Self sufficient fruit grower
On 26th November ODGC were delighted to welcome back Kevin Alviti for his third visit as our last speaker for 2024.
Kevin lives with his wife, a deputy headteacher, and their three children on a five acre smallholding near Malvern. He is a part time carpenter and craftsman and writes for woodcarving magazines as well as giving talks about his work. He has up to fifty two vegetable beds, two greenhouses, an orchard and coppice and keeps hens. He has planted two thousand trees on his property and his first task was to plant an orchard of thirty trees, apple, pear, medlar and greengage.
His aims are:
To save money, fruit trees are a good investment.
To be independent of the system.
To try different fruits, there are thousands of varieties
Enjoyment.
To preserve the harvest for year round consumption.
He aims to extend the growing season as long as possible using early and late varieties. His earliest apples include Discovery and Beauty of Bath through russets to the late cropping Scotch Bridget. He also grows cordon apples as an edible hedge, Pitmaston Pineapple produces lots of sweet, small apples. Free ranging Indian Game chickens keep pests away.
A small, sweet watermelon, Siberian Nights, is productive in the greenhouse Peaches are very successful in a polytunnel where they are protected from the weather thus keeping rain off the leaves. Fifteen varieties of gooseberries are grown as a hedge. These are pruned hard and harvested with an ingenious homemade wooden harvester which keeps fingers away from the prickly bushes. Other soft fruit include blackcurrants, gojiberries, tayberries and Japanese wineberry – the latter popular with his children.
He has planted a hedge of damson and plum and another of cider apples and hawthorn.
His three children are willing helpers in garden, workshop and kitchen and assist with harvesting for freezer or making preserves and dried fruit. A colourful slideshow of rosy apples and gleaming preserves, together with Kevin’s energy and enthusiasm, provided the perfect antidote to a cheerless November evening and gave us plenty of ideas for the winter months ahead.
Ghislaine Arundale
