The Orchard Project

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The Orchard Project

We're bringing orchards into the heart of urban communities and helping train people to care for them for generations to come.

We're are a UK charity dedicated to creating, maintaining and celebrating community orchards.

09/10/2026

Training people to care for community orchards and forest gardens is a vital part of our work, as the ripple effects of this extend far wider than we can ever imagine.

In the past few months our project managers have been out across the UK sharing their skills and knowledge, and these photos show just a few of those moments:

🌳 Summer grafting on the last day of our previous Certificate in Community Orcharding (CICO) course in London

✂️ Pruning and grafting at Midlothian Community Hospital Garden

🍓Forest garden planting at Rodney Fields in Manchester

🍏 Orchard design at CICO Wisley

🍒 Fruit ID on CICO Bristol

We're currently training 80 people across our Certificate in Community Orcharding courses in Bristol and London and our online Award in Forest Gardening - a pretty impressive cohort who will be ready to share their skills far and wide in 2027!

08/10/2026

Have you ever looked down mid bite and thought 'what a lovely stripe that apple has!'?

Or possibly it's just a fruit nerd thing 😂

05/10/2026

Need an excuse to play in the autumn leaves? No, we don’t either. But if you want to play in the leaves and help your fruit trees to thrive, we have just the seasonal task for you. 🍂

Leaf mould is decomposed leaf litter made from leaves gathered just after they fall (when their nitrogen content is high). Adding it to your mulch will mean that your soil more closely resembles the forest floor conditions your fruit trees’ ancestors evolved from. When it’s ready, leaf mould is teeming with microorganisms to bring the soil into healthy balance. 🪱

Our leaf mould advice page has a step-by-step guide to making your own, ready for next year’s mulching. Find this and our other autumn community orchard guides on our website - link in the comments.

01/10/2026

Did you know any donation to The Orchard Project can be worth 25% more simply by ticking a box?

Gift Aid allows charities like ours to reclaim tax on any donations made by UK tax payers at no extra cost to you or us, making your donation go further.

Last year, thanks to generous supporters who added Gift Aid, we were able to claim back over £4k, the equivalent of eight training days for volunteers at community orchards across the UK.

Thank you for your continued support of our work to bring more community orchards into towns and cities across the UK. If you’re in a position to donate to us today, look for the link in the comments, and remember to if you're able to!

30/09/2026

We hate waste, especially when it comes to fruit, so it was an absolute pleasure to have Martyn from Agriton UK HG write a blog for us about using Bokashi composting to turn apple pulp into nutrient-rich soil conditioner 🌱

Find out more about what Bokashi is, why it's a perfect partner for apples, and follow his step-by-step process to starting your own pile via the link in the comments.

Agriton has also kindly offered a 20% discount to use in their shop for all our supporters with the code ORCHARD20.

27/09/2026

🥧 If you can’t face yet another apple crumble and already have a freezer full of fruit, it's time to consider sharing your surplus!

Our donation directory lists people willing to take fruit donations, both large and small, to help reduce food waste. It includes everyone from c***r makers to food banks and is organised by geographical area.

If you know of an organisation not already listed that's taking excess fruit, feel free to mention them in the comments, where you’ll also find a link to the directory.

📷️ Cal Holland

25/09/2026

🌳 Looking to improve your orcharding skills, particularly around veteran trees?

Our next Certificate in Community Orcharding course (CICO) starts next month in Barnet, London, with just three places remaining.

Peter Coles, of London, co-founded the Morus Londinium citizen-science project with the Conservation Foundation, to document and raise awareness about Britain’s mulberry tree heritage.

He has just graduated from our last course, and found it perfect for what he needed, combining theory with practical hands-on experience. "The curriculum matched exactly the kids of things I wanted to know more about," he said. "It was a totally fascinating course and I’m so glad I did it."

If you would like to find out more, check out the link in our comments, where you can also find a link to Peter's video testimonial.

23/09/2026

Autumn is here! 🍂

We have reached the autumn equinox, the moment in the year when day and night are in equal balance. 🌞

Astrologically, this means that the sun is sitting directly over the earth’s equator, which gives equal light to both the southern and northern hemispheres.

Another astrological feature of this time of the year is the big, beautiful Harvest Moon. The rise times of the moon’s fuller, brighter phases are around the same time each evening, lighting up the night sky for a few days. It was named the Harvest Moon as it was said that the extra illumination allowed farmers to continue to gather the harvest late into the evening. 🌝

Have you ever harvested your community fruit trees by Harvest Moon light?

📸 Cal Holland

22/09/2026

With summer heatwaves and droughts becoming more common across Europe, impacting the harvests we rely on, food security is now a major concern. Even the government is telling us to start stockpiling our tins! 🥫

But what if there was a way to improve our food resilience, replenish our soils, improve biodiversity, and make sure everyone has enough to make it through any emergency? Do community orchards have the power to not only prepare us for the worst, but also help prevent it? 🍎

We’ve been exploring food security and community orchards in our latest blog, linked in the comments.

📸 Cal Holland

18/09/2026

We've launched two new programmes in designed to support young people facing significant barriers to employment.

Our aim is to help them build confidence and develop practical, hands-on skills that could lead to further education or jobs in the green sector.

Working with our partners Barnardo's and Four Square, community orchards are being used as welcoming, supportive spaces where young people can learn at their own pace and experience the wellbeing benefits of being outdoors.

We recognise that many young people face complex challenges that can make it difficult to engage with traditional learning or employment, and have designed these programmes with this in mind.

Through our partnership with Barnardo's Employability Team, 15-18-year-olds will complete our accredited Level 1 Award in Community Orcharding, alongside job shadowing our staff to find out more about careers in community horticulture and environmental education.

Four Square is also working with us to deliver a programme 16-24-year-old women experiencing homelessness. Through relaxed, practical sessions in an orchard, they will learn horticultural and food-growing skills, from planting to using fresh herbs in cooking. The aim is to build confidence, develop trust and help them take positive steps towards employment and independent living.

Address

167–169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor
London
W1W5P

Website

http://www.theorchardproject.org.uk/

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