Children’s Orchard

Scottish Children’s Orchard… Can You Help?

We want to build on the success of Glasgow Children’s Orchard – and look at how to take the Children’s Orchard Scotland-wide…

Children's Orchard

To do this, we wish to form a constituted group with the aim of developing the Scottish Children’s Orchard. This will support the development of the Scottish Children’s Orchard, and also to campaign for Scottish existing and new orchards for the health, pleasure and prosperity of future generations.

We need people – children especially – to be supporters of this new organisation. We also need funders, sponsors, and volunteers to map and look after existing trees, to harvest and use the fruit, and to look at new potential sites. We need parents, teachers and people working with children, and other groups to help deliver the project on the ground. We also need people with ground, and existing trees to allow more planting, and to use excess fruit…

The next stage will be a (child friendly) networking meeting…

So what will the Scottish Children’s Orchard be like?

It’s about children planting fruit trees in their school, park, street, gardens…
Harvesting and healthy enjoyable eating
Children tree wardens, looking after their trees
Regenerating green deserts in inner cities, and making cities better…
It’s a valuable educational resource, fitting in closely with the school year
It’s enterprise – children love selling fruit – making money to buy more trees
It’s fun…
It’s cheap and easy
It’s not just in one place – it’s a network of trees in bee flying distance of each other
It’s one orchard – everyone involved is part of the Scottish Children’s Orchard, and will come together from time to time to celebrate their achievements, and sharing ideas
Learning the traditional skills of grafting and pruning fruit trees
It’s helping to preserve old Scottish apple varieties and bringing disused orchards to life
It’s a map, and website with lots of information on what’s happening and where
Picking and using fruit grown in Scotland which would otherwise be wasted, with cheap fruit being flown in from abroad
It creates a market for fruit trees and fruit, which wil help in the recovery of the Scottish fruit growing industry
It’s carbon offset, which you can eat!