Fruit tree grafting

Leo Jordan, the owner of the award-winning Blue Barrel Cider Company, will be joining us to share the art behind fruit tree grafting. Come along and learn how to graft your own fruit tree to take home. Learn about our trained form fruit trees and how to grow on your own fruit tree for maximum crop. Materials provided including a selection of apple and pear varieties to graft.

The benefits of tree grafting

Free trees! Grafting is a necessary part of apple tree production. Rarely do we grow an apple tree from a pip or on its own roots as we will not get the type of apple we are expecting, this is due to genetic variation. Standard practice is to join a 'scion' (twig) of your farourite/chosen variety of apple tree to a 'rootstock' (twig with roots). The 'scion' dictates the type of apple whilst the 'root-stock' defines the size and vigour of the tree.

What you can expect

You will try your hand at grafting - expect sharp knives and bring along patience, perseverance and a sense of humour.

We'll mostly be talking about apple and pear trees, including training like cordon and espalier.

Capacity: The maximum group size will be 10 people.

Tickets: The ticket price includes materials.

Facilities: A compost toilet is available at the garden with sanitizer for hand washing.

Clothing: Please dress for the weather, and wear comfortable foot wear. The garden is a 5-minute walk from the entrance to the allotments.

Parking: There is plenty of free roadside parking along Ransom Road.

Contact: If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the organiser Kayleigh at [email protected]

Leo Jordan is an orchard manager, cider maker and owner of the CAMRA award winning Blue Barrel Cider. What he doesn’t know about apple and pear trees ain’t worth knowing. https://bluebarrelcider.com/home/

This workshop will be run from the garden next to our Strawbale Building on the Community Orchard. This unique building is hand-built from bales of straw and weatherproofed with clay sourced on site. It’s also off-grid, being naturally insulated by a living roof, with solar panels and a log-burner.

The Community Orchard is a garden maintained by STAA for educational purposes featuring a variety of mature fruit trees, many of them heritage varieties, and also includes a pond and a stream.

St Ann’s Allotments are Grade 2* Listed by Historic England, and designated an Area of Importance for Nature Conservation. It is the oldest and largest are of Victorian detached town gardens in the UK, with over 700-years of history, 500 gardens, and 32 miles of hedgerow.

This event is organised by STAA, a small charity that manages a number of highly regarded projects across 30+ plots at St Ann's Allotments that provide community benefit and offering a wide variety of volunteering opportunities.

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