Royal Bath and West Society Show

30 May - 2 June are the dates for this year’s Royal Bath and West Society Show at the Shepton Mallet Showground.  

Do please come and say hello - you will find us at our stand in the Orchards and Cider Tent.

There have been more entries this year than ever for the Cider classes, making the B and W the biggest cider competition in the world.

Friday 1 June is Growers Day, with lots of special events aimed at orchard owners.  This is well worth attending and a great opportunity to listen to some fantastic experts and to meet other growers.

Apple Blossom Day at Orchard Pig

Andrew Quinlan & Neil Macdonald

Sunday 29 April will be a big celebration at West Bradley Orchards as Orchard Pig hosts its regular Apple Blossom Day.

Cider, apple juice, hog roast, games and music are on the schedule from 11.00 - 6.00 and the trees in full blossom are a gift from nature at this time of year.

It’s a great opportunity for Orchard Pig to celebrate its Somerset roots at the start of summer, and to introduce everyone to its new lines and stunning new look. 

With the trees looking their best we will be delighted to welcome everyone for orchard tours, with specialists on hand to answer questions.
  

For the sporty there will be welly throwing, apple and spoon races and a special Tug o’ War, and for the less sporty lots of ice cream, Orchard Pig cider and apple juice.

Bees and honey from Somerton Beekeepers, small animals and birds from Secret World and the famous Orchard Piglets will be fun for the family, and all day music will make a mellow setting until the sun goes down.

We look forward to seeing all our friends at West Bradley on 29 April - do come and meet us!

SWECA visits West Bradley

On 1 March a party of SWECA members ( South West of England Cidermakers Association) visited West Bradley Orchards.
  

The tour was guided by Neil Macdonald from Orchard Pig Ground Force and Edward Clifton-Brown, owner of West Bradley Orchards.  Robert Fouvargue, Agronomist with Pearce Seeds, was also on hand to answer questions.

Neil Macdonald said “ We were very pleased that such a large number of SWECA members came to visit us.  We have been growing dessert apples on a wire system for some time and we wanted to share our thoughts on how this system could be adapted to grow cider fruit.”

John Thatcher, from Thatcher’s Cider, has been growing cider apples on a similar system for some time and was very enthusiastic and encouraging. 

“It is the way forward, of that I have no doubt” he said.

5 Top Tips for Planting Apple Trees

We are coming into the main planting season now.  Here are some things to be thinking about.

1 Soil condition is vital. If your soil is not friable and you are smearing the sides of the hole the tiny root hairs cannot break through the solid barrier.  Leave it to another day.

2 Soak the tree overnight and keep the roots covered before you plant. Do not let it dry out in the wind.

3 Put in the stake; dig the hole; plant the tree as you go.

4 Planting depth is critical, make sure you are not planting too deeply.

5 Guard the tree immediately.  Rabbits can be very quick off the mark.

Pruning workshops

Our pruning workshop season has got off to a great start.

Saturday 21 January found us in Marlborough with an audience of 70. Everyone was very knowledgeable and extremely enthusiastic and the questions came thick and fast.

We were privileged to be invited into the orchards at Marlborough College to demonstrate pruning techniques on old trees and also into the grounds of Waitrose where we were able to show how to prune an espaliered apple tree.

Many thanks go to Philippa Davenport and her team for organising a very successful and enjoyable day. 

Wiltshire seems to be having great success with both its local food projects and its community orchards, which is good to know.  

Our workshops here in Somerset at West Bradley are filling up fast but we can still squeeze a few more in, so do get in touch if you are interested.  Dates are 9 & 23 Feb and 3 March.

Springwatch Christmas Special Part 2

We had a great day filming with Springwatch and were blessed with wonderful weather.  You can see the results at 7pm on BBC2 on Boxing Day, and if you miss that it will be repeated at 3.15 pm BBC2 on New Year’s Eve.

The feature is about mistletoe and the damage it does to apple trees despite its importance as a wildlife habitat.

There was no shortage of mistletoe in the traditional orchard at West Bradley, unfortunately, as is the case in so many of our Somerset orchards.  Neil was eager to get at some of it with his pole saw and Kate was happy to get her hands sticky with the berries.

The crew, from Bristol, were charming, and included Scott Tibbles, son of the great wildlife cameraman Maurice Tibbles, and a great wildlife cameraman in his own right.

It will be a short piece in a review of the year, but we will all be glued to our screens!

BBC Springwatch Christmas Special

Kate Humble

We are delighted to reveal that a small part of the Springwatch Christmas Special will be filmed at West Bradley Orchards.  Kate Humble and her crew will be spending a day with us towards the end of November to film a piece on mistletoe.  

Yes.  Mistletoe!  Seasonal it may be, and an important habitat for several species including mistlethrushes and blackcaps, but we have mixed feelings about it.

Although we are pleased to say there is not a trace of mistletoe in our commercial plantings it does cause us problems in the traditional orchard.  If you don’t keep a serious eye on it it can get away from you and rampage through the trees, eventually killing them.

The only solution is to remove the entire branch, right back to the trunk. Cutting out just the plant only makes the problem worse.

Happily for the BBC there is no shortage of mistletoe at West Bradley and we hope they will be able to capture some of the mistlethrushes in flight.  Not many birds are attracted to the white berries so they are a reliable food source throughout the winter for those birds that do know about them.

Other creatures for whom mistletoe is an important habitat include the rare and endangered Mistletoe Marble Moth.

We hope we will be able to get across our message about the importance of managing traditional orchards properly for both diversity and productivity.

The programme will be broadcast in the Christmas schedules.