This year has been a really successful one for our community
orchard, with the feijoa trees producing the biggest fruit we’ve seen yet! We put this down to our thorough pruning and
thinning out of the trees, which created more light for the fruit.
The working bee focused on creating a better bed for our
blueberries, by removing kikuyu and adding some top quality worm castings from
the big worm farm at Ambury farm, as well as mulching. We also took the opportunity to mulch the
other trees, prune our espaliered trees, (which are growing beautifully) and
build a temporary hen enclosure under the feijoas.
We’ve been working hard to reduce the guava
moth in the feijoas this year, by spraying with neem oil, picking up the fruit
from off the ground (where the larvae like to grow) and by trialing the use of chickens
to help clean up the fruit on the ground and eat the grubs. Our orchard neighbours are enjoying the
chickens, although their egg laying is a bit sporadic!
We had a lovely turn-out of locals at the working bee, and
were once again treated to a feijoa cake (thanks Rose!), on
completion of our work. The orchard has
been well used this year, with lots of neighbouring families enjoying the
fruit.
The citrus trees are producing beautifully now, and there’ll be
plenty to share once it’s ripe. We
still have some work to do to improve the shelter belts for some of the younger
trees and extend the orchard further.
Keep your eye on our Facebook page for future working bees in our
community orchard.
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