Green-tech

There are two main types of apple – dessert varieties which are eaten fresh and culinary or ‘cooking’ apples which are generally large in size and very sharp if eaten raw and need to be cooked before eating (usually with the addition of sugar). A few varieties are dual-purpose – they can be used either for cooking, or eaten raw after a period of storage to allow the apples to sweeten. There are also varieties grown specifically for cider-making. Some varieties of apple are ready for harvest as early as late July, but most will be ready for picking in September or October. For the benefit of the school calendar, we have selected varieties which will be ready for harvesting at the start of the school year in September. Most of the varieties listed below have good or partial resistance to scab or mildew, which are common disease problems in apple (see later section on ‘pests and diseases’) and are relatively easy to grow. Training Apple Trees. There are many different ways i

Fruit trees need water at the right time, but it can be confusing knowing when, and how much to give them. What most fruit growers don’t know is that if you want to grow good fruit, one of the most important times for your fruit trees to have enough water is spring. If the soil is too dry at that critical time, your fruit will be small that season, no matter how much water you give the trees later on. That’s because during flowering, when the fruit is fertilised, it goes through rapid cell division, and if it doesn’t get enough water at that time, cell division is limited. That’s going to limit the size of the fruit later in the season, even if the tree gets plenty of water. There’s no fixed rule about how much water a fruit tree needs, but it’s not too hard to work out. It depends on several things: • The age of the tree • The amount of fruit it has on it • Your soil type • The temperature • How windy it is There are some simple ways to check soil moisture in your garden. O

When it comes to keeping your fruit trees healthy, prevention is better than cure! Keeping your fruit trees strong with healthy soil, good pruning, enough nutrition and water, and managing the crop load, as we’ve already described, are the first steps to preventing pests and diseases. Healthy trees are much less likely to be attacked (just like healthy people are less likely to get every cough and cold that’s going around!). There’s also lots of strategies you can use to protect your fruit trees from pests and diseases (these are the tricks that professional organic orchardists use): • Pick up all fruit from the ground under your trees throughout the fruit season, as it can easily spread disease to healthy fruit. • Make sure enough light and air can circulate around your fruit trees with pruning and weed control. Monitor your tree for pests and treat them—only if necessary—before they cause too much damage to a tree. Very often, the appearance of a pest will be followed by

Women are strong drivers of agroecological change in farming and consumer communities. One example is the women’s movement for agrobiodiverse, pesticide-free crop production in India. In other places, women experiment with intercropping, vegetable box schemes and seed exchanges. What motivates them? And what role does agroecology play in improving the lives of women? There are 500 million small scale farm families around the world, and 70% of the agricultural work on these farms is done by women. According to FAO, women could increase their productivity by up to 30% if they had the same access as men to productive resources. We have long known that women hold important agriculture and food knowledge, and that they are a force pushing for agroecological changes that lead to resilient farming. Where men tend to focus more on economic gains, women’s ultimate concerns tend to food sovereignty and nutrition, social stability and peace, and the conservation of biodiversity and nat