Blog

What six months at St Ives Community Orchard taught a group of regenerative practitioners about place, participation and community. “Every object, well contemplated, opens up a new organ of perception within us.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer, scientist and philosopher Walk through St Ives Community Orchard on a summer afternoon and it’s easy to […]

Get your camera ready because we’re launching a photo competition for St Ives Community Orchard & Penbeagle Nature Reserve as a part of our current Art Exhibition! We’d love to see your photos taken around the orchard and nature reserve. To enter: 📷 Tag us on Facebook or Instagram in your photo or email info@stivesorchard.co.uk (max file […]

We’re excited to be having a summer exhibition in Bayspace on Tregenna Hill, overlooking the bay throughout  June, July, and August. This exhibition showcases the work of a group of artists whose creations have all been inspired by St Ives Community Orchard. The exhibition features a wide variety of creative work, alongside information about the […]

Our fabulous community brought the cheer despite the persistent rain during this year’s Beltane celebration! We danced our Maypole five times to joyful music from Rick Chappell, Core-chestra, The Petty Criminals, and Ulla – the Irish Folk from the North Inn. There was fun Nos Lowen dancing led by Tim Payne & Nina Alsop & […]

Volunteers often make cakes for our events and they look so beautiful when they are decorated with edible flowers. We have also often used edible flowers in making elderflower & gorse flower cordials. See our elderflower recipies. Expect to see some wildflower cakes & elderflower / gorse mocktails or cocktails at our Beltane May day […]

Huge thanks to everyone who joined and supported us at our Wassail on Sunday 25th January. From toasting the trees with toast, singing our wassail songs and making “music” through the orchard, to stomping, dancing and enjoying our cider and stew, we had a wonderful time. We were so blessed with blue skies and no […]

We are delighted and incredibly proud to have won a Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Sustainability Award at the ceremony held on Friday 5th December at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. We were awarded first place in the category: Trees for Nature & Growth – Community & Groups. See: //cornwallsustainabilityawards.org/ A huge well done and […]

There is a wonderful telephone box on the terrace at the top of Tregenna hill that was looked after for many years by Mark Campbell who adopted this disused yet historic feature of the town’s streetscape. Many people enjoyed chatting to Mark over the years at his unique little telephone box shop while looking at […]

Thank you to everyone who came along to our Apple Day on Sunday 28th September, what a wonderful celebration it was, with hundreds of local people joining in the fun and blessed with sunshine. Together we picked and pressed masses of apples, drank fresh juice, tasted dozens of varieties at the harvest table, and tucked […]

As well as nurturing many ‘old’ heritage varieties of Cornish apples, St Ives Community Orchard has revived a few traditional celebrations, folklore and old ways in St Ives. It marks the passing of each season with gatherings such as Wassail, Beltane, Apple day, Solstice and Equinox events plus re-introducing seed saving and swapping, scarecrows, Cornish […]

This year’s currant crop at St Ives Community Orchard has been one of our best yet. The bushes have been heavy with glossy blackcurrants, jewel-like redcurrants and the more delicate, translucent whitecurrants. All three belong to the Ribes family, and while they share the same basic shape and structure, each has its own distinct flavour […]

Join us every Tuesday at the Core, our beautiful community building nestled in the orchard and nature reserve. Come and enjoy this beautiful space, have a cuppa, meet friends, learn more about what we do, have a stroll in the garden / orchard / nature reserve, and eat nutritious food. It’s all at very affordable […]

We have two new community vegetable gardens, completely separate from the Orchard. All are very welcome to join us in this space, working the land, growing vegetables and sharing the harvest. This new initiative began in January 2025, when we leased two unused areas of land from Livewest to be run as community vegetable gardens. […]

We’re looking for enthusiastic volunteers to help research, identify, photograph, map and record the incredible biodiversity within our Orchard, Forest garden and Nature Reserve. To be part of either the Tree & Plant ID Team – to help map, identify and record our plants, bushes, vines, trees using a physical map / what3words app, tasting […]

Our group and volunteers were so delighted by the amazing resources we received from Sustainable Food Cornwall. as part of the Join the Dots for Nature project. Symbiosis Soil Lab report.  Jake Corin from Symbiosis Soil Lab has taken soil microbiology samples from 3 of our sites, inspected our compost bins and prepared a detailed […]

We had a wonderful Beltane event with beautiful weather, bountiful blossom on the trees, wonderful live music, poetry and plenty of dancing around our new maypole. Plus a Nature Reserve walk, seed and plant swap, kids activities and story telling with the St Ives Library with Fred on his accordian. Phil Heasman together with his […]

Cornwall Council finally declared Penbeagle Hill a Local Nature Reserve in January 2025, securing the future of the hillside as a natural environment with public access. Huge thanks go to Rupert Manley, one of the Orchard Directors, who has worked tirelessly for around fifteen years, writing countless emails and letters to achieve this. We are […]

We would love to welcome our orchard community to a Summer Feast in the Core on Thurs 29th May, followed by Ceilidh dancing with live music by the Core-chestra. 6 – 7pm Feast dinner – booking essential – £10 pp. www.eventbrite.co.uk/feast-tickets 7 – 9pm Ceilidh dancing led by Tim Payne – Free / Just rock […]

Scarecrows haven’t been seen in St Ives for a long time (except perhaps during New Year’s Eve revelry!) – but that is about to change. With the decline of small farms in the area as tourism became the major industry, seeing crops growing for local use has become a rarity and, with that, so have […]

Are you a musician, singer, or just someone who loves making music with others? Come and be part of our Core-chestra Collective, a welcoming and creative community of players exploring a mix of styles; from folk and funk to gypsy jazz, nature songs, and original compositions. We meet up in the Core building regularly on […]

