Blog

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 […]

In collaboration with the Tate & Seeds of St Ives who donated seeds for the project, the orchard became a part of their ‘Revoice’ performance in May 2023 This followed the group’s show at the Tate about identity, living culture, Cornwall and belonging, spoken and sung at the Tate on Sat 29th and Sun 30th […]

Everyone was invited to come along to celebrate the Spring Equinox, Mother’s Day and Mother Nature with foraging walks, nature walks, seed & springy activities. There were foraging walks from Josh Quick from Wild St Ives and nature walks from Noah Hall, a keen naturalist & qualified conservationist. Lovely music provided by members of the […]

A wonderful wassail was had in St Ives Community Orchard on a dry, wintry day in early Feb 2023. Much music, dancing, singing, cider, toasting of trees with cider and shouts of ‘Wassail’ and ‘Huzzah’ around the trees and bonfire. The Raffidy Dumitz band and 3 wonderful Osses; Morvargh the dark sea Oss and two […]

Laughter and light marked the Winter Solstice just before Christmas. The path to the orchard was marked with candles in jars and around 50 people gathered at the orchard bringing lanterns with them, before heading off on a lantern-lit walk through the orchard woodlands. As soon as the sun had set, a line of fire […]

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful sunny day with so many people attending our annual Apple Day. There was live music throughout the afternoon from the Phoenix choir,  the Tinners band, Josh Rogers, Sandy Souls and Tregavsyl band.  While volunteers ran many craft activities, and the Leach Pottery provided a clay activity. Visitors to Apple Day were also treated […]

Composting your food waste is an incredibly valuable activity. It is like creating a gift for the Earth and it is so easy. We are working hard to create lots of our own compost in St Ives Community Orchard. Supporting our veggie growing initiative and fruit trees. Saving waste & giving rich soil back to […]

We invited the community to come and help us harvest the apples and celebrate the equinox on Friday 23rd Sept from 4pm. Such a great afternoon, with good food, good music, plenty apples picked and the amazing opportunity to have a go on a trapeze. Children and adults got very busy picking the apples, the […]

21st June 2022 In celebration of the summer solstice we moved our regular Tues morning work party to the evening so that afterwards we could share some food, make a fire & then walk to walk to the top of the hill to watch the sunset. People brought some delicious food along for the potluck […]

We’ve got very into making dead hedges which are so easy to make and are wonderful for wildlife. It simply involves putting in 2 rows of stakes and then piling branches and twigs, any material really that gets collected from clearning or pruning. Wildlife uses this space to shelter, the hedge rots away so is […]

The St Ives Community Orchard and many other people in the community, collaborated with the Tate and their artist in-residence, Adam James throughout April 21 – Feb 22 on his project called KEMENETH – the Cornish word for community. Due to Covid travel restrictions, Adam had to do his entire residential while living in Sweden […]

This very exciting project is now underway and will hugely broaden the services that St Ives Orchard CIC can offer. We are building an environmentally sustainable building showcasing renewable technology which will become a centre to connect people to nature through learning, education and exploration as well as a space for community use. Providing environmental […]

Planting trees is the easy bit! They need regular care through the growing months to make sure they are not swamped by undergrowth, particularly bracken and grass. There are over 2000 trees on the nature reserve, forest garden and in the orchard that need aftercare. More volunteers are much needed, particularly in the summer months. […]

The Leach offered a free creative community workshop at their pottery to create a St Ives Community Orchard Mug. All attendees made their own hand-built mug with clay and used textures and growth from plants, seeds, leaves picked at the Community Orchard to imprint on the mugs. The mugs looked great and the workshop was […]

There was a brilliant turnout last Saturday at the St Ives Community Orchard to celebrate the mid-winter Wassail. So wonderful to see so many people in the orchard having a fabulous time and enjoying this ancient tradition that has now been firmly revived. The Wassail is a noisy and lively ritual that serves to shake […]

It was a wonderful evening celebrating the Winter Solstice in the orchard. Those attending were welcomed with candlelit lanterns leading up along the pathway to the fairy light covered Christmas pine tree and shed. There were a couple fires to keep people warm, plenty of hot mulled cider to go around and there was hot stew and tasty snacks […]

St Ives Community Foodshare are putting on a Christmas Community Lunch at St Johns in-the-Field Hall from 1pm – 3pm on 25th Dec. Anyone is welcome – young, old, rich, poor, singles, couples, kids, there’s no charge but donations are welcome. Lunch will be a traditional affair with all the trimmings, catering for vegetarians too. […]

Pumpkin party held at St Ives Community orchard was a great success. Despite the strong winds and occasional heavy downpours, the event was well attended and everyone enjoyed the live music provided by Organised Crime, Johanna Hillebrand & True Foxes. There was a tent provided by Jabula Tents which kept everyone dry and there was […]

