About Us
Sales
When you work at the scale we do, the only way to make a profit (or indeed less of a loss) is to sell at the farm gate.
So we have a small stall in a shed just outside the orchard gate.
Zero food miles
We walk the fruit down a slight slope to the gate, so all in all, our fruit travels about 100 yards max. By foot.
In the sales hut, you’ll find whatever fruit we have in season. Our first apples, Discovery, arrive in mid-August, and our last, Goldrush, in December. Pears usually start to arrive in late September.
Our award-winning juice is also available at the farm-gate (although it does tend to sell out fast) and at the Henley Larder in town.
Payment is by honesty box, and we are open 24/7.
Natural
Our fruit is “organic” in the old sense.
We basically take a hands-off approach to our trees and let them get on with doing what they do best – with as little interference as possible.
In practice, organic certification is not possible for us, as we’re bordered by a large field that is not farmed organically (although it is farmed intelligently).
Iraj, our founder, believed that if trees are healthy, they should be able to survive pests and disease with a minimum of spraying. And to a large extent, that’s true.
We use cow-manure in the rows to encourage soil health and fertilise with blood and bone once a year.
Intelligent Pest Management (IPM)
To reduce the effect of pests, we practice Intelligent Pest Management (IPM).
We keep pests at bay with good hygiene and encourage beneficial predators like tits.
We use pheromone glue-traps to catch male plum-moths, and thumb and forefinger and shouting “got you, you little bastard” to get rid of Winter Moth caterpillar.
Tree-ripened
An apple will develop almost all of its flavour in the last few weeks on the tree.
One of the reason supermarket apples don’t taste of anything is they haven’t been left on the tree long enough to develop their full flavour – the balance of sweetness and acidity that makes fruit delicious.
Indeed, they are often picked months ahead of time and then put into hibernation in a freezer for up to six months (the reason you can buy “English apples” in May).
It’s not hard to do better than that.
Hang on a month
As a local grower we can wait for the perfect moment to pick our fruit.
So, you can be sure when you visit our shed, that the fruit there is just off the tree, as crisp and delicious and complex as can be.
Volunteers very welcome
The orchard is an anomaly. Orchards our size went out of business many years ago.
We are too small for a farm, too big for a garden – too small for the cost-efficiencies of mechanisation, too big for one person to do everything.
We could be a relic of the past, back to the future, or the English Amish, but either way we carry on because we believe in growing natural, local, tree-ripened fruit for the community at a human scale. And giving people the opportunity to enjoy the sublime pleasures of an English orchard.
With a little help from our Friends
In this we survive only thanks to the good grace, talents and kindness of our Friends – our volunteers.
We have had volunteers as young as 83, and as old and world-weary, as 15.
There’s always something to do on the orchard throughout the year.
Jobs are varied - mostly light-manual - and experience is mostly unnecessary (although you will need training for pruning or beekeeping).
We always need help thinning, picking, sorting, packing, selling, keeping the sales hut topped up, pruning, staking, tying, mowing, composting, fertilising and hedging, the list goes on – in addition to one-off projects.
Today is the day
So if you’re interested in some light, social, outdoor, convivial work – with hours to suit yourself, please give us a call.
Community first
We see ourselves not just as a healthy food production centre, but as a valuable amenity for the neighbourhood – a place where people of all ages and differences can come to enjoy nature and light manual work.
We form a loose co-operative of those who understand that pleasant work can be its own reward, and that there are a wealth of currencies other than money.
Open to all
In the past we’ve provided work experience to home-schoolers, students taking the Duke of Edinburgh Award, parties of children with special needs and have hosted many orchard days for nurseries. We’ve even hosted the Listening to the Land pilgrims on their way to COP 26 in 2021.
We will always try to make ourselves available to good causes and if we can help, we will.
Looking after the land
As an organic enterprise, sustainability is top of our agenda.
We aim to improve the land, and leave it better than we found it, with better soil and more worms and wildlife.
