Health and Happiness: The Orchard Project Picks Both

December 7th, 2016

Leah Mangold

“You came all this way to pick apples? You know it’s raining, right?” The town resident I had stopped to ask for directions seems baffled that a teenager living in London would travel to Waltham Abbey for a harvest day. He looks at my wellies, then back at the sky, as if rain in London is not a semi-frequent occurrence. I do not blame him for being confused. Few Londoners step outside the city to get their fruit. Even fewer do it in the rain. 

Overgrown trees make for labor-intensive work
and slow progress

The people involved in The Orchard Project, however, are not afraid of getting their boots muddy. The nationwide charity is presently committed to restoring and preserving old orchards in London. Starting in 2017, the team will focus its attention on the abandoned fruit trees in Waltham Abbey.

Stephanie Irwin, one of the team’s Orchard Restoration Project Managers, believes that restoring these trees is vitally important. “Old fruit trees are very good for biodiversity” she explains. Unfortunately, many of London’s old orchards have been destroyed. The Heathrow airport runways, for example, have replaced many of the historic orchards that previously provided fruit for the city. “We can’t bring those back,” she says, “but we can preserve the ones that are still here.”

Waltham Abbey’s fruit trees are certainly salvageable.  When I meet up with the group for Harvest Day, the abundance of apples available for picking are surprisingly high. Lewis McNeil, the other Orchard Restoration Project Manager, hands me a “picker”—a retractable pole with claws on the end—and tells me to get to work. I quickly find myself making conversation with the others as we pluck apples from trees and drop them into crates.

I learn that working in orchards is twofold; it helps sustain both the trees and the community. But the crew in Waltham Abbey is small. Thus, one aspiration is to set down emotional roots in the community. The team hopes “to engage the local people and give them the expertise they need to preserve the orchards.” In many ways, it already has.

Waltham Abbey is just one of many orchards taken under the wings of The Orchard Project. Throughout the past seven years, the charity has held festive events, such as apple Halloween parties, and has made and sold homemade fruit juice using donated apples. The team also hosts workshops centered around planting and maintenance to teach city dwellers the importance of urban orchards.

Mid morning sun shines over Waltham Abbey's abandoned apple trees

On other occasions the team simply shows up to local events already in place. They have a fluid approach; depending on whom they are working with, they get involved in different ways. Says Irwin, “We look out for annual events and traditions of the town we are working with…and see how we can tap into that local community”. By creating relationships one-on-one, the Orchard Project can develop a network of support from locals.

Earlier this autumn, the team set up a booth in a small street festival hosted by Alora Cereals. Paired with the free food and music already provided by the cereal company, The Orchard Project evoked interest from international visitors. Allison Canfield, an 18-year-old from a small town in Iowa, says the friendly atmosphere of the festival reminded her of home. “It was such a family friendly community event…even though it was in a big city it felt like I was in a small town and everyone seemed to know each other.” Her description embodies what The Orchard Project’s events are all about: creating relationships. 

It is this grassroots approach that the team uses to inspire others to get involved in events like Harvest Day and Apple Juicing Day. “Because once you get people interested in where their food comes from,” says McNeil, “people will have more of an appreciation of nature, and hopefully have…more of a feeling of stewardship [to] the very systems that we completely depend on and are in fact a part of.”

Inwin stresses that no contribution of time is too small. Some people may help harvest every weekend, others may just come once or twice to a festival. No matter how involved they are, “They are still part of keeping [the orchards] alive.” As soon as a place holds memories, it also holds meaning. This is the first step towards initiating change; or rather, prevent unwanted change. “People are much more likely to want to defend an orchard under threat if they’ve spent time there and enjoyed it with friends.” Otherwise, this public land may go to waste.

Because so many of London’s orchards have been replaced by buildings, the fruit we buy in supermarkets are outsourced. Major corporations have mass-delivery down to a science. New advances in technology allow apples to stay “fresh” for longer; even “organic” apples—free of chemicals— are placed in cold temperatures to prevent aging. average supermarket apple is 14 months old, according to educator Kristen Michaelis. 

This faux freshness causes supermarket apples to be stripped of most of their nutrients; antioxidant levels drop when exposed to cold temperatures for several months. When people choose to eat supermarket apples, they believe they are receiving antioxidants like polyphenol, which helps fight cancer. But because the apples are in refrigeration for so long, people end up ingesting very few of these nutrients. Orchards provide freshness that is trustworthy.

We stop to taste some of our crop and McNeil enlightens me about apple diversity. “You could eat a different type of apple every day,” he says in between bites, “and you would last six years without ever repeating the same variety.” He tells me about the apples he’s tasted. “Some sweet. Some sour. Some taste like pineapple. Some like bananas, strawberries. Anything, really.” According to The Telegraph, there are 2,500 varieties of apples in the UK alone.

Lewis McNeil, Orchard Restoration Project Manager

But of all the types available, only a scant variety of apples are resilient enough for the supermarket shelves. Mass production requires a specific sort of apple; one durable enough to survive the trip without getting too mushy or bruised. Thus, fewer and fewer people have tasted anything but the most generic red apple. The Orchard Project aims to reverse this trend. “The only way you will taste some of these [kinds of apples] is by either growing your own or becoming involved in community orchards,” Irwin explains.

Few deny the health benefits of orchard fruit. But for many Londoners, a quick stop at Sainsbury’s is more convenient. When asked how she felt about the lack of nutrients in store-bought apples, student Kenzie Provencher, 18, answered bluntly, “People like me who want to live cheaply don’t have much of a choice [about where to shop]. “I mean, I would love to get involved with an orchard. But [while I’m living in] London I don’t have time. Maybe next year.” Growing food can feel counterproductive, not to mention impractical.

Irwin believes the opposite is true. One reason the project decided to focus on fruit trees is because of their relative low-maintenance and resilience. Rather than vegetables that must be planted annually, fruit trees, after the initial planting and pruning, require little maintenance. “In that sense” Irwin says, “it’s less work than growing vegetables and trees continue to provide.”

Lewis says orchards are a gift. “These trees,” he says warmly, “They aren’t here for any other reason than education and getting people reconnected with nature.” He laughs. “Actually we saw a lot of people come and later on they kind of said, ‘Oh, no, someone else has discovered our fruit trees. Quick let’s go get the plums.’ So people definitely know the trees are here [now]. And that’s what it’s all about really.”

He envisions and hopes for a future where visiting orchards is the norm, not the exception. Perhaps then, when I ask for directions to the Waltham Abbey orchards, no resident will scoff. Instead, he or she will join me on the quest for freshness: both in body and in spirit.