All members of the Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail are entitled to attend and vote at the AGM. Please email hanwellorchard@gmail.com to confirm your attendance. There is no charge for attendance at the AGM.
By order of the Management Committee Mirjam van Bentum Chair Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail 2022
We can’t believe it’s the end of Summer already. Sorry for keeping a little quiet over the last months. We have been so busy,…. just couldn’t find time to post about the jobs we did.
Greening together The Ealing rangers have been invaluable in supporting us with advise on creating and maintaining our orchards. It is great to see that this is recognised by the Council. A big thank you to ‘Around Ealing’ for using one of our flagship orchards ‘The Piggeries’ in a lovely article on greening together. The video, accompanying the article, can be watched here !
Pictures below show 1) Aerial view Piggeries site 1951 2) Piggeries map 1960 with current situation combined 3) Winter 2016/2017 4) Summer 2022
Summer Cut Over the summer months, we give all our orchards a summer cut. Most years we had to do quite a bit of weeding before it was time to cut all the grass, but this years drought stopped the weeds from getting in the way too much. So during our work-evenings we cleared around trees, watered our younger trees and did some litter picking when necessary. In August, when most wildflowers had set seed -or when the fire-risk became too high-, we cut the whole meadow in one go and removed the cuttings. This practice, which is common in wildflower meadow management, enhances bio diversity by creating a habitat less favourable for grasses, brambles and nettles. To connect more with other local nature conservation groups, we helped cutting Perivale Wood wildflower meadow and the cuttings were feed for the cows on Horsenden Farm.
Dates for the diary
Saturday work morning: 10th September 10:30 at the allotment next to The Piggeries. We’ll split the group, depending on numbers. If you want to get familiar with our most Western part of the trail (30 min walk from the allotment) this is your chance.
Monday work evening:12th September 6:30 at the allotment next to The Piggeries. -Tasks to be announced-.
Upcoming Saturday work mornings 8th October and 12th November
After what felt like a long winter, we are more then ready to start the orchard season again.
Winter tasks
Although the winter felt long, it was a relatively mild and dry one. This meant that we could do most of our planned tasks this winter. In February, we spent our working Saturday pruning our apples and pears. We also planted a Bramley tree in Bernd’s orchard and replaced some trees in the meadows that were vandalised. In Blackberry Corner we extended the existing hedge, that we started two years ago. For this hedge we used whips given to us by I dig trees. The hedge will be an important addition to the mixed habitat that’s already in place. All the hedge plants are fruit bearing and beneficial to small mammals, birds and insects as hiding place and food source.
Mulching
Our March working Saturday was all about spreading mulch. Mulching is a great way to slowly release nutrients to the roots of trees and at the same time suppressing weeds. We enjoyed the sunshine and blue skies and being outside made us really aware of the first signs of Spring. Our Apricot in St. Margaret’s orchard is in full bloom and the blackthorn hedges at The Piggeries are starting to turn white with blossom.
Dates for the diary
Please feel free to join us for any workday or evening. Even if it’s just to say hello, we’re really happy to have a chat and explain what we’re doing.
Saturday workday April : 9th April
We’ll be starting our regular working evenings in April (exact date to be announced)
To receive updates on tasks and where the volunteers will be working each week, please register for our volunteer email list here.
This year, every garden- or Christmas program seemed to mention ‘wassailing’… Not knowing much about the customs around it, I decided to have a browse. This article is a compilation of some of the information I found. Full articles here: How to wassail correctly. and here: CultureUK_Wassailing
What Is Wassailing?
Wassailing has been associated with both Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. It was an ancient ceremony that involved singing and drinking to the health of trees. It was also a way of passing on good wishes among family and friends.
Wassailing was originally a pagan practice: ensuring the fertility of fruit trees by offering them mulled cider, and hanging pieces of the toast in the branches. The celebrations vary from region to region, but generally involve a wassail King and Queen leading the assembled group of revellers, comprising the farmers, farm workers and general villagers, in a noisy procession from one orchard to the next. In each orchard the wassailers gather round the biggest and best tree, and as a gift to the tree spirits, the Queen places a piece of wassail soaked toast into its branches, accompanied by songs such as;
“Apple tree, apple tree we all come to wassail thee, Bear this year and next year to bloom and blow, Hat fulls, cap fulls, three cornered sacks fills…”
The wassailers then move on to the next orchard; singing, shouting, banging pots and pans, and even firing shotguns, generally making as much noise as possible in order to both waken the sleeping tree spirits, and also to frighten off any evil demons that may be lurking in the branches.
‘Wassail’, from Old Norse Ves heill, is a toast: ‘your health’, to which the answer is ‘drinc hael’: ‘I drink to your health.’ A toast is a piece of toasted bread put into a drink as a sop which you could eat but might also act as a filter for the solid matter in the bottom of the cup/glass/goblet. If you toast someone, you raise your cup/glass/goblet with the toast in it to him/her and say ‘Wassail!’
We would like to raise a glass and wish you all a Happy New Year
‘WASSAIL‘
and lots of happy hours in the orchards.
Here’s a toast to seeing everyone in person again soon.
