Category: About Warminster: Warminster Community Orchard

New Strimmer For Warminster Community Orchard

Sunday 2nd November 2025

News from Warminster Community Orchard:

Well, developments are taking place! Here is John trying out the Community Orchard’s new strimmer. Impressively quiet and effective. A different piece of equipment to the scythe (I’m bound to say that!) but very, very welcome. This purchase was only made possible through two grants from Warminster Lions Club (UK) and Wiltshire Wildlife Community Energy Fund. Fantastic.

We have been given some wildflower plugs and have chosen three areas near the main footpath to put the new strimmer through it’s paces. We will be planting these up and defining the area once it is done.

Warminster Community Orchard Facebook

Warminster Community Orchard – Pressing 2025

13th October 2025

From the Facebook page of Warminster Community Orchard:

It’s a wrap! Community Orchard Pressing 2025 was a resounding success and here’s a bumper crop of photos. A truly great team came to pick on Friday and even though the trees did not look overly laden, there were plenty of good windfalls and we had more than enough. The Orchard Pixie was doing a thorough job getting the tricky apples near the top and we had apple cake as fuel.

The equipment we hire comes from the Codford Community Orchard group and it never fails to impress the technically-minded when the water is switched on and presses the chopped pulp against the cylinder. Some locals brought some of the biggest apples any of us had seen – what a weight for the tree! Grateful thanks to all who helped. Everyone went away with the Redlove variety juice and the tasty ‘mongrel’ mix. Clearly you can never have enough men looking at some buckets.

Warminster Community Orchard Facebook

Crop Thinning At Warminster Community Orchard

22nd July 2025

From the Facebook page of Warminster Community Orchard:

The trees on the Orchard have now had a thinning of their crops. The ones we could reach! To start with, it is about looking at the tree to see what is going on. We all felt we were discarding a shocking amount of fruit but this is necessary in several ways: quality over quantity for the yield, it prevents branches breaking with the weight and it also evens out the productivity of the trees so that it is less extreme – avoiding the fallow one year, excess the next pattern. The final phase of summer tasks is to lightly prune side growths and allow light to get into the trees. I do think they were thanking us.

Warminster Community Orchard Facebook

New Notice Boards At Warminster Community Orchard

Saturday 11th January 2025

From the Facebook page of Warminster Community Orchard:

We have new noticeboards up at the two diagonal entrances to the Meadow now. Pretty smart! And what’s more, cut and painted by the chaps in The Shed at Warminster Action Group – a neat community process which was brilliant.

The tree chosen for the Wassail [on Saturday 18th January 2025, 6pm] is Magnum Roundway Bonum. ‘Tis a fine shaped tree and was raised at Roundway Park in Devizes, recorded in 1864 and we will be singing traditional songs around it. Wear green. Come bless the trees.

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071035602908&locale=en_GB

New Notice Boards For Warminster Community Orchard

Saturday 21st December 2024

A message from the volunteers of the Warminster Community Orchard:

So here’s the all-important seasonal message, written on one of two new Orchard noticeboards which will go up at the entrances of Prestbury Drive and lower Boreham Road. These were made by some brilliant chaps who frequent the Community Shed, above Warminster Action Group in Wilson & Kennards Yard. A wonderful synchronicity of two projects started by Colin French.

Apples of inspiration in art continues with the wonderful card of the fruit in different dissections. It was made by members of The Living Tree, a charity for those who are affected by cancer in West Dorset. Creativity plays an important part in their journeys. More information is at www.thelivingtree.org.uk so do look them up.

Happy Solstice!

www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071035602908

Last Minute Work At The Warminster Community Orchard

Monday 2nd December 2024

From the Facebook page of Warminster Community Orchard:

“Last Sunday did see the weather peel back and give us a dry afternoon. Our Chief Yellow Pixie was there to do quality control and over half the orchard trees have been mulched, grass cleared from the bases with unwanted guards and stakes removed. A small group but one that got stuck in, with refreshments at a break. I shall be there tomorrow from 2pm to do some more. Last minute but that’s what this time of year is. If you are free you might need a wheel barrow.”

“By the kitchen door is a sticker that reads ‘When I’m outside, I’m happy inside’. Exactly.”

Warminster Community Orchard News

Wednesday 25th September 2024

Warminster Community Orchard

The current stars of the crop are the Redloves. We have two varieties: Serena and Era and both yield a beautiful claret coloured juice as their skin implies. This will be a separate pressing on Sunday 13th to keep it pure. Come and help pick Saturday 12th from 2pm so that we are poised for the next day – its a fast moving scene once we get going. A walker commented ‘they don’t taste very nice’ but they, like the majority of the fruit on the Orchard, are to make apple juice or cider. Or apple cider vinegar.

And last but certainly not least, behind the scenes a lot of form-filling has been going on: We have just been successful in our bid for funding from the Coronation Living Heritage Fund! Our allocation enables us to buy some more apple trees to complete rows, a lime tree, a second mulberry and sundries such as tree ties and stakes. Part of the funding gives the Orchard a monolith of oak to represent the CLHF and will have the date of the first planting and a tribute to the late Colin French, whose drive brought the Orchard into existence. The CLHF will be funding Orchards all over the country. How great is that!

Diary Dates For Warminster Community Orchard

Sunday 18th August 2024

From the Facebook page of Warminster Community Orchard:

Greetings to all! This is to announce that the Warminster Area Community Orchard (WACO) facebook page is now back in business!

A couple of us (thanks Maggie R) tackled an overgrown area near the Bradfield Close gate, really looking for the wheelbarrow and voila! Not the most exciting image but a task done.

There are two dates on the horizon for you to note.

There is going to be a celebration picnic in memory of Colin French who was the instigator of the Orchard: Saturday 31st August 2024, 3pm onwards. Meet near the three logs and bring your own tea and blanket. The forecast is good so do come and enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting out in this lovely space.

Second date to note is Sunday 13th October 2024 for the orchard juicing. Please put this in your diary. We will need help collecting the crop but more info nearer the time. In the meantime, let’s meet over a cuppa on 31st August 2024.