Principal activities of the company

Oakbrook Orchard is a volunteer run company in the process of establishing a new orchard at Oakbrook Farm, with the intention of operating a Community Supported Agriculture system to supply a seasonal share of locally grown fruit to local people. The land we farm is community owned and a public footpath runs through the field where our trees are planted. Oakbrook Orchard was registered as a CIC in early January 2024, and this is our second year of activity as a CIC. The stated aim of Oakbrook Orchard Community Interest Company is to benefit the community by producing food and flowers with and for local people, using agroecological methods.

Additional information

The most visible and significant change in the orchard this year is that the land between the trees is no longer let to Stroud Micro Dairy for grazing, but the majority is being used by Stroud Community Agriculture for growing field scale vegetables. Fortunately the spacings of our agroforestry system were designed to allow for multiple potential land uses between the tree rows, so this transition was relatively smooth. However, in order to allow for more efficient use of the space, for regular sized blocks of cultivation, and for easy tractor access, SCA requested that we move a significant number of trees, some planted just months earlier. After walking the land together and some intensive mapping and discussions, we came to an agreement to move around 20 trees, all within the field. We also collaboratively identified opportunities to extend some tree rows in future years. In March we held a joint volunteer work party with SCA and lifted and replanted all 20 trees. We also welcomed three other new tenants onto the orchard field - Kate of Fox Lane Flowers, The Grove home education group, and The Hatch. We are enjoying getting to know them all, and excited by the increased level of activity and potential collaboration in the field. Of course there are also some new challenges to navigate too, as people move on, new people arrive, and activities and structures on the land change. As a small and fully volunteer team, keeping up with orchard work can be a challenge. Hester stepped down as a director in the autumn, but continued to be a key volunteer in the field. Jessie has recently been suffering from fatigue, which has limited what she can do in the orchard. We continued to run monthly volunteer work parties through most of the year, though had to cancel a couple due to ill health and family commitments. We have also continued doing some volunteering work with the Friday Farm Day home educating families. This year we decided to concentrate on maintaining the existing trees in the field rather than extending our planting or grafting additional trees in the nursery. This meant that we were more successful in keeping up with scything and mulching in the tree rows than in previous years, and we are on track to get through pruning many more trees this winter than last. The very dry summer and continuing higher levels of vole and rabbit activity caused us some concern, and the loss of a handful of trees. Despite bumper fruit crops locally due to the warm weather, the orchard is still not yet producing more than an occasional apple. Whilst this was slightly disappointing in some ways, it also meant that we did not have the additional challenge of figuring out how to harvest, distribute or store the fruit! As in previous years, we ran a seasonal daffodil share for a few weeks in the spring. Fortunately we kept this very small, as the daffodil harvest was again rather disappointing this year. It may not be viable to continue the daffodil subscription in future years. Building on the success of our scything workshops last year, we ran another one this year. This was run at cost, with participant fees covering the cost of the room hire and workshop leader. One participant returned to volunteer in the orchard after the workshop. We also ran a free and well received farm tour again as part of the national Agroforestry Open Weekend. Due to ill health, we handed over the running of our annual wassail to Oakbrook Farm and The Hatch this year. We were sad not to be able to organise it ourselves, but glad that it could go ahead and that the trees were still wassailed. Despite hopeful signs again this year, we still do not have a written lease with Oakbrook Farm. Whilst this does potentially leave us vulnerable, and we do want to secure a written lease, our relationship with the farm and other tenants remains positive. A significant frustration for us this year has been the lack of permission to erect a shed in the field. We are grateful that we have been able to access free tool storage space one way and another over the years, but we have always been denied the opportunity to put up a shed in the field. This year we were briefly given the go ahead before that permission was again removed due to concerns over planning issues on the farm more generally. We will continue to push for permission to put up some sort of structure for storing our tools and offering shelter to volunteers in the field, as this would significantly increase our efficiency, allow us to welcome a wider range of volunteers, and remove frustrations around shared tool storage spaces. We continued to be fully biodynamic and organic certified by the BDA, under the umbrella of Oakbrook Farm.

This report was approved by the board of directors on 31 March 2026
and signed on behalf of the board by:

Name: Jessie Marcham
Status: Director