Pear Necessities

Pear Necessities is a partnership running a 10-acre organic pear orchard in Kent.   We purchased the orchard in December 2007 and the neighbouring pasture in May 2008 bringing the total area of land to 17.5-acres.  The orchard had been conventionally farmed and we immediately began the process of organic conversion.  We are  proud that we achieved organic status for the fruit and land with our last Soil Association inspection in August 2010.

Pear Necessities manages part of the orchard (around 300 trees) and rents out the remainder to a local, award-winning organic top-fruit farmer, Paul Ward. We sell the pears to the Growing Communities’ box scheme and farmers market based in Stoke Newington, North London, and other small retail outlets and restaurants in North and South London.

Pear Necessities has a marvellous group of regular and occasional volunteers who enjoy a day or weekend in the countryside whilst enabling us to perform the work without the use of oil-dependent and soil-compacting machinery.  The tasks involve pruning and feeding the trees and scything to keep the weeds under control.

We are learning slowly and trying to re-balance the soil after years of conventional farming.

A group of about 30 volunteers began planting the new orchard in November 2009 and we plan to complete the planting of 240 new apple, plum and cherry trees in November 2010.  We hope to add nut trees, a willow bed and to extend the existing woodland border in years to come.

We bought a new container.  It had to taken over the fence and dragged down the hill.

We once again relied on willing helpers to get the work done.

Before the land was used for an orchard it was used to grow hops.   The hop pickers lived in corrugated iron sheds.   After 50 years of neglect our was falling down, so we re-roofed it, for a fruit bin store

In December 2009, we planted the first 60 trees of the new orchard: some standard apples and cherries, to look nice and to camp underneath and a number of semi-dwarf apples and pears.   We the help of friends we managed to plant all the fruit trees and some woodland trees in one day

By luck or judgment the harvest in 2009 was nearly double the previous year.   We are still trying to work out if it was something we did or just conditions beyond our control.

We are aware that we are not feeding the trees and that we need to put more into the soil for the long term well-being of the trees.

It is always a worry about what the weather will bring:

In April is mustn’t be to windy or wet for pollination

In June and July, assuming pollination has occurred, the pears ‘drop’ and start growing below the stem.   If the tree is stressed, due to lack of nutrients or water then large number of the little pears will be shed.

We have applied to English Nature for grants to convert the orchard to organic practices and are required to look after the hedgerows and plant a strip of wild flowers to add pollination and biodiversity.   We hired a man with a plough, then scattered in wildflower mix and the stamped down the seeds.

Unfortunately, few of the flowers took, but the ploughed patch was excellent for thistles and ragwort!

The spring bought another amazing blossom.   This picture shows the white pear blossom on the trees at the bottom of the orchard, but not those at the top, which are still recovering from the hard prune of 2008

Blossom on lower part of the orchard

With the blossom comes the bluebells.    The orchard backs onto  a woodland, that for a few weeks is…

Somewhat to our surprise we managed to get some pears after the squirrels had had their fill.   In total from the 300 trees we got nearly 1000 KG of pears

Julie and Antony used their wedding as an  opportunity to get the holes dug for the trees in the new orchard.