picking. Unfortunately all these remaining fruits were removed by people unknown. This is a blow for those volunteers who cared for the trees throughout the spring and summer hoping to share them at our community event. As we had already planned the Apple Day it was decided we would buy in apples - after all they are the stars of the show.
See you there!

CUCKOO FLOWER IN THE ORCHARD

Spring 2016 and an unusual flower was seen growing in the orchard. Where had it come from? What was it? Why had it not been spotted before?
Normally the orchard, along with other grass areas in Mayow Park, has its first mowing in March. But early 2016 was very damp and the ground was waterlogged. Any vehicle trying to mow would have got bogged down in the heavy clay. This was fortunate for Lady's Smock (cardamine pratensis), also called cuckoo flower, which likes damp grassland. A member of the cabbage family, it flowers from March to early June. It had not been spotted before because the mowing regime for amenity grassland in the park prevented it from growing in its natural habitat.

According to The Wildlife Trusts  http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/ladys-smock:
Only 1,600 hectares of floodplain meadows are left within the whole of the UK, in a landscape which was abundant with this habitat. Cuckoo flowers, once common, are therefore becoming a rarer sight. The Wildlife Trusts look after many meadow and wetland habitats for the benefit of local wildlife and are working closely with farmers, landowners and developers to promote wildlife-friendly practices in these areas.

This plant is unusual in the borough of Lewisham.  There followed negotiations followed with Lewisham Greenscene and with Glendale (the contractors who manage the park on behalf of Lewisham) and a map of the site containing the flowers was drawn up.

 

 As from early this year it was finally confirmed that mowing the grass in the orchard would be delayed until the end of May to allow the plants to flower and set seed. So don't despair if the grass in the orchard looks unkempt - it is intentional and not an oversight.
Thank you to park users who identified the plant and to Lewisham and Glendale for agreeing this change.

Orchard workday coming soon Feb 2017

We will be having our annual  orchard winter tree pruning and maintenance workshop on Saturday 18th February from 10am until 1pm.
Don't worry if you have very little knowledge of what to do as we will carefully look at trees and decide what pruning we need to do to encourage healthy tree growth and hopefully some summer fruit. We will  be weeding and mulching the ground round the trees too. Trees that were planted last March will be given more space to branch out as we will reduce the height of the protective guards around them.
If you can only stay for part of the session it is best to come at the beginning when we will go through all the work we will do.

Tree dressing photos 3 - group pictures

This is the last set of photos from our Tree Dressing event in Mayow Park on Sunday 4th December 2016. They were taken by Simon, a photographer working for Helping Britain Blossom who support The Orchard Project.http://helpingbritainblossom.org.uk
If you use any of these photos please acknowledge Helping Britain Blossom.

group photo 1

group photo 2

tree with ribbons

sing along at the end of the morning