Do you know how to graft? Have you tried, but had mixed success? It’s not hard, but has lots of aspects to it, and is one of those skills (like pruning) that needs practice to cement the theory. We love it when people who have been to our workshops get back to...
In these days of climate variability, farming is becoming increasingly unpredictable. In the last 20 years we’ve had the worst drought, the worst flood and the wettest spring on record! Summers have become searingly hot, with temperature records being broken all...
The concept of “no waste” is one of the permaculture principles that makes the most sense to us, because it’s how we’ve always tended to live on the farm. Wasting as little as possible seems obvious to us (and probably to you, too), so...
One of the biggest mistakes we see people make with their fruit is picking it at the wrong time, usually under-ripe. Peaches that are almost ripe – but not quite! It’s a bit of a tragedy, because fruit tastes SO much better when allowed to fully ripen on...
Do you have a worm farm? Hugh explaining how to care for your worm farm at a workshop Worms are wonderful workers and are the best (and cheapest) way to produce quantities of fabulous organic fertiliser for your trees, but like all workers, they’ll give you...
One of the easiest—but most important—things you can do to control both pests and diseases in your fruit trees is to pick up all (yes ALL) the fruit that falls during the season. We call this practice “orchard hygiene”. Apricots rotting on the ground under...
