Category Archives: Orchards

Apple Day 2013

Posted on October 10, 2013 | 2 Comments

Orchard-poster-Apple-Day-20PEDAL is hold­ing its fourth apple day cel­eb­ra­tion on Saturday 26 October from 2 – 4.30 pm at the Donkeyfield Community Orch­ard, Brunstane Road South.  We will be press­ing apples to make our own deli­cious juice — please bring a bottle to take some away in.  We also hope to have some of our own tasty apples for you to taste.  There will be a bon­fire, refresh­ments and home bak­ing, plus fun and games (includ­ing apple dook­ing and bat the rat!).

Please bring any spare apples you may have.

  • Wear fancy dress!
  • Bring a Porty grown apple and show it off
  • Also apple juice & home bak­ing to buy.

All wel­come — we hope you can join us.

Orchard poster Apple Day 2013

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Orchard Workday

Posted on February 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

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Posted in events, Food, Orchards

Apple Day Celebration, 29th September 2−4.30

Posted on September 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

Orchard poster Apple Day 2012PEDAL is hold­ing its third apple day cel­eb­ra­tion on Saturday 29 September from 2−4.30 pm at the Donkeyfield Community orch­ard, Brunstane Road South.  We will be press­ing apples to make our own deli­cious juice — please bring a bottle to take some away in.  We also hope to have some of our own tasty apples for you to taste.  There will be a bon­fire, refresh­ments and home bak­ing, plus fun and games (includ­ing apple dook­ing and bat the rat!).

Please bring some home bak­ing if you are able, and any spare apples you may have.  Please con­tact Jane  <jane@gn.apc.org> if you know of any apples that need pick­ing from loc­al trees.

All wel­come — we hope you can join us.

Apple Day Poster

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Orchard is waking up

Posted on March 12, 2012 | 1 Comment

applesGreetings from the Orchard. This is an update on the orch­ard going  to all those who have been along to help since the first shovel of earth was dug in 2009. We had our first work­day of 2012 on the last Saturday in February 2012. It was warm, the cro­cuses were out and the bees were ven­tur­ing out from the hive.

We were able to start put­ting up the wires for the fruit trees against the large stone wall. Nearly fin­ished the wooden fur­niture. We build anoth­er sec­tion of the dry stone wall and checked all the labels on the fruit trees. Sadly we also cut down the old apple tree which died last sea­son. We also drank tea and cof­fee and ate bis­cuits and looked at what we all achieved last year.

Here are some of the things that happened at the orch­ard in 2011.

  • We planted 50 trees and bushes
  • We star­ted build­ing a low dry stone­wall along the path
  • We put in a table and two benches
  • The bee keep­ers got to work. The hive was put in place and the bees made honey
  • We had a won­der­ful Apple Day atten­ded by 50 people and made a huge amount of apple juice
  • We con­tin­ued the work of keep­ing the trees free from weeds and strimmed the area
  • Sadly the shed was broken into and some of the apples disappeared
  • It rained too much but luck­ily not on workdays.
  • We had our Wassailing cel­eb­ra­tion on a crisp Saturday morn­ing in January

We were able to to as much as we did because of money from the Climate Challenge Fund to pay for trees etc. We also had paid work­ers but sadly they fin­ished in early spring. We have used up the grant money for trees & tools but a great deal has been achieved.  Most import­ant has been the volun­teers and vis­it­ors. It is the com­munity who make hap­pen with the help from moth­er nature. So thanks to all who helped in 2011.  We are look­ing for­ward to the year ahead and please come and join in whatever way you can.

Our first job on our next Workday  Saturday 31st March will be to put up the sup­ports for the apple tun­nel and plant the trees. Further workdays:

  • Saturday 28th April
  • Saturday 26th May
  • Saturday 30th June
  • Saturday 28th July
  • Saturday 25th August
  • Saturday 29th Sept
  • Saturday 27th October
  • Saturday 24th November

If you want to know more ring: Mary Jane Elton 669 5129  or  Diana Cairns 669 4981

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Posted in events, Food, gardening, Orchards

Wassailing Celebration

Posted on January 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

Come and join in  a Wassailing Celebration at the Community Orchard on January 28th.

There will be a nor­mal work day in the orch­ard from 10am to 12 noon, fol­lowed by the was­sail­ing cel­eb­ra­tion from 12 till 2pm. The Apple Wassail is tra­di­tion­ally per­formed in the winter to bless the trees with songs and offer­ings of cider.

