Introducing Shaftesbury Orchard Town

Image taken from 'Making Shaftesbury an Orchard Town', leaflet produced by Shaftesbury Town Council

Joe Hashman of Shaftesbury Tree Group writes:

Some of us had an idea to take the vibe of the Donkey Field Community Orchard (in Enmore Green) and extend it. If you can, imagine an orchard which weaves around, up and over the whole of Shaftesbury and all its neighbourhoods; a continuous tapestry of edible trees on street corners, public open spaces, in schools, churches, workplaces, private gardens; as large collections, small groups, individuals and hedges. Get the picture?

We are gardeners, foresters, naturalists, chefs, historians, artists, campaigners. We wrote the idea of declaring Shaftesbury as an Orchard Town as a formal proposal, took it to the Town Council last October and they voted unanimously in support. They also paid for a dozen apple tree whips which we’ve rehomed, and rootstocks.

The rootstocks are exciting. We have vigorous apple M25 and semi-vigorous M111, plus pear Kirchenstaller. We’ll be propagating half of these by ‘budding’ in late summer. Have you done budding before? We’d love to hear from you because it’s not something we’ve done beyond reading books and watching YouTube.

Still talking rootstocks; the other half of what STC paid for are being grown to produce more rootstocks by a technique known as ‘stooling’. These’ll be made available to yourselves and others to try grafting and budding.

One of our goals is to secure the production of everything we need to propagate future fruit and nuts here in Shaftesbury so there’s no need to buy stuff in.

The beautiful thing about Shaftesbury Orchard Town is that it already exists! One aim is to document the edible trees which we’ve got growing here and now. You can help by sharing what you know. In future we can contrast compare changes and, on the ground, identify spaces and fill the gaps - working towards a time when people ask, “Is there an orchard in Shaftesbury, or is Shaftesbury in an orchard?”

Contact; Joe Hashman via WhatsApp 07395 954579