Portmoak Community Woodland

Bumper crop

It feels a bit risky, to count your apples before they’re picked but we do appear to have a bumper crop in Portmoak Community Orchard. Farmers have been struggling with the dry weather but early season rain followed by lots of sunshine has done the trick for our fruit. There wasn't even a late frost to kill the blossom.

This year’s Apple Day is on Sunday October 5th, 2-4pm.  It’s in Kilmagad Wood, opposite Portmoak Kirk car park. If there’s heavy rain (ha!), we’ll be in Portmoak Village Hall.

After last year’s rather poor harvest, this improved crop is good news. More fruit than ever, to turn into delicious, fresh juice and to include in home baking. We shall have the big apple press, so please bring any surplus fruit from your own garden and we’ll add them to the mix. As ever, the event is a great family affair, when everyone can help to pick the fruit and see the apple press in action. One more thing to remember - bring containers, so that you can take away the juice.

Also, we are delighted to welcome back Andrew Lear, aka ‘appletreeman’, who will apply his expertise to any apples you may like him to identify.  Remember to not only bring the mystery apples, but also a twig and leaves from the tree. Andrew, from Perthshire, supplied the trees for the orchard in 2011/12 and has trained us in how to prune them and thin the fruit to produce bigger apples. It's always great, to tap into his expertise and see his own display of apples.

As usual, on Apple Day, Portmoak Community Woodland Group will be organising children’s games as well as tea and coffee and a mountain of home baking, with a strong accent on apples.  Most years we rise to apple cake, apple pies, crumbles and cup cakes. 

The event is free but we do appreciate cash or card donations towards the refreshments and the maintenance of the orchard.

Most people seem to enjoy hanging out in the orchard but if your children and/or dogs still have energy to burn, there are lots of fantastic walks on the hillside above us.

We look forward to seeing you on the day.

Chocolate feast-time

Chocolate eggs, chocolate lollypops and chocolate bunny rabbits were all up for grabs at the Portmoak Community Woodland Easter event on Easter Saturday.

Children were invited to go on a chocolate hunt among the trees, in the community orchard in Kilmagadwood.  Then there was the all important decorated egg competition with woodland group member, Susan Forde taking on the near-impossible role of judge, as the kids tried to read her every expression and second-guess her decisions. She did really well to pick out the winners and explain why she found some designs more eye-catching than others. Her years as a school teacher certainly paid off!

Chris's Place, the terraced area in Kilmagad Wood, makes a perfect amphitheatre for events like this, with an excellent slope for the egg race. Everyone lined up their hardboiled eggs for this final competition of the afternoon and we nearly had a photo-finish. 

Eggs of a different kind will feature over the coming weeks, as we welcome wild birds, like blue tits and robins, to the nest boxes installed with help from Portmoak Primary School last year. If you're out for a walk, keep an eye on comings and goings from the 60 boxes dotted around the wood. Once the birds are feeding their young you should see feverish activity as they try to keep up the supply of food. 

Speaking of walks, we have a 7am guided birdsong event in Portmoak Moss on May 10th.  Bird expert, Scott Paterson is a great favourite and people have been quick to sign up. If you would like to come along, there's no charge but please let us know via 'contact us' on this website.