Welcome to the Woodfield Community Orchard
Eleven more trees added to Woodfield Community Orchard
With the help of 55 energetic local schoolchildren - from Telferscot, Rutherford House, Christ Church Streatham and Streatham & Clapham Prep School - eleven more trees have been added to the Woodfield Community Orchard. This brings the total number of trees so far to 25. The children got stuck in with digging, mulching and watering on Friday 10 October and the new saplings - which include three dessert apples, one crab apple, one pear, two plums, two mulberries, one quince and one apricot - now join their older cousins on the Woodfield field next to the Pavilion. Among the new trees is the Merton Joy, a fruit tree with a local heritage sourced from the National Fruit Archive in Kent. Producing crisp and juicy fruit, it is a cross between the Sturmer Pippin and the Cox Orange Pippin.
The age range on the planting day was from junior school to a 101-year-old supporter who had sponsored a tree, Halina.
On Saturday 11 October, a team of volunteers was also hard at work making protective structures to keep the trees from harm. A big thank you to everyone involved.
The orchard’s first saplings, planted last year, were watered every Saturday for twenty weeks by enthusiastic volunteers over the exceptionally hot summer. Nature will now take over watering duties until the spring. We all look forward to watching the trees grow, many of them from small shoots to over ten feet tall, in the coming months.
The trees hugely enhance the biodiversity on the field and the surrounding areas on Tooting Common and are there for the local community to enjoy. Take a look, next time you’re at the Woodfield. We’re looking forward to all those apple pies, jellies and jams we can make in years to come!
Previously, at the Woodfield Community Orchard…
Summer watering of the Woodfield Community Orchard
It is vital we keep our saplings healthy over the hot summer months.
A rota of enthusiastic volunteers makes sure the new trees are watered weekly and, thanks to them, this is paying off. We are starting to see blossom, healthy growth and early signs of our first fruit.
We now have a 100-metre hose for doing the job, kept in our shed, and the orchard team is regularly on hand. The plan is to plant more trees in the autumn, taking the total to 28.
We are labelling the trees to make sure visitors to the orchard can identify apple, cherry, mulberry and quince and are looking forward to seeing how the orchard will enhance biodiversity around the Woodfield.
If you want to help at the orchard, we will be at the Woodfield Pavilion every Saturday throughout the summer at 10am. Everyone welcome.
Contact us on woodfieldcommunityorchard@gmail.com if you want to find out more about how you can volunteer.
Volunteers Day - April 12th
The sunshine attracted a good crowd - around twenty-five people in all - to our volunteers day on 12 April. We were delighted to welcome Tooting Common’s Walk and Talk group as part of it. Chris Fowler’s fascinating talk about the orchard, tree planting so far and future plans, inspired many people to sign up for our summer watering rota. Great to see so much local enthusiasm. If you couldn’t make it on the day and want to join in, email us (see below) with your number and we’ll add you to our WhatsApp group.
Mike Langdon spotted our first Woodfield Community Orchard blossom – the Ribston pippin in his photo shown here.
Launch celebration - and first planting - Saturday 16th November
Photography by Mark Weeks
Planting Schedule:
There will be 7 trees planted initially:
4 Apple Trees:
London Pippin - A now uncommon rare local variety
Ashmead’s Kernel - Late dessert apple
Beauty of Bath - An early apple best eaten straight from the tree!
Ribston Pippin - A juicy yellow & red apple
1 Black Mulberry - Luscious black fruit
1 Plum - Warwickshire Drooper - Egg sized, yellow speckled red plum
1 Wild Service - A rare native fruiting tree
More Info:
Supported by Wandsworth and Lambeth Councils, the Woodfield Community Orchard will provide a variety of benefits, including improved health and well-being, increased social interaction, opportunities for learning, physical exercise, and enhanced biodiversity. Local residents, families, and volunteers will play a key role in cultivating the orchard, benefiting future generations.
Woodfield Community Orchard - The mission…
The aim of the project is to establish a Community Orchard on Woodfield, planting approximately 30 fruit trees across the winters of 2024/5 and 2025/6 at the south-western end of Woodfield (the end that borders Streatham and Clapham High School). The Orchard will occupy less than one third of the field in total. The variety of trees will be generously spaced and the Orchard itself sited in an area that will maintain wide avenues at both back and sides of the field.
A Community Orchard is a series of fruit trees planted in a specific area within a local community. It’s by and for everyone within that community. The active engagement and involvement in all aspects of the orchard is vital, and everyone and anyone is encouraged to join in. The more people involved, the more fun, knowledge and fruit is shared amongst our community.
Many volunteers have already spent time in gaining permissions, organising the layout, researching the most suitable trees, and raising the funds to start the WCOP. If you’d like to be involved please contact…