Dates for the diary:
Working Saturday January: 15th of January (moved from the 8th)
Notice is hereby given of the Annual General Meeting of the Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail, which will be held on
Wednesday 3th November, 2021
72, St Margaret’s Road, Hanwell W7 2HF.
Start-time 19:30
All members of the Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail are entitled to attend and vote at the AGM. Please email hanwellorchard@gmail.com to confirm your attendance. There is no charge for attendance at the AGM.
By order of the Management Committee Mirjam van Bentum (Chair)
Although our weekly, tree tending evenings had to stop because of fading light, our work is nowhere finished (is it ever?). Luckily for you, we’ve got some interesting events lined up for the coming months and we hope to see many of our members attending one or even more.
Apple day at Horsenden Farm
This Appleday -Saturday the 25th-, we’ll be at one of the stalls to tell you all about the plans for a new community orchard at Horsenden Farm. Orchards are a priority habitat for biodiversity, providing food and shelter for a wealth of wildlife. Working in an orchard reduces stress and anxiety. We are available this Saturday to answer all your questions on all things orchard, our orchard trail and the benefits for nature and people.
Saturday Orchard working days
The second Saturday of every month (except December) is ‘working Saturday’. Usually, we take on a task that needs more hands and time than our evening sessions. If you want to know where we are working, please register here Volunteer Email and you will receive an email with all the information, closer to the date. The planned activities will sometimes change last minute because of weather or other unforeseen circumstances and our volunteers email is the best way to stay in the loop. The planned dates are the following;
Saturday 9th October (Blackberry Corner),
Saturday 13th November (renewing labels, recce of trees and pruning needed)
Saturday 8th January 2022 (Pruning / Mulching)
Saturday 12th February 2022 (Pruning / Mulching)
Saturday 12th March (to be announced)
Annual General Meeting 2021
It’s nearly that time of the year again, the time for our genuinely important and not quite so terribly serious AGM
Wednesday 3th November, 2021
at 72, St Margaret’s Road, Hanwell W7 2HF.
Start-time 19:30
I am happy to announce that this is our fifth AGM. None of the founding members expected the project to fail quickly, but I suppose we all share some pride in the fact that we made it so far, and the project still is very much alive and ticking after 7 years.
All members of the Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail are entitled to attend and vote at the AGM. Come along and cast your vote, share some nibbles, thoughts and suggestions, catch up with the latest plans, craziest ideas and help us continue to function as an organisation. (Please email hanwellorchard@gmail.com to confirm your attendance. There is no charge for attendance at the AGM.)
Bring you own food and drink to the sharing table, bring your own children and friends. Bring your own smile, a kite, a blanket or camping chair.
Please be mindful of plastic waste and food waste though: bring only as much as your own company would consume, avoiding plastic where possible. Please be prepared to take back leftovers. Please bring your own glass or cup so that we can avoid plastic cups – or drink straight from the bottle 😉
‘Time flies when you’re having fun’ is one of our favourite sayings. It’s just so true…. Loads of fun we had the last couple of weeks. Fun with weeds growing above our heads -we’re not complaining-. Fun with overflowing ponds and (a little less) fun with tidying up some badly damaged trees.
But most fun we had with our side-project, financed by The Freshwater foundation; the replacement of the sheep in the meadows. The sheep are made by Mick Burns, who is also the creator of the old sheep . The bodies of the sheep are sculpted from rot resistant, Monterey Cypress wood and their legs are solid oak. With help of our amazing Ealing Rangers Jon and James, we managed to replace the rather tired pair with some lovely new sheep. (And there’s even a little addition to the group.)
Last week some of us took part in a small side project. We helped Ealing rangers spreading Mistletoe berries, to support Ealing’s biodiversity action plan. We have also started our tree tending evenings to keep up with the -now very fast growing- weeds and grasses.
Mistletoe (Viscum album) is a very scarce plant in Ealing and a priority species under the borough’s biodiversity action plan. It has a hemiparasitic life cycle, growing on trees from which it extracts water. In nature the seeds are spread by birds, notably Mistle Thrush. Last week we gave Ealing park rangers and nature a helping hand by spreading Mistletoe seed onto apple trees, a favoured host species.
The seeds are surrounded by a thick mucilaginous slime that literally glues them to the bark. In time we hope they will germinate and grow into mature plants which can then seed and spread naturally. We don’t know exactly why Mistletoe was almost lost to Ealing, but we aim to work to bring about the return of unique and remarkable species.
If the seeds germinate and grow into new plants, we will record them on this map (Mistletoe in Ealing)
In addition to the Mistletoe project we have started to document the old fruit trees in the area covered by our trail. Map (Veteran fruit trees in Ealing) Some of the old trees are already looked after by us. We take away dead and damaged wood and protect them against rabbit damage if we can.
Not all old trees are easily accessible, but some are part of our existing orchards and you can take some fruit from them if you wish. In the coming months we will add information about the old trees to the map, e.g. if the fruit is for cooking or can be eaten raw (dessert).
And last but not least……
We are very happy to have welcomed new volunteers in the last couple of weeks. If you want to help us keeping our orchards healthy, you’re welcome to join us anytime. Please register as a volunteer to get regular updates of when and where we work.
Hanwell and Norwood Green Orchard Trail 