Donkeyfield Orchard

Portobello’s First Community Orchard.

We’re devel­op­ing a community-run orch­ard in Portobello. The orch­ard is being planted and worked by local people, and the fruit will be sold or donated loc­ally. The aim is to provide a pro­por­tion of our own food in a way that is enjoy­able, social and envir­on­ment­ally friendly.

The Orchard is sited between Brunstane Road South and Gilberston, just oppos­ite Brunstane Station.

Orchards can bring many bene­fits to the com­munit­ies they are in:

• It will enable a greater pro­por­tion of the fruit con­sumed by our com­munity to be loc­ally grown, mean­ing that it would gen­er­ate no green­house gas emis­sions.  While neg­li­gible in itself, this would sup­port the grow­ing appre­ci­ation that action on cli­mate change needs to hap­pen at all levels of society.
• As such, it will provide a use­ful pilot pro­ject for fur­ther com­munity ini­ti­at­ives across Edinburgh and fur­ther afield.
• It will develop biod­iversity and leis­ure resource in cur­rently under­used sec­tions of park­land in Portobello.
• It will provide a valu­able edu­ca­tional resource for local chil­dren and schools, which we are involving in caring for the orch­ard. We aim for local schools to use the space educationally.
• It will strengthen the sense of local com­munity, spe­cific­ally amongst the group who take care of the site, as they will need to work together at sev­eral dif­fer­ent times of year.
• More gen­er­ally, it will cre­ate a focus for wider com­munity activ­ity, through the pro­vi­sion of space for social and edu­ca­tional events.

The Orchard group is involved in tree plant­ing, installing fur­niture, site main­ten­ance, as well as har­vest­ing of the fruit. We are plant­ing around 90 fruit­ing trees such as apples, pears, plums and cher­ries, par­tic­u­larly focus­ing on a range of unusual, old and local vari­et­ies. We are also plant­ing soft fruit bushes such as cur­rants and goose­ber­ries. We may also plant trees such as wil­low and hazel that can be used for cop­picing and to make fen­cing or seat­ing for the area, or for craft activ­it­ies such as bas­ket weaving.

We have installed bee hives and there is an act­ive and trained bee-keeping group. Other ideas include a medi­cinal herb garden.

We run reg­u­lar social and cel­eb­rat­ory events at the orch­ard, from mid-summer and mid-winter cel­eb­ra­tions to a Hallowee’en party and Apple Day. Keep an eye on this web­site for post­ings on forth­com­ing events.

We are com­mit­ted to work­ing with schools and young people to spread skills and appre­ci­ation of local food grow­ing and nature, as well as instilling greater ‘own­er­ship’ of the site and redu­cing the pos­sib­il­ity of van­dal­ism. Local school pupils have been involved in cre­at­ing bespoke ceramic labels for all 90 trees, and we have also given a series of talks in local primary and sec­ond­ary schools on fruit grow­ing and food miles and demon­strat­ing apple pressing.

Orchard work­days

Location of Orchard

Coverage in The Scotsman: Green group plants seed of idea for free orchard

For more inform­a­tion con­tact the Orchard Group at orchard@pedal-porty.org.uk.