Our earliest plums, the prolifics, will be ready to pick on Saturday (19th July). These small, round plums are ideal to use for jam or to freeze. They can of course also be eaten fresh!
Look out for our new signs on the verge.

Prolifics, the early plums, are nearly ready, so watch this space. In the meantime, as a family,we are raising money for Cancer Research UK in advance of our participation in Relay for Life in Harrow in September. Our next event is this coming Sunday, July 13th at Old Pound Farm, Peopleton where you will be served afternoon tea whilst being entertained by the White Ladies Aston singers and two semi professional singers in the sheep shed!! Come along if you can but if you can’t and would like to make a donation, please go to

http://relay.cancerresearchuk.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/General?team_id=6459&pg=team&fr_id=1431

Every little helps!!

The new venture at Walsgrove – Woodpecker Cafe, opens on Wednesday 23rd July at 10.30am. There will be professional coffee, home made cakes and light lunches. There is both indoor and outdoor seating, areas for children to play and free parking. Pop in and say hello!

We are changing the use of one of our buildings which faces the courtyard to a coffee shop. This is the brain child of our younger son and his wife – Matthew and Sophie. Sophie will run it and between them they have lots of ideas. It will be called The Woodpecker Cafe. It can be found on Facebook and you can tweet them at woodpeckercafe1. Their use of modern technology is putting us to shame!!

This is an exciting time for us at Walsgrove. Watch this space to find out what is happening.

The plum blossom has looked lovely this year. Although it is early to judge, it appears as though we have had a reasonable set of fruit. Some nights have been cool but we have avoided the frost. Daytime conditions have been conducive to bee activity so we are optimistic!

We have a lot of surface water but aren’t actually flooded. Many of our trees have short roots and are suffering from the wet soils and high winds. We have lost a few but hopefully not too many. We hope those of you reading this are keeping safe and dry in this atrocious weather.

The winter pruning has now been completed. The huge quantity of water that we have had has affected some of the trees, especially those with shallow roots. A few have keeled over. The chainsaw has been in action today!.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2014. Thank you for all your support this year. We hope next season is as bountiful!

We will be closed from 3 – 11 November inclusive. After that, we will be open each day from 12.30 – 5pm and other times by arrangement. We are happy for people to buy in quantity to help us clear the orchard – PYO or windfalls – very reasonable price for large amounts. Please ring or preferably email if you want to bulk pick. 01905 345371 margaret@walsgrove.co.uk