The Orchard Year of 2024 is officially underway!

We’re excited for a new year ahead filled with sunshine, tree care, outdoor activities like scything and raking, opportunities for exercise, plenty of social events, and of course, lots of delicious fruit to enjoy.

Tree planting event February

February 10th marked the beginning of a new Orchard season as we gathered for a planting day. Working from our new base along the canal has greatly simplified event preparations. A heartfelt thank you goes out to The William Hobbayne Charity and Goodgym_Ealing for providing us with new tool storage and helping to create a place where we can meet up before events.

Despite the challenges of digging holes and removing concrete boulders at Elthorne Rough, the combined efforts of Goodgym_Ealing members and dedicated volunteers resulted in the successful planting of 9 fruit trees at Elthorne Triangles and Osterley Lock Orchard. It’s wonderful to see such teamwork and determination toward creating a greener environment.

With patience, watering and care, these newly planted trees will hopefully thrive and bear fruits in the coming years.

Dates for the diary

Work Saturdays -We work every 2nd Saturday of the month, unless otherwise specified-

March 16th 10:30 start (instead of 9th)

April 13th 10:30 start

May 11th 10:30 start

Work evenings -From April 22nd we work Monday or Wednesday evenings from 19:00.

April 22nd -Monday- 19:00

May 1st -Wednesday- 19:00

May 6th -Monday- 19:00

May 15th -Wednesday- 19:00

If you’d like to stay informed about our work evenings and Saturdays in advance, you can click to access our calendar, or you can register as a volunteer and receive regular emails about our events.

Let the Tree Tending Season begin…

Can’t help myself, I feel very excited about the start of Tree Tending Evenings every year. So much to look forward to; It means Spring is here, and we will be able to stay out and enjoy the evenings in the orchards.

We hope to see many of you this year. Remember, there are many tasks (big and small) you can do in an orchard. You will learn on the job. And if you don’t feel like working… it’s perfectly alright to join us for a chat or just for the company. We are a friendly, international bunch and always happy to meet new people.

Dates for the diary

Upcoming Tree Tending Evenings. We alternate between Mondays and Wednesdays to give as many people, as possible, an opportunity to join. If you want to receive a weekly -email- reminder, please register here. We collect tools from the allotment next to The Piggeries Orchard at 19:00 and work till dark. Most of us will go to The Fox after, but there’s no obligation to do so.

Wednesday 26th April

Monday 1st May

Wednesday 10th May

Saturday 13th May (start 10:30)

Monday 15th May

Wednesday 24th May

_{Pictures Dagmar Gauweiler / Mirjam van Bentum}

Winter is nearly over and pruning is nearly done.

The winter months are usually quiet in our orchards, there are only a few winter-tasks to be done. The last two months, we have planted some trees in Blackberry Corner, on the Elthorne Terraces and in Osterley Lock Orchard, to fill up gaps caused by fire and disease, . We have also done most of the pruning of the apple and pear trees. -The plums and other soft fruits have to wait till Summer before we prune them.-

Dates for the diary

This Saturday March 11th we will try to finish all pruning tasks. Please come to the allotment next to The Piggeries around 10:00 o’clock to collect tools.

Since the second Saturday in April (Saturday April 8th ) is the Saturday before Easter we moved our working Saturday to the 15th of April. We’ll be mulching, watering or weeding … all tasks depending on the weather.

Sometime after Easter, we will start our weekly, evening sessions again, beginning with a tidy up of the orchards closest to The Piggeries. Please register as a volunteer if you want updates on where we’ll be working.

Winter tasks

Let us start with wishing you a very happy and healthy 2023. Hanwell and Norwood Green Orchard Trail Volunteers will continue with what they’ve done for the last 8 years; maintaining a trail of orchards along the Grand Union Canal to help make Hanwell a great place to walk and enjoy the outdoors.

Mulching

On a sunny and cold day last December, our group of dedicated volunteers came together to help care for some of our orchards along the canal. Armed with wheelbarrows full of woodchip donated to us by Ealing Park Rangers, they set out to mulch around the trees in St. Margaret’s Orchard, Bernd’s Orchard and The Piggeries. The woodchip will help retain moisture during dry periods and suppress weeds, also feeding the trees to create the best possible environment to grow strong and healthy.

Volunteers

Our orchards are a living testament to the impact that a group of dedicated individuals can have on their community. And you can be part of that …

We can always use more help to maintain our orchards and start new environmental projects. So if you want to know more…, just register as a volunteer on this website and receive updates of what we do and how you can help. Our planting day would be a great starting point to get introduced to Orchard life.

Planting Day 14th January 2023

This year, we will be planting some trees in Blackberry Corner, to replace the trees that got damaged during the fire last summer. If the weather holds, we will also do some pruning and other maintenance work. We will fill in some spaces and prune trees on the 11th of February in Osterley Lock Orchard , where, because of clearing work done by the Ealing Rangers, there is additional space for some apples and plums.