There will be an inform­al work­shop to learn some was­sail songs, includ­ing a newly writ­ten Edinburgh Wassail and a song spe­cif­ic to the trees in the Donkeyfield Orchard. This will take place on Monday 23 Janaury at 7 Rosefield Avenue, 7:30 – 9:00pm. Please let Jane know if you are plan­ning to come.

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Orchard Work Day

Posted on December 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

The next work day at the Community Orchard will be on 28 January 2012, from 10 am — 2 pm.

We shall prob­ably work for  a couple of hours and then do some was­sail­ing to encour­age next season’s fruitfulness.

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Orchard party cancelled

Posted on December 8, 2011 | Leave a comment
Bonfire at last year's orchard solstice partyUnfortunately the Orchard Solstice Party planned for 17 December has had to be can­celled because of lack of avail­able people to organ­ise it.
We are instead plan­ning to do some was­sail­ing to encour­age next sea­son’s fruit­ful­ness at the next orch­ard work day on 28 January 2012, from 10 am — 2 pm.  We shall prob­ably work for  a couple of hours and then do the was­sail­ing.  More inform­a­tion about this will be avail­able in due course.
In the mean­time, the orch­ard group would like to wish every­one a very happy and peace­ful fest­ive sea­son and we look for­ward to see­ing you early in the new year.

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Posted in Orchards

Donkeyfield Community Orchard Apple Day and Hallowe’en Party

Posted on October 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

apple day poster 2011Sat 29th October 2 – 4pm

All wel­come!

  • Apple crush­ing and press­ing – bring apples and bottles to take home some juice
  • Apple dook­ing and oth­er games
  • Bring home bak­ing to share
  • Fancy dress

If you have any apples that we could col­lect to juice please con­tact Diana as soon as possible.

Many thanks – we hope to see you there.

Donkeyfield Community Orchard is at Brunstane Road South, Gilberstoun, just oppos­ite Brunstane station.

Poster for Apple Day 2011 to down­load and print out.

 

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Exciting dates for your diary!

Posted on August 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

Saturday Aug 27th 2−30−4.30 — Local Currency Event

Join us at Old Parish Church Hall, Belfield Street, to dis­cuss how to get an Edinburgh-wide loc­al cur­rency in place by this time next year (for more inform­a­tion, scroll down to the earli­er post on the subject).

Saturday Sept 3rd — Next Organic Market in Brighton Park

This will be the 1st anniversary of the mar­ket and — as well as the won­der­ful stalls — will include:

- a series of brief inspir­ing films from 10.30 and an organ­ic pic­nic (bring your own food or buy at the mar­ket) from 12.30 as PEDAL becomes one of 12 com­munit­ies across Scotland host­ing a ‘Blasta’ event cel­eb­rat­ing Local Food. (Blasta is Gaelic for ‘tasty’).

- a Big Things On The Beach pub­lic art event from 10 called TOXME which you are invited to par­ti­cip­ate in, an event which high­lights the tox­ic chem­ic­als we are exposed to in our daily foods and lives.

Sunday Sept 4th — POD’s Portobello Village Fair (2−5)

As well as con­trib­ut­ing to the light-hearted home grown veget­ables com­pet­i­tion, PEDAL will have  two stalls: one for the Orchard and bee keep­ing group, and one to enable people to ask ques­tions about our pro­posed com­munity-owned Turbine.

Saturday Sept 24th — Car Free Day (set off at 2)

- Meet at 2pm at the Cake Stand at the bot­tom of Marlborough Street to cycle along the Prom to the beach below the pro­posed Turbine site at Seafield, or join  us at the orch­ard any­time after 10 for the monthly work day and Equinox cel­eb­ra­tions and then cycle down to join every­one for the 2pm start.

- This year kids are going to need to per­suade their par­ents to help them dress up their bike before­hand, and we will be encour­aging row­ers, canoests and sail­ors to join us in demon­strat­ing fossil fuel free travel! We may even stretch to a time tri­al: see­ing how well a car, a bike, a skate­board, a skiff do racing against each oth­er if none of them are fossil fueled!

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Posted in Community, Food, Local Economy, Market, Orchards, PEDAL, Transport, Wind Turbine

Solstice party rained off

Posted on June 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

Unfortunately we have decided to post­pone tonight’s sol­stice party at the orch­ard due to the wet weather.

You are all invited to come and cel­eb­rate mid­sum­mer at the orch­ard next Saturday 25th at our monthly work­day 10 — 2 instead.  We plan to have a fire (weath­er per­mit­ting!) and BBQ around lunch­time so do come along.  Please bring food and drink to share.  The orch­ard is look­ing fant­ast­ic after it’s recent mow­ing — so come and see!

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Posted in Food, Orchards