The Grounded Orchardist

It seems fitting to talk about beginnings to kick start this blog off. My earliest fruit memory was mowing down my Grandads Blackcurrant bushes on his ride on mower when I was around 7 years old. Needless to say he wasn’t very happy. Not a great start I grant you but a happy memory 😊

We moved onto a large property when I was about 9 or 10 and that’s where we were able to grow our own fruit and veg. I remember fruit trees, rhubarb and a big strawberry patch. It was a very small village in Warwickshire, UK and I loved foraging in the hedgerows for Damsons, wild plums, crab apples and blackberries. We knew the owners of a local fruit farm and used to go fruit picking there, we used to get alot…and I mean a lot of excess fruit. I remember a lot of topping and tailing gooseberries and peeling and coring apples. Eating a lot of gooseberry fool and Apple Chutneys, Jellies and crumbles.

It never occurred to me to do this as a job but if I knew then I would eventually get paid to climb trees I would have been very happy!!

After lots of different jobs to just get by and when my 2 children were old enough for me to think about my future again I decided that was the time for change. I started to do my RHS level 2 diploma which I had to do part-time to fit in school runs and part-time work to pay for the course. It took two years but it was worth it. I thought I wanted to be a gardener, I was a self employed gardener in private gardens part-time for 5 years and although I enjoyed the work I realised I didn’t want to be a gardener forever. So I needed to rethink what I wanted to do. It had to be outside, a bit creative and I loved growing food!

Friends of mine owned a fruit farm and I decided to ask if they had any work. They gave me a job and I loved it. It was only a small farm, we were farming 33 acres of fruit. A mixture of Apples, Pears, Plums, Apricots, Damsons and Greengages. I started part-time, gradually upping my hours to full-time and was promoted to Orchard Supervisor.

Even then, although I loved the job it never occurred to me that this could be my career path. Then sadly the farm was put up for sale and I was made redundant. Finding a fruit grower job was nigh on impossible in the Midlands especially in a pandemic. Our farm was the biggest orchard for about 80 miles or so. It was at the time of the pandemic and work was scarce as everyone was in lockdown and nobody was giving anyone a chance to retrain. So I widened my search and found a job in Oxfordshire. A hotel called Le Manoir aux quat’saisons, they were after an Orchard gardener, I applied and got it. And that is where I currently work. It’s very different in a lot of ways but fruit trees are fruit trees whether horticulture or agriculture and I’m very pleased I managed to get another orchard job!