Category Archives: Orchards

Free orchard management course

Posted on March 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

Fruitful Skills for a Fruitful Scotland

Interested in setting up or running a community or school orchard?
Want to know more about caring for trees in an established orchard?

Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust is offer­ing a free com­munity orch­ards man­age­ment course on Saturday 26th March, 10am — 4pm

Aimed at people already run­ning or think­ing about set­ting up a com­munity orch­ard, for more details see ELGT’s web­site

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Courses, gardening, Orchards

Scottish Orchards Fife Networking events

Posted on February 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

Please see inform­a­tion about the Scottish Orchards Fife/ East Coast Gathering

They are look­ing to roll out this train­ing and net­work­ing to oth­er parts of Scotland so even if you cant get to this one, they are open to ideas.

Scottish Orchards Fife_East Coast Gathering[1]

→ Leave a comment

Posted in gardening, Orchards

Orchard Work Day  —  Saturday 29 January

Posted on January 25, 2011 | Leave a comment
Dear All
Happy New Year!
This is to let you know that the next orch­ard work day will take place this Saturday, 29 January from 10 am — 2 pm.

We are expect­ing a large con­sign­ment of trees next month so we need to pre­pare the ground and dig holes for them, which will make our task next month much faster and easier.
Hope you can come along.  Don’t for­get to bring some­thing to eat and drink and wear appro­pri­ate clothing.
For your diary — the dates for the rest of the year are as follows:
Saturday 18 February — this is pro­vi­sion­al at the moment, depend­ing on when the trees are delivered.  We’ll let you know near­er the time.
Saturday 26th February from 10 am — 2 pm
Saturday 26th March from 10 am — 2 pm- Spring Equinox
Saturday 30th April from 10 am — 2 pm 
Saturday 28th May from 10 am — 2 pm
Saturday 25th June from 10 am — 2 pm Summer Solstice Celebration
Saturday 30th July from 10 am — 2 pm
Saturday 27th August from 10 am — 2 pm
Saturday 24th September from 10 am — 2 pm Autumn Equinox
Saturday 29th October from 10 am — 2 pm
Saturday 26th November from 10 am — 2 pm
Saturday 17th December from 10 am — 2 pm Winter Solstice Celebration

It would be really help­ful if you could sign up to a few ses­sions in advance (if you are able) so that we can have a reas­on­able idea of how many people might be at each ses­sion and plan accordingly. 

Look for­ward to see­ing you soon

Diana

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Food, Orchards

Local Food Links Meeting

Posted on January 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

Local Food Links

Tuesday 25th January from 7 – 9pm

Portobello Community Centre

At the last Local Food Links get togeth­er we talked about what we wanted to to achieve in a years time…now we want to get things moving!

We want to bring togeth­er as many people as pos­sible who have been involved in PEDAL’s food pro­jects,  and people who are inter­ested in loc­al food but haven’t yet man­aged to get involved.  Folk will be able to choose the top­ic they’re most keen on and work with oth­ers to plan what can be done over the next year.

There are exist­ing pro­jects like Fruitful Porty or the Portobello Organic Market, which has been incred­ibly suc­cess­ful, but is only fun­ded until the end of March, so it needs volun­teers if it is to con­tin­ue being the great com­munity event it is.  As well as ideas for new pro­jects rais­ing loc­al food aware­ness or set­ting up a com­munity shop.

So, if you are inter­ested in the future of loc­al food in Portobello, come along!

We hope to see you there!

For more inform­a­tion on the first loc­al food links meet­ing see our earli­er post­ing and food page

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Food, gardening, Market, Orchards, PEDAL, Volunteering

Winter Solstice celebration bonfire warms the cockles

Posted on December 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

On Saturday 18th of December, 2 — 4pm, PEDAL held a Winter Solstice Celebration at Donkeyfield Community Orchard. Around 40 people came along to cel­eb­rate this most sea­son­al of events, includ­ing sev­er­al folk who had nev­er been to the orch­ard before — not bad for sub-zero tem­per­at­ures. The trees were was­sailed in fine fash­ion (thanks to Gordon for the loc­al cider, and Mairi for the song from the Winter’s Night con­cert), Peter brewed up some fine mulled wine and cre­ated a fant­ast­ic­ally warm­ing fire, Beth told a great story and some lovely lan­terns were made.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Community, Orchards

Apple Day feedback — how was it for you??!

