The lower orchard
Little Leat is about 1 mile form the sea so generally we look for plants that can survive in salt-laden winds. However, our experience is that some supposedly salt tolerant plants don't like it here, and other plants supposedly not salt-tolerant do OK. The lower orchard is a bit experimental, consisting of 20 trees of various varieties with a mixture of uses, eating, cooking, and cider making. Some are Cornish heritage varieties, others are from other parts of the country. The experiment is just to wait and see how well they each do, and then choose which varieties to propagate from.
The top orchard
The tree borders planted in 2009 are now creating enough shelter to begin this new project. Planting the first apple trees of the new orchard began in early 2024, with more trees scheduled to be planted every winter for the next few years. Ultimately we expect the orchard to be 130 trees strong. These apples will mostly be for cider making.
There are lots of other apple trees dotted around all over Little Leat, some of which are planted in the tree-borders next the camping areas. If you're camping here at the time of year when the apples are ripe (Autumn) then you might try some.
