Is a school orchard for you?

 Children (as well as adults) know less and less about of where our food comes from, leading to numerous initiatives to grow fruit and vegetables at school. Other aspects of policy that can be addressed include food security, healthy living, the therapeutic effects of growing and working together outdoors. One big advantage of growing fruit as opposed to vegetables is that children like eating them!

Any tree is a teaching resource, fruit trees particularly so. They are ornamental when in blossom and when laden with fruit; the production of fruit reflects the struggle between the grower on the one hand and the various factors limiting the crop on the other, largely pests, diseases and adverse weather conditions; and the fruit can be eaten fresh or made into various culinary products including juice.

However, growing tree fruits is not for everyone, or for every school. The trees benefit from pruning periodically and may not do well if in unmown grass. In some circumstances unharvested fruit benefits wildlife, but it can also be a nuisance, making walkways slippy, looking unsightly as it ferments and attracting wasps.

Some of the benefits of fruit growing mentioned above could be obtained by growing soft fruit, whether indoors in containers or outdoors as low bushes. Perhaps the tastiest of these for eating fresh are strawberries, which would ripen in the summer term, and autumn-fruiting raspberries that would continue to ripen through the first half of the autumn term.

 Which tree fruits?

Cherries are less than ideal because they have to be netted against birds to yield any fruit at all, while plums and damsons would ripen at an inconvenient time, largely in the summer holidays, except for one or two of the latest varieties. These stone fruits also deteriorate quickly, so there's relatively little leeway in harvesting and use. Depending on which part of the country you're in, pears are likely to be trickier to grow than apples, and pears are also relatively difficult to catch at their best.

The best all-round tree fruits for school orchards, and indeed many others, are mid-season and late-season apples, which would be picked mainly in the first half of the autumn term (as would quince, medlar, hazel and walnut). The later varieties of apple can be kept for some months after harvest, and of all the tree fruits, tree size is easiest to regulate in apple through the use of a range of rootstocks.

 What size of tree, what size of orchard?

In primary schools, dwarfed trees are probably preferable because maintenance work and harvesting can be done from ground level, while working at height (from ladders), together with other potentially hazardous operations such as the use of cutting tools or machinery, may be contemplated by secondary schools if there is access to training.

In principle, the minimum number of trees is one, provided it is of a self-fertile variety, but pollination is likely to be better with two or more trees, each of a different variety. Such a scale would of course be largely for demonstration purposes rather than for the production of fruit.

For larger plantings there has to be an element of orchard design. Establishing the objects of management is the first step.

Objects of management for a school orchard

The following are common objects:

To use an orchard primarily as an outdoor laboratory, for pupils’ experimental or project work in biological or environmental science.

To have sufficient fruit for eating fresh or cooking, class by class, in various curriculum areas.

To create a striking feature that enhances the character and reputation of the school.

To provide an after-school activity or otherwise to bring people together.

To make a contribution to the landscape or help attract wildlife.

 To make a wider contribution to diet by making fruit or fruit products more generally available in the school, at least for some days of the week or months of the year.

To provide an avenue for local business development and marketing, whether as part of the curriculum (for secondary school pupils) or to contribute to the school economy.

The school orchard design process

The most basic questions of design may seem obvious but actually aren’t. For example, ‘how many trees?’ depends to some extent on the site and on how the trees are to be managed. The answers to ‘How many varieties?’ and ‘What varieties?’ depend on the objects of management, and so on. The resources of Rootle will help.

 Conclusion

Fruit trees, like all trees, can live for many years, and a successful school orchard design is one that will sustain itself over that kind of period of time. For this, some staff at the school, preferably including the grounds staff, should have an active interest in the design, establishment and maintenance of the orchard, as well as in the educational and other pupil-centred aspects of the project.

A school orchard can have several functions. Of these, the production of substantial quantities of good-to-eat fruit is relatively challenging, requiring good organization at times through the year, various resources including labour and facilities for storage, not to mention the establishment of the orchard itself. If achieved, however, it is immensely gratifying.