{"id":8363,"date":"2020-10-05T10:23:16","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T09:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=8363"},"modified":"2020-10-05T10:29:21","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T09:29:21","slug":"community-orchards-resurgence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=8363","title":{"rendered":"Community Orchards Resurgence"},"content":{"rendered":"

NATURE NOTES<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Community Orchards Resurgence<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

With 5 Community Orchards in the parish we are starting to reclaim some of the ground lost through the wholesale removal of orchards over the last hundred years. In this and future articles we shall consider the origin of orchards, the history of their rise and fall and why they are important for wildlife.<\/p>\n

To begin at the beginning – the ‘sweet’ apple that we eat originated in the Tien Shan mountains of Kirghizia on the border between western China and the former Soviet Union. A Russian plant geneticist writing in the 1920s commented that it was like a Garden of Paradise with apple groves, mountain turkeys, porcupines and a host of other wildlife. Alma Ata, capital of Kazakhstan, means ‘Father of Apples’. Over time these apples travelled locally in the intestine of bears and other animals or were carried along the silk roads, eventually reaching Europe and Britain. A couple of thousand years BC the remains of apples have been found in Mesopotamia. The Persian word Pairadaeza <\/em>was a walled garden enclosing fruit trees and canals and this translated to the Latin word Paradisus <\/em>and our word Paradise<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, take an apple and plant a dozen or so pips from it and you will get 12 different apple trees of which 11 may be useless and just one palatable. Because apples from seeds do not grow true to the original, grafting is necessary where a bit of branch\/twig from the original is attached to a rootstock. So if you find a particularly tasty apple you can produce more of those trees by grafting. The Romans understood the principles of grafting as specialist tools have been found in excavations. Pliny referred to over 20 varieties of apple in his Natural History and he was writing in the first century AD. Subsequently fruit growing was maintained by the monasteries but really took off in Tudor times with Henry Vlll’s fruiterer, Richard Harris, establishing what was England’s first large fruit collection. The 18th and 19th centuries was a high point in the development of apple varieties with thousands of varieties being grown, many of which have now been lost.<\/p>\n

There have, of course, been apples in Britain for thousands of years but these were Crab Apples, small, sour and often sporting spines on the branches. There are many still growing in the hedgerows around Wenvoe. References to apples in old Celtic traditions and myths would have been about Crabs which were cooked or fermented. But most commentators suggest that Crab Apples had little or no impact on the origins of the sweet apple and that they do not generally hybridise.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The image in the painting shown may be a little idealised but it is one that it would be nice to replicate and we are getting there slowly. Next month we shall discuss the decline of orchards and apple-growing in Britain and why it is important to bring them back.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATURE NOTES Community Orchards Resurgence With 5 Community Orchards in the parish we are starting to reclaim some of the ground lost through the wholesale removal of orchards over the last hundred years. In this and future articles we shall consider the origin of orchards, the history of their rise and fall and why they are important for wildlife. To […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-2aT","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8019,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=8019","url_meta":{"origin":8363,"position":0},"title":"Discover our 5 Community Orchards","author":"Alan Williams","date":"11th August 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Nature Notes Discover our 5 Community Orchards With more and more people discovering one or more of our 5 Community Orchards, all designed and planted by the Wenvoe Wildlife Group, the question is often raised - What has this got to do with wildlife? Orchards are a priority habitat in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nature Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Nature Notes","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=49"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/5-300x283.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3206,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=3206","url_meta":{"origin":8363,"position":1},"title":"Apples","author":"Alan Williams","date":"1st May 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 If you visit the orchards in May you should still see plenty of blossom around, the majority of the trees being apples. But what is an apple and where does it come from? The first distinction is between the crab-apple and the sweet apple that we eat. The crab\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nature Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Nature Notes","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=49"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7895,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=7895","url_meta":{"origin":8363,"position":2},"title":"All About Our Orchards","author":"Alan Williams","date":"3rd July 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"All About Our Orchards What distinguishes the Welsh Orchard (Maes y Felin) from our other community orchards? Well, this year it has more fruit coming along than all the others put together. And why might that be? One major factor has got to be that it has bee hives and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nature"","block_context":{"text":"Nature","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=46"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Ichneumon-sarcitorius-6-20-285x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8726,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=8726","url_meta":{"origin":8363,"position":3},"title":"The Welsh Have No Use For Orchards!","author":"Alan Williams","date":"29th November 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The Welsh Have No Use For Orchards nor Gardens! (The Welsh) have no use for orchards nor gardens'. So said Gerald of Wales, the 12th\/13th century historian and archdeacon of Brecon. We described in the previous two issues something of the background and history of the sweet apple - so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nature Notes"","block_context":{"text":"Nature Notes","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=49"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Picture7.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6803,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=6803","url_meta":{"origin":8363,"position":4},"title":"Pottering in the Orchards","author":"Alan Williams","date":"10th December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The odd dry day has allowed us to get out and potter in the orchards. Even in mid-November we were picking apples in the Welsh Orchard. However, the main activities were pruning the fruit trees, strimming and re-locating plants in the herb garden that were becoming invasive, such as Comfrey.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Wildlife Group"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Wildlife Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=48"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12087,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=12087","url_meta":{"origin":8363,"position":5},"title":"\u00a0Seven Green Flag Awards","author":"Alan Williams","date":"5th August 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Wenvoe Wildlife Group \u00a0Seven Green Flag Awards for 2022!! This is a tribute to all involved with the community sites. The landowners - The Reader family and Vale of Glamorgan Council - make it possible. Without the land we would not have the orchards and meadows for everyone to enjoy.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Wenvoe Wildlife Group"","block_context":{"text":"Wenvoe Wildlife Group","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=48"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Picture7j-300x242.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8363"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8363"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8365,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8363\/revisions\/8365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}