Fantastic to join the regular Tehidy park/ Cormac volunteers this week in the orchard for weeding, mulching and pruning. At one point a cow decided to run in and join us in the orchard having escaped from it’s field but lost it’s herd – making for a bit of excitement! Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo…
Weeding around trees and then mulching was done to help ensure that when the meadow grass grows it doesn’t swamp young trees and compete for nutrients. But also, with older trees it helps to protect the trunk, as it becomes clearly demarcated and therefore no strimmers, or other machinery need go near to the trunk at all when people are maintaining the grounds thus ensuring no chance of catching the trunk.
We pruned some of the larger trees to bring them down as they’ve been heading for the sky where we can’t reach the fruit so well and just to encourage new fresh growth throughout.
The Pear Apple tree has already been top grafted a few years ago with some Bramley scions so we were careful not to chop those off. Young trees got a bit of formative pruning and we all had great chats about apple trees, orchards, pruning, grafting and how to get more orchards planted locally.
Thanks to all at Cormac and the volunteer team for allowing us to come and join you in the wonderful orchard.
We hope to be planting some more apple trees at Tehidy over the coming weeks – watch this space.