Last week Gardener’s Question Time, or #GQT as we fans call it, came to Murray Edwards College, in the University of Cambridge. Murray Edwards has beautiful gardens, taking advantage of its sheltered spot to favour a sub-tropical theme. And, horror of horrors, students and staff are allowed to walk and sit on the grass, an act of sacrilege in most other colleges.
Two founder members of Trumpington Community Orchard were the excited guests of Jo Cobb, Head Gardener at the College. We had both come armed with questions and one was the first to be chosen! Before the nervous moment of reading out a question to the elite team of Chris Beadshaw, Christine Walkden and Bob Flowerdew, the Chairman Eric Robson put us all at ease with gentle banter, and encouraged us to laugh at the panel’s jokes. As I said to him after the recording, have I really been listening to him for twenty years? We agreed that he’s made a good start and if he keeps at it, he might make something of a go of it…
So, the question –  We asked about the apple trees that will be grown across Cambridge by the Cambridge Community Collection art project – what rootstock will be best for the variable conditions these new trees will encounter, and what other support might they need? This set the wise heads of the panel thinking. They gave a very full answer, and some suggestions. In order to find out what they thought, you’ll have to listen to the broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Friday 31st October at 3pm, or Sunday 2 November at 2pm. Insider’s tip – they may change the order of the questions when they edit the programme!

Last week I thought that I really should remind Essex University what I was doing, as Apple Day was approaching, so I did, and we came up with an approach to the local media. Cambridge News took up the story, and I hope to be interviewed by BBC Radio Essex next Tuesday evening as well. Apples as drive-time phone-in conversation, I love it!
Yesterday was the first of a series of academic talks, to the Gender and History Workshop at Cambridge University. At the end of the month I am talking to Tadlow Gardening Society. I’m going to need a limo and an agent and big pair of sunglasses soon…
Joking aside I am so glad that there is such interest in all things apple related, and long may it last. And if anyone wants to book me for a talk, as they say in Hollywood ‘have your people talk to my people’ Or in other words, send an email!
Apple History Student in Local Paper

The swift nesting tower is up, and although there are no occupants so far, some birds have been seen circling round it. This has been an amazing project, and the tower is already making a great addition to the orchard skyline, so we thought it was time we held an event to celebrate it and say ‘thank you’ to everyone who helped. And you can’t have a new building without a Grand Opening, can you?
So come along to the Orchard on Sunday 29 June between 11am – 1pm for information about swifts and how to help them. Tea and cake will be on offer, donations (of cakes or cash!) very gratefully received.

Artist Neville Gabie has been exploring Cambridge with an eye to subtly changing some familiar paths, secret short cuts and small patches of land. Commissioned by the Council to look, with an artist’s response, at routes and connectivity for the South Cambridge area, Neville has been working on how to enhance way-finding between the new housing developments in the area, and the new biomedical campus at Addenbrookes. He wants to bring these communities closer to the existing landscape, and in so doing promote walking and cycling routes between them and the existing, much loved, green spaces of Nine Wells Nature Reserve, Byron’s Pool and Grantchester Meadows.
Neville’s vision is for these routes to be mapped out in living trees – apple trees, in fact. He will use their names, attributes and historical associations to create signposts along some well-known, and some less obvious, routes between the new communities and Cambridge. You can imagine how pleased I was to be asked to be a member of the team working to allow Neville to fulfil his vision. I have had to keep it a secret all winter until we got the official go-ahead. And that was hard for me to do!
Trumpington Community Orchard will, in itself, be one of the hubs in this apple network, and we will be providing help and information on the whole experience of orchard-start ups. So, the apple tree collection is underway. As I type, 200 newly grafted apple trees are growing away at the National Fruit Collection in Brogdale, Kent. There is an amazing number still to be grown over the next few years. You see, this Cambridge Collection is ambitious. This will be a planted network of every UK apple variety, ancient and modern, that we can get hold of – and that’s about 2,500 at the last count. Truly, a twenty first century fruit forest.
Neville will launch his project at the Southern Fringe Forum on 4^th June, and everyone is welcome to attend. Look out for further details in future posts.