Special Thanks

We would like to say a special thank you to someone from Hanwell (sorry we didn’t get your name) who donated a beautiful apple tree (Malus Domestica ‘Pixie’). Currently heeled in, it will be planted on our next planting event on the 14th January.

Dates for the diary

For all events: Starting point is the allotments next to The Piggeries at 10:00 o’clock.

Saturday 14 January 2023: Planting and Pruning Blackberry Corner and meadows

Saturday 11 February 2023: Planting and pruning Osterley Lock and Elthorne Triangles

Saturday 11 March 2023: tasks to be announced

Give your tree a pint of cider.

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)

Working Saturday February: 12th of February

Annual General Meeting

AGM

INVITATION & FORMAL NOTICE

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)

Hanwell & Norwood Green Orchard Trail
2021

Each In Their Own Time

Cherries tend to be ripe for picking mid June to mid July. Damsons, plums, gages and Mulberries follow late July to August. Apples, pears and quinces are autumn fruit, generally ripe and ready for picking in September and October. Medlar is generally harvested in late autumn and left to mature indoors.

These dates vary with the variety, local growing conditions and the weather by a small number of weeks. When you are unsure, the simple test is to sample one single fruit:

It should look ripe and ready, with fully developed size and skin colouring.

It should come away easily. Ripe fruit does not need a forceful harvest.

It should smell and taste ripe. If it looks ripe, smells and tastes ripe, then it most likely is ripe.

Take only ripe fruit. Premature harvest is a waste of a good fruit, missing out on the final and full aroma, and is a waste of a good effort that went into growing it.

Take some fruit but leave the rest to others. It’s a community orchard after all. Fruit along the orchard trail is for everyone to pick and enjoy. It is not grown on a first-come first-served basis.

Unfortunately, this article is coming too late. Once again, many trees have been systematically stripped of all fruit, many weeks before it would have ripened. We wish those antisocial individuals strong belly cramps and a sense of their own idiocy to balance for the frustration we feel after having tended the plants for weeks and months.

Orchard Care Update

As you will know or have guessed, we cancelled all group activities at the beginning of lock-down to help keep everybody safe.

Individuals or volunteers sharing a household and small groups, subject to the more recently evolving rules and guidelines, kept up the good work: pruning trees, picking litter, controlling weeds and caring for orchards and meadows in many other ways. Over 100 work hours were volunteered since March 23rd, covering all 11 locations along the orchard trail.

Our huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped so far.

We are now planning safe activities for the near future, hoping to engage with new volunteers and reconnect with old friends.

Please look out for related news online at this web site, our Facebook or Twitter, or through the volunteer email system.

The Wee People

Many believe that nature is reclaiming the land in these strange times, quiet yet stressful all the same.

Swans were sighted in the canals of Venice, Dolphins near the port of Cagliari, Sardinia. Mountain goats in Llandudno, Wales, Mountain lions in Bolder, Colarado, Wild boars were sighted in Barcelona, Spain, and gangs of macaque monkeys overrun Lopburi, Thailand.

Did you know that the wee people have returned to Hanwell?

You just need to observe the proper distance to other people, look really careful and be quite quiet!

Have you found them yet?

Progress Report

This is an excellent time to rummage around the cupboard, get the old shoebox of photos and contemplate just how far Osterley Lock Orchard has come in just five years, but with the help of many, many, volunteer hours.

Our work hour statistics don’t reach all the way back to the beginnings, but an estimated 500 volunteer hours were spend at Osterley Lock Orchard since the start, not counting planning, preparation or taking of post-activity refreshments.

Everything begun with a site inspection June 13th, 2015. The site was completely overgrown except for a small picnic spot covered in litter, broken picnic table and remains of BBQ fires.

A joint effort of Canal and Rivers Trust volunteers and the park rangers provided the initial clearing October 15th, 2015.

We planted the front orchard January 30th, 2016.

Clearing of the back part begun December 17th, 2016, on a rather damp day, alongside the planting of 1000 native flower bulbs. Site care and maintenance has been an ongoing effort ever since. (Event invitation, more photos)

February 4th, 2017, brought the addition of 17 fruit trees to the rear of the orchard (event invitation, more photos), quickly followed by the installation of bird and bat boxes.

Osterley Lock Orchard now has 29 fruit trees, second only to Blackberry Corner Orchard with a collection of 44 fruit trees across the field. We give it ongoing care and maintenance with many Tuesday evenings and quite a few Saturday activities to help establish and maintain a clean, healthy and bio-diverse habitat and orchard.

Many small events followed, trying to keep Nettles and Burdock at bay, look after the fruit trees and keep the paths across the site clear and usable.

The most recent event at this time of writing was the spring clean at March 14th, 2020. A super volunteer turnout, assisted by the park rangers and their big boy toys. We coppiced and cleared to bring more light, airflow and clear lines of sight to improve the orchard site for plants, wildlife and humans alike.

(See the event invitation, report with photos).

Our heartfelt and warm Thank you! to everyone who helped with this project so far. We look forward to continued events in this and other parts of the orchard trail once the current exceptional conditions caused by the Coronavirus pandemic are a thing of the past.