The vegetable garden is a recent addition to the orchard, which already has many apple and other fruit trees together with a growing forest garden.  The area has since grown and developed incorporating various methods that work with nature.   It is important to our ethos and wildlife that vegetables are grown with minimum impact […]

Thanks to everyone who joined us for our orchard Wassail on Saturday 25th January. We must be doing something right, as Mother nature was on our side and blessed us with a (mostly) dry day in the eye of the crazy storms. It’s so great to see the community come together in such joyous celebration. […]

Pumpkin party was much enjoyed by local residents who brought up their carved pumpkins to decorate the orchard and took away gleaned pumpkins to cook, inspired by all the different types of pumpkin food on offer. Local band, The Hokum Boys filled the air with lively blues tunes on stage, while Skyhigh Arts captivated attendees […]

Another wonderful Apple day held on the 6th October 2024 in the St Ives Community Orchard with sunshine, dancing, lots of apple picking, juicing and drinking. After having to reschedule the event from the previous Sunday due to stormy weather, the event went ahead despite the heavy rain all morning. Setting up wasn’t much fun for […]

2024 was an exciting year in the Orchard with the building of the Core thanks to funding received from the Town Deal. This new building really expanded what we could provide and Funding received in August from the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, allowed a full programme of workshops and events up until […]

On Friday,  20th Sept 2024 in the Core building there was a host of talented local musicians and spoken wordsmiths for an evening celebrating nature and community. The event was organised by Global Jamming who have always focussed on supporting young aspiring musicians. Pictured: Leila Noverraz performing with Jack & Tom Harding, Jess Borders, Sylvie […]

We’re thrilled to announce that in August 2024 we were funded £62,456 from the  UK Shared Prosperity fund, for an exciting Community Programme at St Ives Orchard. With the completion of our new Community Learning Centre building on the edge of the Orchard site and alongside one of the main residential areas of St Ives, […]

We celebrated the Summer Solstice on Saturday the 22nd June, the longest day of the year, with live music, poetry, story telling, crafty activities and a treasure hunt. There was also a big plant swap in the CORE with a large selection of seeds from @seedsofstives. Global Jamming hosted the Apple Jam Stage providing an […]

The sun and 100’s of people came out for the Beltane celebration in the orchard, an ancient Celtic tradition to celebrate the peak of Spring. There was a variety of live music on stage, with Rick Chappel, Gavin Nicol and some wonderful impromtu performances and improvised jam sessions with a variety of different people. Vaughn […]

The happy sunny offical opening of the CORE, our new Orchard building, took place on Friday afternoon April 19th 2024. After a 1-year build project, our community came together to celebrate this beautiful achievement. It was so wonderful seeing so many people who have  helped start, plant, support and volunteer with the Orchard in different […]

The sun shone down beautifully for the Spring Equinox Seed Swap on Sunday 17th March, where people enjoyed swapping seeds, live music, warm fire, a foraging walk and other seedy activities along with a big choice of delicious cake baked by volunteers. Jo Riley who runs Seeds of St Ives brought along an impressive array […]

After the drought and record breaking heat of 2022 stressed our planted trees on the nature reserve, there was some anxiety as to what weather the year might bring. Early indications were that 2024 could be worse with there being a strong El Nino phenomenon in the southern Pacific Ocean. There was indeed another prolonged […]

On Saturday 27th Jan, St Ives Orchard Wassail marked its 10th anniversary to celebrate and bless the trees, to awaken them from their winter slumber and help produce a good harvest for the coming year. After singing the Wassail song, people were encouraged by the Green Man to hang toast soaked in cider on the […]

Some very strange-looking creatures, called ‘Osses, first appeared at the Orchard Wassail in 2022, alongside the Raffidy Dumitz band. The ‘Osses danced around the fire, looking majestic and wild in their tatters & tassels. They were introduced as Pen Hood, Kasek Nos and Morvagh the Dark Sea Oss. Hobby Horses or ‘Obby ‘Osses as they […]

Community Lantern Walk & Solstice Gathering We came together in the Community Orchard to celebrate the Winter Solstice. We set off on a short lantern walk that took us around the orchard, through the skatepark, up through the woodland pathway through the Nature Reserve  which circled us back to the orchard again. When we returned […]

A group of us volunteers did a 2 day course on Natural farming in Nov 2023 by Kutluhan and Rubina from //www.naturalfarmshizen.org/ @natural.farm.shizen in Italy and who travel to many different places to teach this simple, hands off approach to growing. Natural Farming methods are based upon the philosophy and work of Masanobu Fukuoka (1915-2008) […]

Perfect sunny weather for our Apple day on Sunday 8th October. Thank you to all the people who came along, we’ve never seen so many people in the orchard before, absolutely packed with people enjoying the live music and various activities on offer.  Lots of people got involved picking the apples, pressing them and then […]

Bracken is viewed by many as a problem plant but it is also a wonderful material and has great uses and benefits and often provides the perfect place for native woodland to return. Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is a native British fern commonly found in woodland and heathland that can reach over 1.5m (5ft) in height. […]

What a happy orchard solstice celebration it was, thank you to everyone who came, lots of friendly faces, an absolutely beautiful sunny day, lots of dancing & a stunning sunset. Drinking cider and apple juice made from our own apples, elderflower cocktails made from our elder tree and delicious curry provided by St Ives Foodshare […]

World Bee Day was celebrated for the first time in the orchard on Sat 20th May 2023 and it was a glorious sunny day. The purpose of this international day is to acknowledge the importance of bees and other pollinators, our food security & entire ecosystem depend on them. The orchard had loads of information […]