WTOP are please to announce that Wiltshire Wildlife Trust have succesfully received funding from the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food scheme to deliver a three year Food Champions Project.

The Wiltshire Traditional Orchard Project (WTOP) received its last grant from the National Trust in February 2011.

WTOP are now in the process of analysing the results of the completed surveys by volunteers, with the help of the Peoples Trust for Endanger Species. WTOP are hoping to release the last news later in April and are in the process of looking for new avenues of funding to develop the project further. The project has been entirely volunteer lead and WTOP are very grateful to everyone that has support the project.

WTOP will continue to keep the website updated as and when new exciting or interesting orchard information or events become available. 

If you have an enquiry about orchards please contact Wiltshire Wildlife Trust directly on 01380 725670, as the availability by WTOP volunteers to answer email enquires through the WTOP email account is at present very limited due to financial resources and the availability of volunteer time. A new Local Food Champion’s project is being developed at Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and has a large orchard component focusing on establishing and developing Wiltshire’s community orchards.

If you know of a community or are part of a community orchard and would like to sign up to receive support through this three year project please contact Kate Robinson at Wiltshire Wildlife Trust 01380 725670.

WTOP hope that the Local Food Champions project will be able to build upon what WTOP have achieved and inspire others and their local communities to get involved with planting or caring for orchards.  

Grants of between £100 and £700  are available to community groups to buy heritage variety apple and fruit trees for planting during National Tree Week (in November).  Applications need to be in by 31st March 2011.

For more details see poster attached below

You are invited to enjoy warm chocolate apples, apple brandy and go on a guided walk lit by lanterns to Wiltshire Wildlife Trusts Sandpool and Clattinger orchard, based next to Lower Moor Farm Nature Reserve. People attending the event will meet at Lower Moor Farm education centre. There will be a small firework display to scare of the evil spirits and some songs, poetry and tree dressing to celebrate the orchard trees. The event starts at 4:00pm and finishes at 6:00pm. 

As we all know the weather is pretty bad and this has prevented the trees from being dug up from their nursery, but also the ground at Sandpool is frozen solid,which means we would not be able to get them into the ground. Therefore the event on Satarday the 5th of December has had to be cancelled.

A new edition of Common Ground’s Community Orchards Handbook will be published in February 2011 please click on the link below to find out more.

Please see attached the 2010 November edition of the WTOP orchard news letter. The news letter provides you with up todate information on the project’s achievements and information on the latest events and training avalalible  to you.

 

I hope you enjoy reading it and find it useful.

 

Best wishes