Ashers Bakery in Nairn teams up with Nairn Allotments Orchard group with hope of producing apple pies with with its home grown fruit
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Ashers Bakery has teamed up with the Nairn Allotments Orchard Group and are planting saplings in their grounds at the Balmakeith Industrial Estate.
Since an initiative to grow more fruit trees in the community was launched on-line and in the Inverness Courier only a fortnight ago the group has been overwhelmed by the response.
Six trees including two which will produce cooking apples were planted by allotment holders and director George Ashers at the bakery last week.
The NAOG has been exploring how they can grow more trees in Nairnshire since beginning the project in 2012 with the help of EU funding at their Sandown allotments.
Des Scholes, one of the group members behind the project who is an allotment holder and been growing trees from cuttings for several years said they were delighted by the response.
"Already we have requests for nearly 100 trees at locations in Nairnshire.
" We are delighted Ashers have got the ball rolling. It's great to have our local bakery on board because the initiative has potential to have an economical impact.
"The industrial estate at Balmakeith could easily double up as a large community orchard producing quality Nairnshire fruit.
"We are working with Keeping Nairnshire Colourful (KNC) and the response to the initial publicity has been very good and soon quite a bit of planting will be going ahead.
"We still have a few trees left left looking for a home so we would like to hear from more businesses or individuals that have some space and we can also give advice to people want to buy fruit trees themselves."
Des said their group were already planning to graft another 200 hundred trees this year for future use.
"We have a Zoom meeting to discuss our plans on the 28th of this month and there's a lot of interest in that.
"It looks like Nairn is well on its way to becoming a bit more fruity."
George Asher said: "We saw the article in the Courier and Des got in touch with us and he offered to plant trees at our site in Balmakeith.
"We hope that we’ll have apples for eating, using in pies or pressing in years to come. I’m sure all our bakers will welcome the fresh fruit grown at the bakery door.
"Nairn is a beautiful place to live and work so this just seemed to be an easy way to join in the tree planting initiative and do a little bit for the environment.
Ashers will be making a donation to the community orchard so that Des and his team can continue to provide trees for others around Nairnshire."
Annie Stewart, the Chair of Keeping Nairnshire Colourful said: "KNC is delighted to be involved with the fruit tree planting at Ashers.
"We very much welcome a local business supporting the Orchard group's initaitive.
"KNC has been working with the group for a while, and has already helped with the fruit trees at the Academy and the Viewfield Orchard. This initiative complements KNC's activities with bulbs and floral displays to enhance the town's green public spaces.
"I would like to see some of these trees planted in the town's estates, like Boath Park, Queenspark, Achareidh and Lochloy where local families can benefit from the fruit produced and get involved with looking after them."
