St Ives Community Orchard is an abundant, diverse orchard and forest garden with 100’s of fruit trees well as fruiting bushes of many unusual varieties, wildflowers, wild grasses, medicinal plants, perennial vegetables and many woodland trees creating shelter.
It’s a place where people can come together to socialise, work, learn, play, relax & enjoy the fruits of their labour. What a joy for everyone to have that opportunity to be able to pick fruit off a tree and eat it and for there to be abundant fruit for all to share.
It is an oasis for wildlife and rich in biodiversity, supporting an abundance of mammals, birds, reptiles, fungi and insects. Supporting this by planting a large variety of species of plants, being entirely organic, encouraging wood piles, using various composting and permaculture methods to enrich the soil, dead hedges, caring for our Cornish hedges and following forest garden and permaculture principles.
It’s a wonderful place to learn and exchange knowledge, to hold community events or seek quiet contemplation, a place for social play and work and somewhere to explore and show off how to live well with nature.
It is looked after by excited and committed people and brings orchards into the heart of the community.
St Ives Community Orchard is open for all and everyone is welcome to pick the fruit in season in small quantities, keeping in mind that this fruit is to share with many people. We encourage people to collect windfall apples which are the apples that fall to the ground as this is usually fruit that is ready to eat. At Harvest or Apple day everyone is invited to help us harvest and press the apples.
The orchard was first planted with over 100 fruit trees in Feb 2013 (read the history) and every year more varieties fruit trees have been planted. We now have over 54 identified types of apple trees (plus many more unidentified), 17 other types of fruit trees and 13 different types of fruit bushes.
There is also a diverse range of perennial edibles, medicinal plants, herbs, vegetables, flowers, nitrogen fixing species and other useful plants and trees interspersed throughout the orchard
The orchard is planted with mostly Heritage and Cornish and Devon varieties of apple trees, over 50 different varieties with wonderful names like ‘Pigs nose, Pendragon, Hangy Down, Slap ma Girdle, Sops in Wine, Bloody Butcher and the Pear Apple. The types that you don’t usually find in supermarkets. With the decline of traditional orchards across the UK, many of these varieties could be lost.
There is also a large variety of other types of fruit in the Orchard, with various varieties of Figs, kiwi fruit, medlars, grapes, cherries, pears and plums. In between these fruit trees you can also find many types of berries – blueberries, raspberries, june berries, honeyberries, gooseberries, aronia berries, chillian guavas and autumn olives. See our full list of fruiting varieties.
Within the orchard there are also many different types of wild grasses, perennial vegetables like artichokes, rhubarb and herbs as well as other useful plants like willow & New Zealand flax for making baskets.
St Ives used to have 12 orchards around the town which were all replaced by development. We are currently the only orchard in St Ives but we encourage and support any other potential areas to become orchards and we have plans to plant fruit trees throughout the town.
An edible Forest Garden
Forest gardening is a low-maintenance, multi-layered food growing system based on woodland ecosystems. It is rooted in the principles of permaculture and the benefits of companion planting. It is the most self-sustaining, abundant ecosystem you can create, supporting wildlife and people.
It involves planting mainly perennial and edible species in 7 layers. Amongst the trees you have lots of fruiting bushes, shrubs, herbs, ground cover, vines that grow up the trees and tubers below, all supporting each other through their root system.
There is actually an 8th layer which is the mycelial or fungal layer which is probably the most important of them all, bringing the plants water and nutrients which you can support by not tilling the land but rather by mulching and layering with cardboard, woodchip, compost and horse manure.
The Round Field – Wild Orchard and Edible Forest Garden
Where do we get our fruit trees?
Our original fruit trees came from a project in Penzance called Penwith Edible Forest, the trees were planted at Castle gate but due to the land being sold, a new venue to transfer the trees was looked for and our land in St Ives was suggested. These trees were bought from Adam Apples.
Since then our trees have been sourced from local places – Kehelland Trust, Dobbies in Lelant, Falmouth Forest Garden , Hayle Plants
We got some very interesting Cornish varieties (ie Sops in Wine & Hoary Morning) from Cornish Garden Nurseries situated on the A39 in Perran-ar-worthal between Falmouth and Truro.
Many of our fruiting bushes we get from E-forests (we also get virtually all our woodland trees from them too) – they get most of the trees, stakes and guards from //www.perriehale.co.uk/
We have also ordered online from //3fatpigs.co.uk/ and //www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/
//jurassicplants.co.uk/ has a wonderful stock of unusual fruit and nut trees.
We’ve bought our tools from www.bhgsltd.co.uk in Hayle, Guildford Road Industrial Estate, Macsalvers in Camborne and various other places.