Posted on November 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

We had a won­der­ful Apple Day/ Halloween cel­eb­ra­tion on Saturday 30th of October, with near per­fect weath­er, a bon­fire, many pounds of apples being juiced, tof­fee apples, peel­ing com­pet­i­tion, Splat the Rotten Apple and folk turn­ing up in won­der­ful fancy dress. Many thanks to all who came and to all who helped.

However, if you were there, we’d be very pleased if you would take a moment to send us your com­ments and feed­back. What did you like ? What would have made it bet­ter? Are you likely to join in future com­munity events at the orch­ard? Woteva! — we look for­ward to hear­ing from you.

Please send com­ments to: info@pedal-porty.org.uk

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Orchards

Order your low-cost fruit trees now!

Posted on September 18, 2010 | Leave a comment

The Fruitful Porty scheme lets you order apple, pear, plum and cherry trees at sub­sid­ised prices through PEDAL. Download the fruit tree list and order now (or order online).

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Food, gardening, Orchards

Federation of City Farms & Community Gardens National Networking Day

Posted on September 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens are hav­ing their National Networking Event on Friday, October 8th 2010 at Battleby, near Perth.

Workshops include New Allotments; a look at dif­fer­ent allot­ments mod­els, Livestock on Community Gardens, Social Return on Investment, Selling Produce at Farmers Markets, Orchards, Wildlife Gardening in Winter, Community Gardening and the 2011 Elections, Risk Management and more!

There will be a chance to meet fun­ders, find out about bee­keep­ing, Care Farming, Planning Aid Scotland and hear case stud­ies from oth­er pro­jects. It’s a great oppor­tun­ity to net­work, meet like-minded people and share ideas.

For fur­ther inform­a­tion please con­tact naomi@farmgarden.org.uk Tel: 0131 623 7058 Deadline for applic­a­tions is Friday 16th September 2010.

You can down load book­ing forms at  http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/farms-gardens/your-region/scotland/506-news-a-events

→ Leave a comment

Posted in events, Food, gardening, Land Reform, Orchards

Summer Pruning course

Posted on July 19, 2010 | 1 Comment

Many folk would like to gain con­fid­ence in prun­ing fruit trees and fruit bushes. The Summer Pruning course to be run at the Community Orchard off Brunstane Road South on the even­ing (6.30pm‑8.30pm) of Thursday 19th of August is for those who want to learn how to get the most from their fruit trees etc by judi­cious prun­ing. Contact Peter Upton or Polly Cooke if you’d like to register for this one-off even­ing course. There’ll be a book­ing fee of £10 to reserve your place, though there’ll be no fur­ther cost.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in events, Food, gardening, Orchards

PEDAL Growing & Gardening Fair — THIS SATURDAY!

Posted on July 9, 2010 | 1 Comment

Saturday 7th August 2010

Portobello Town Hall

11am to 4pm

Experts Question Time at 2.30pm

As part of PEDAL’s Food pro­jects for 2010, we are hav­ing a Growing & Gardening Fair at the Town Hall.  Come along to this FREE event and find out more about grow­ing your own fruit & veget­ables, com­post­ing and more!

Stalls and advice to get you star­ted or help you out of a rut, plus Experts Question Time at 2.30pm.

Tea & Cakes!

There will be stalls on com­post­ing, inform­a­tion about organ­ic food, PEDAL food pro­jects, PEDAL Energy Projects and oth­ers. If you’ve ever wondered what the Guerilla Gardeners are up to behind the town hall, they will be there to tell you all about it.  Members of the Orchard Group will also be on hand to talk about the Donkeyfield com­munity orch­ard on Brunstane Road, and tell you how you can get involved.

For those of you who are really addicted to veg­gies there will be a crafty corner where you can learn to knit your own veget­able accessories!

Then at 2:30 our pan­el of experts will take to the stage to answer your ques­tions.  Questions will be chosen from those pos­ted on the ques­tion board thoughout the day.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Composting, events, Food, Orchards