St Ives Community Orchard & St Ives Community Foodshare set up tent at the St Ives Food and Drink Festival 2021, 17 – 19th September to promote what we do, provide a space for other community groups as well as a venue for interesting talks. We had participation from Steeple Woodland Nature Reserve, St Ives […]

100’s of people turned up and enjoyed what Apple Day had to offer in St Ives Community Orchard on Sunday. There was much dancing and wonderful live music throughout the day provided by Tito el Pato, Music lovers Penwith, Johanna Hillebrand, Sandy Acre 7 and a final song by Louella Jade Eke. Sandy Acre 7 […]

Apple day 2021 – Sunday 26th September 2 – 7pm Free entry for all. Apple day is our annual celebration of apples, autumn, orchards & community.  There will be lots of lovely live music to enjoy,  bouncy castle, arts & crafts, nature walks & talks, apple picking and juicing in an apple press, apple pie […]

We had wonderful weekly community social eating events in the summer with our weekly curry night in the orchard. Every week on Tuesdays throughout August a hearty curry was served with naan bread baked in our wood-fired pizza oven and there was a licenced bar with reggae beats and live music. We were very privileged to […]

We were very lucky to have a group called Poly Rhythm come along to the orchard to run a music workshop in the summer. Suitable for all ages and all levels of music knowledge, this workshop was designed to give people a go on various instruments, to help decide what instrument they’d like to play […]

St Ives Orchard supported a community vegetable garden and orchard in Umzumbe, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa in 2021. This community lives in a rural area and collected all their water from the local river and carried it home in buckets. They do not have transport so they walk miles and miles to buy food from […]

Agroecology or Regenerative agriculture is essentially a system of farming that focuses on enhancing ecosystems, with soil health at its heart. It’s a lower input style of farming, with less reliance on artificial fertilisers and pesticides, and a focus on plant and crop diversity with minimal soil disturbance. The aim is to improve soil health […]

St Ives Community Orchard’s foodshare group  joined up with the Cornwall Gleaning Network to pick surplus fruit and veg from farms in 2021. Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.  It is a practice […]

In 2020, St Ives Community Orchard & Nature Reserve Group received £4330.09 from the Co-op Local Community Fund. With this money we bought new garden tools and a new container to hold the tools which meant that our existing shed could be used for social events and we installed a solar system to power the […]

We run St Ives Community Foodshare and on Fridays we distribute the supermarket surplus from the carpark alongside the community orchard. To celebrate World food day on the 16th October 2020 we decided to move the collection up to the orchard and cooked up some hot food for anyone who came up. Nearly all the […]

We’ve got a couple little veggie patch gardens in our community orchard where we planted beans, peas, spinach, squash, marrow, tomatoes & potatoes. At one of our workparties we spent our time picking these veggies, then chopped them up together and cooked them up over the fire. We fried up some onion & garlic with […]

We had a lovely arty workshop in the Orchard on Sunday 20th September 2020 taken by local artists Imogen Frost and Annabel Wilkes. Free for all and sponsored by our National Lottery Awards grant. Participants created a unique, photographic sunprint using natural resources from St Ives community orchard and a special Anthotype process. It was […]

We have started having regular nature / plant identification / wildlife survey walks in the orchard and on Penbeagle hill above with various experts. This will be part of an ongoing project to learn as much as we can about the amazing land that we have & record species that we find here. We would […]

Our log hive is hollowed out from a log and put up high which is a bees preference to be safe from predators. Wild bees often used to live in hollowed out trees but this is something that is hard for bees to find these days so it’s wonderful to be able to provide them […]

Worm farming is a very easy, clever way of getting fantastic nutrition for your plants using compost worms, kitchen waste, manure & water. Otherwise known as vermiculture, it is the process of harnessing earthworms to convert organic waste into the world’s most nutrient-rich fertiliser; worm manure.  The system uses compost worms that are not earthworms, […]

We have made the most beautiful living willow dome in the St Ives Community Orchard. We ordered  a 3m wide willow den kit from Musgrove Willows which had all the correct lengths of willow to build a den and got started on it in March 2020 2 months on, it’s growing so well including the […]

We have spotted quite a few mushrooms & fungi growing wild in our orchard and are excited at the thought of growing edible mushrooms, so finding out all about it. Watch this space. Fungi are a huge and fascinating kingdom with over 15,000 species in the UK. They live on land, in the water, in the […]

Beltane is an ancient Celtic festival marking the start of Summer, also known as the Festival of Fertility. It’s a wonderful tradition to get together to celebrate the tree blossoms and wildflowers that come out this time of year, the anticipation of warmth and lengthening days and the unity of people. Usually held at the […]

One of our volunteers, Adam, a permaculture enthusiast, is building this structure called a Hugelkultur, which means hill culture or hill mound in German. It’s best to build it on top of a trench and there just happened to be an existing trench right there.  Adam came home to St Ives after traveling to many […]