RHSO Community Events
Upcoming Events
Maintenance Day: Sunday 5th January, at 10:30 in the Rivers Orchard.
Wassail: Saturday 25th January, at 18:00 in the Rivers Orchard.
Our Events
Our main events are:
- Orchard Maintenance (first Sunday of most months)
- Apple Day (early October)
- Wassail (mid January)
- Juice Sales (as advertised)
We can also arrange tours of the orchard or talks about the history of the site or our maintenance work as required.
Events are announced here, on our mailing list or on Twitter or Facebook. You can subscribe to this calender to keep yourself updated as to our events by following the instructions here and the username rhso1725@gmail.com. If asked for a service provider, use google.com.
Apple Day
Apple Day is our main community event, taking place in early October. We invite people to help pick our apple crop. Pickers can taste our apple varieties and take some for themselves. The remaining crop will be juiced. We also have refreshments, demonstrations and displays about the history of the site.
Tools and instructions will be provided. We also need people to bake cakes and biscuits to sell, so please contact us if you are interested in helping.
Reports of previous apple days can be found here.
Wassail
Wassail takes place every year in January (usually the evening of the 3rd Saturday). We have a bonfire using the wood pruned from the trees during the year and sing traditional wassail songs (Lyrics and sheet music can be found here) around the campfire. Refreshments (teas, coffees, mulled apple juice, mulled cider and cakes) are available.
A report of Wassail 2019 can be found here.
Maintenance days
We meet in the orchard (location), usually on the first Sunday of the month between 10:30 and 12:30 to maintain the trees, hedges and the rest of the site according to our management plan.
No expertise is needed. All tools and insturction will be provided. Maintenance days are suitable for older children under parental supervision, but are often unsuitable for younger children due to use of sharp tools and pruning heavy branches.
Reports of previous maintenance days can be found here but an approximate schedule of tasks through the year is as follows.
| Month | Typical tasks |
| January | Maintenance day usually on 2nd Sunday to continue heavy apple and pear pruning and prepare for Wassail. |
| February | Apple and pear tree main pruning, ditch maintenance, cleanup from Wassail |
| March | Apple and pear light pruning, tidying up from heavy pruning season. |
| April | Site tidying, caring for young trees (guards, membrane, grass removal), light pruning of cherry and plum trees* |
| May** | Caring for young trees (guards, membrane, grass removal) |
| June | Caring for young trees (guards, membrane, grass removal), tidying up heavily pruned trees |
| July | Main pruning of cherry and plum trees, hedge maintenance |
| August | Main pruning of cherry and plum trees, hedge maintenance, picking plums, cherries and pears |
| September | Picking pears, plums and early apples, clearing grass from young trees in preparation for full cut. |
| October*** | Preparations for apple day, picking fruit to store for apple day |
| November | Dead wood removal from apple and pear trees, hedge maintenance. |
| December | Wassail preparations, apple and pear tree pruning, ditch maintenance |
* Only prune the leaders of the cherry and plum trees once the buds have started to open.
** May's maintenance day is often on the second Sunday to avoid a clash with the Sawbridgeworth May Fayre.
*** Apple day often falls on the first Saturday in October. In that case, the October maintenance day is moved to the last Sunday in September.
Orchard Tours
Our volunteers are able to give tours of the Rivers Nursery Orchard and Site tailored to interested groups. Please e-mail us to arrange one.
Orchard Talks
Our volunteers give talks one the history or the Rivers Nursery and/or the work we do on the site that can be tailored to suit the needs of local groups. We usually require a projector or screen that can take HDMI or VGA input, but we can source one ourselves if needed. Please e-mail us to arrange one.