Steyning Community Orchard
January and February have been busy months for Steyning Community Orchard.The year got off to a flying start with the highly successful Wassail in January. Then the hard work began with four trees planted in Primrose Court orchard restoration project and three more trees in the Memorial Playing Field. Volunteer working parties undertook clearing and maintenance and tree planting preparation work in both areas. The current programme of work will end on Saturday 4th March when three more trees will be planted on the Memorial Playing Field.
Steyning Community Orchard and Steyning Downland Scheme have come to an agreement to start an orchard in the Big Picnic Field. This is an exciting new project and we hope to start planting some trees there very soon.
Announcing the Steyning Community Orchard Recipe Collection
Now there is a new opportunity for everyone to contribute to the Steyning Community Orchard Project. Please send us your recipes that use orchard fruits so that we can make them available as a resource for everyone to use.
We would like you to send us recipes that make use of apples, pears, plums, greengages, cherries, in fact every kind of fruit that will grow on a tree in Steyning. The recipes can be for anything: cakes, pies, puddings, jams, chutney, pickles and preserves. We would particularly like you to let us have local (Steyning and Sussex) recipes and ones that have been handed down through your family, but any of your family favourites will be welcome. If there is a story or anecdote associated with the recipe, we would love to hear it. If you have some handy hints for storing and keeping fruit, then we would like to hear about that too. If you have photos of the finished article, we would love to see them.
Apple Day this year will be on Saturday 7th October and we would love to have a display of recipes to inspire people to get cooking, baking and pickling with this year’s crop of fruit.
We plan to add the recipes to our website and some may appear in our email newsletter. Depending on the response we get, we might consider producing a book. Please send your recipes to steyningorchard@gmail.com We look forward to hearing from you.
Steyning Community Orchard Map
The Steyning Community Orchard map continues to grow and people are still sending in entries. If you would like to contribute and haven’t done so yet, please send us a list of the fruit trees in your garden, including varieties if you know them, and we will add them to the map. We are also interested in knowing if you have mistletoe on any of your fruit trees. Send your entries to: steyningorchard@gmail.com