OUR ORCHARDS

We firmly believe that in order to grow nutrient-dense healthy crops you have to start with healthy soils. This is why one of our main management principles is striving to improve our soil health. 

In turn this soil will then grow healthy plants which will be far less susceptible to pests and diseases. We manage our orchards using regenerative-agriculture principles.

Encouraging biodiversity and looking after our environment is another of our key priorities. Over 10% of our entire farmed area is dedicated to a wildflower meadow. 

Sea buckthorn is wind pollinated and doesn’t rely on insects for pollination. Nevertheless, we recognise the importance of insects in the wider environment. We are active members of the Bee-Steward Fowey Valley Bumblebee Project run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. We also have honey beehives in the orchard to take advantage of our wildflower meadow. 

Recently we established a willow coppice on a wetter area of land. This will be periodically harvested, with the wood being chipped and used as mulch underneath our fruit trees. This returns carbon to the soil, which in turn will improve soil health, whilst simultaneously smothering weeds. In the meantime, these trees are effective at reducing water runoff, providing a habitat to birds and insects and of course sequestering carbon. 

Planting trees (apart from our 2000+ sea buckthorn) is also one of our key objectives. We try to increase our tree count each year, by planting native species in our hedges and any other areas that we think are suitable. 

In the alleyways between the rows of sea buckthorn we have established herbal leys. This is sympathetically grazed by our ‘mob’ of Shropshire sheep. This heritage sheep breed are often used in orchards as generally they graze amongst the trees without damaging the trees themselves.  Using our sheep as four-legged self-propelled woolly grass cutters means we don’t have to mow the grass using machinery. The sheep also cycle nutrients which improves the soil health and fertility. Additionally, we try to use mob-grazing principles on the orchard; this is arguably a great way of maximising carbon sequestration.