Part Four

OPEN ORCHARDS

Southland has always been a great place to have an orchard. Apples, plums and pears, even apricots grow well in our climate. Changes in land use and the growth of supermarkets in the last few decades has meant these orchards have declined or disappeared.

Now is the time to save the remnants of our orchards and get new ones started. Fruits like Peasegood Nonsuch, Kentish Fillbasket and Golden Pippin apples, Wilsons Early plums and pears are part of our Southland heritage. Funding from the Sustainable Farming Fund means that we can now visit these old orchards, to collect cuttings and hold workshops in communities wanting to start orchards in their schools, backyards and parks. It’s a big project and a popular one now being replicated in Nelson and we field enquiries from all over NZ.

You can be part of this project, called Open Orchard, by contacting us and letting us know how you would like to help or be involved.

Funding means we are able to travel to every corner of the region and keep the heritage fruit trees, from being lost forever.

It is important too, that the stories of the orchards, the people who planted them, who picked fruit from them, played in them, are collected and recorded as part of Southlands unique oral history.

June/July we visited over 30 orchards and another 20 individual trees to gather scion wood- from Scotts Gap to Otapiri, from Stewart Island to Waikaia. Our biggest was at Aparima with 37 fruit trees to get cutting (scion wood) from. It was wonderful when someone was still caring for the orchard and could tell us a little about the trees and their fruit. A couple of the oldest orchard were orchards planted by Captain Howell in the very old days! Some orchards have already been removed since we visited by farm developers- we got there just in time but will have to wait a few years to see which varieties we have saved.

In July/August we sold 600 bare rooted heritage fruit trees that went in to schools and backyards all over Southland- hopefully beginning a life long interest in harvesting and growing fruit for those purchasing them. If you missed out visit our web site now and pre order for August 2009. We also held a dozen pruning workshops and it shocked us when visiting younger orchards how little knowledge of pruning most people have these days- we have now made up an info booklet on choosing, caring and pruning fruit trees etc and it is available in the Centre for $3 or $4 posted. How you treat your trees is the difference between long term fruitfulness and a slow death!

In September and early October we held 10 grafting workshops in 8 different Southland communities, from Pukerau to Nightcaps.

Now we have a pause for a few months until the Autumn when we will visit as many old orchards as we can to gather fruit for identifying from orchards we already know about or new ones that come to our attention. We are also holding an annual apple festival in early March to celebrate the diversity of apples that grow in Southland in entertaining and educational ways. Want to be part of the organising team for this fun event? Contact the Centre and let them know you are keen to help Rob and Robyn make it a success. Send in your favourite fruit recipes for a booklet we are collating. Jams , preserves and pies, sauces and muffins. Home grown tasty treats for us all to indulge in this autumn.

ROLL TAPE

A scabby pest of a villain, “Medlar” is destroying the old orchards of yore, until a bevy of brave knights, Sir Peasegood, Sir Codlin of Moth and Sir Adam Pearmain, thunder down from the green hills to rout the motley fellow, splattering him with stewed apple and knightly jibes til he is now more! – sounds far fetched and it is, but the strange scenes were caught on film, digital that is.

MYRA BURREL

Myra Burrel, a student studing Science and Communication at Otago University, will soon be part of a larger tale about the rescuing of Southlands heritage apple orchards, showing at a cinema near you. Shining knights, helmets, cloaks and tights, tangled locks and medieval jargon all feature in the story which farcifies the ‘ Open Orchard “ project already underway, and proves that environmental action, at least in the South, is fun. Many thanks to the Fraser family for their use of their ancient orchard as the open – air film set and well done to the talent. Robyn, Matthew, Hollie, Nick, Adam and Robert. Visit our website for the link.

MEDLAR JAM

After many years of talking about medlars and admiring them for their old world curiousness, we’ve at last made something from them – 5 jars of medlar jelly in fact! This process is the same as for crab apples, and calls for the same vast amounts of sugar, but produces a unique – tasting addition to the toast – topping collection at our table. Medlars are brown and dull and very much like lack lustre rose –hips, only bigger. The tree is angular, the blossoms large and attractive and the fruit plentiful. And the jelly tastes good! Medlars do well in Southland. Buy and plant one if you can.

GREY- WATER SWALE

We’ve finally installed an effective grey –water system at home and it was easy. No longer will our good kitchen sink water with its rich nutrients gurgle away into the sewage system like everyone else’s. Now our dishwater is staying at our address and feeding the reeds and rushes in our purpose- carved swale ; shallow, clay based long pond, scooped out at the top lawn. Already, its working well. We’re careful to use an eco-friendly dish wash to wash our dishes, so we don’t poison the wetland plants that grow in the swale. Its rewarding to see all of that previously wasted water, staying at home and adding to the richness of the garden.

The plants that grow in the grey water wetland will be harvested, cut and turned to compost or used as a valuable mulch under our berry fruits, thereby adding fertility to our food forest. Next , we’re going to capture the grey-water from our washing machine and the bath for the swale reed- bed and keep that good water for our plants as well. This simple technology is well established elsewhere in the world and should be utilised wherever feasible.

Waste not, want not when it comes to water, even used and grey is the way for all.