As you will have seen from this week's Standard, more than twenty orchard enthusiasts, young and old, had a great day working together at the orchard last Saturday. Holes were prepared and around a dozen trees were planted with 120 8' poles being driven into the ground to make enclosures to protect the trees from deer. 

The younger ones had tremendous fun bailing water from the holes dug last week, and the older ones enjoyed barrowing in topsoil, planting and enclosure building. Everyone enjoyed Tim and Judy's flapjacks.

We still have most of the trees to plant (they have just been heeled in so far). Will you join us this Saturday, 22 March anytime from 10am onwards?

We're hoping for a good turn-out this weekend at the Dunsden Community Orchard. 50 trees have been delivered and volunteers for the big planting are very welcome, starting from 10am on Saturday 15 March (tomorrow), continuing on Sunday.

Holes were dug last weekend, but 'soil improvers' need to be barrowed, planting done and deer protection put in place. Please come along for an hour or so (or longer if you can manage it) and join the Dunsden Community Orchard planting party! 

We will have access to the village hall for tea and coffee making. Make sure you wear outdoor clothes, including wellingtons. If possible bring a fork, hammer, wire-cutters and (if you can manage it) a wheel-barrow.

All our meetings so far have been most enjoyable. Come along and be part of this exciting local project. Who knows, you may be drinking Dunsden cider sooner than you think!

For more information call David Woodward on 07802 433058.

Sometime champion ploughman Phil Dyer made light work of digging out 50 holes for tree planting at our first working party this weekend. Using a 24" tractor-powered augur he saved hours of toil, cutting through the heavy soil in no time. A group of enthusiastic volunteers backed him up by barrowing in manure and fixing gate posts.

We need even more helpers next weekend (15 March from 10am). 45 trees are arriving and they must be carefully planted. We hope as many people as possible will join us: no experience required, just turn up for an hour or so, anytime on the day.

Putting down roots

Tomorrow, Saturday 8 March is the first of several planned working parties and you are most welcome to join us. Help bring this exciting new project into being!

We have 45 trees on order and expected for the following Saturday so we must prepare the ground for them. Phillimore Farms are kindly donating something to make the ground more suitable for them and Phil Dyer and his mini-tractor-powered augur will kindly be making holes for us. Tim Coulson will be leading the workers.

You will be most welcome to join in, even for only an hour or two, either tomorrow or next Saturday! Refreshments will be available. For information on the day, please call David Woodward on 07802 433058. Wear suitable clothes and footwear.

Adopt-a-tree?

At this week's meeting in the Shoulder of Mutton we discussed a scheme to allow local people to adopt a tree - a great way to commemorate a loved one, or to involve the whole family in learning about traditional fruit-tree growing. Would you be interested? More details later.

Going for a constitutional

We now have a draft constitution, which we hope to adopt shortly. You can also read the minutes of a recent meeting here.

Please forward these details to anyone you think might be interested: see you on the day! 

If you would like to be 'one of the workers' please come along to the Shoulder of Mutton, Playhatch on Tuesday 4 March from 8pm.

We are holding an informal meeting at which we will be finalising details for the working parties which have been arranged as follows:

• the weekend of 8/9 March: preparation/creating a new entrance from Tagg Lane with large gate/postholes
• Sunday 16 March: more hole digging & planting(?)
• Saturday 22 March: planting (to be confirmed)
• Saturday 29 March: planting/follow-up (to be confirmed)