Home
About Us
Events
News
- Add News
- Page 2
Directory
Resources
Contact
Friends of Daisy Farm Park, Billesley.
Birmingham Trees for life
On Friday 27th October 2006 at 3.15pm the first apple trees will be planted at Cotteridge Community Orchard. The day marks the beginning of the final stage in the transformation of a rough patch of neglected land adjacent to Cotteridge Park into a real orchard for local people to enjoy. The event will also be Birmingham’s first ever ‘Apple Day’. All are welcome to come and celebrate!
Although the local community have worked hard over the last few years to raise funds to buy the land and clear it of rubbish and brambles, they were not able to foresee how they could acquire their apple trees.
However in July 2006 the Birmingham Civic Society and the City Council formed a new partnership committed to spreading the message that trees do matter. ‘Birmingham Trees for Life’ is a new long-term project to ensure that more trees are planted across the City and also to endeavour to safeguard those we already have. With financial help from this new project, a partnership has been formed with a Worcestershire fruit tree grower Nick Dunn. He will help the Friends of Cotteridge Park to select the best varieties from the wide range of modern and heritage varieties that he cultivates at his tree nursery. Nick’s grandfather raised the apple trees that were planted in gardens when the Bournville Estate was laid out in the 1900s so he is now carrying on a family tradition of bringing the countryside to town.
Cotteridge Community Orchard
The aim of the project is to create a community orchard, which will be a focus for work with local people and local schools to look at growing, harvesting, cooking and eating good food. The site for the orchard adjacent to Cotteridge Park was once railway allotments, but the allotments were abandoned and the site became overgrown. Local people waited some time to be able to buy the land - they raised nearly £4,000 by donations, carol singing and selling home-made Christmas cards. Following a very generous donation of £3,000 from the Midlands Co-operative Society the Friends of the park were able to buy the site.
The Importance of Orchards
Orchards were once widespread throughout the British Isles and until recently every farm, country house and suburban garden had its own collection of fruit trees. In Birmingham, when the Bournville Estate was laid out by the Cadbury’s in the 1900s, every garden was planted with fruit trees and there was even a company orchard to ensure that every member of staff had ‘an apple a day’. However, pressure on land and the importation of cheap fruit from abroad has caused the loss of many of these small orchards. Apples are now mostly bought in plastic bags, perfectly shaped and coloured from supermarkets, but taste and variety and local production may have been forfeited.
However there is now resurgence in the interest in orchards and apples. Organisations such as Common Ground are campaigning to remind us of the importance of orchards. This organisation is well known for linking nature with culture, focussing upon the positive investment people can make in their own localities, championing popular involvement, and by inspiring celebration as a starting point for action to improve the quality of our everyday places.
In an urban context, orchards provide places for quiet contemplation or local festivities, a reservoir of local varieties of fruit and a refuge for wild life. They can teach children that apples do grow on trees and can taste delicious! In many cities, Farmers Markets are bringing back the concept of local food and promoting fresh ‘home grown’ organic produce - in Birmingham, Farmers Markets are increasingly popular. The old phrase ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is now being backed up by research that shows that apples may have many health giving qualities and children benefit enormously from eating them.
National Apple Day
In October every year, Common Ground co-ordinates an annual celebration of the apple, orchards and local distinctiveness. This celebration
was initiated in 1990 it has since been celebrated each year by people organising hundreds of local events. All over the country around the 21st October, people gather together to celebrate the diversity of the apple and its many uses and qualities.Birmingham Apple Day
For the first time, Birmingham is hosting its very own Apple Day on the 27th October in the Cotteridge Community Orchard. More than 50 different varieties of apple will be available for tasting. Local children can taste red, green and yellow apples of all different shapes and sizes with such wonderful names as Lord Derby, Broadholme Beauty, Yellow Ingestre, Hereford Russet, Edward VII, Golden Knob, Laxton's Fortune and they can then decide which ones they would like to be planted in their orchard.
There will be apple juice to drink, apple bobbing and a nature treasure hunt. The first apple trees are being brought from Worcestershire by Nick Dunn to be planted in the orchard in the afternoon.
Officers of the Civic Society, local Councillors, parents and friends will all join in Birmingham’s first Apple Day and will be on hand to drive home the message that trees and apple trees are essential to health and our quality of life!
To celebrate the arrival and planting of the first apple trees at the site, a celebration of national Apple Day is to be held in the Community Orchard on the afternoon of Friday 27th October, which will include the chance to taste over 50 varieties of apple, take part in a variety of apple related activities and see the first trees planted in the new orchard.
Location:
Cotteridge Park is adjacent to Franklin Road, which runs between Mary Vale Rd and Linden Road (A4040) south of Bournville.
Contacts:
Apple Day and the Community Orchard: Emma Woolf
0121 451 2336 or e-mail.
Birmingham Trees for Life: Freddie Gick
0121 308 0496 or e-mail.
Nick Dunn
01584 810214 or e-mail.