Last week, Sam and Nadia from Equisera pulled on their wellies and headed to Eastington Community Orchard for the first of a new monthly volunteering commitment, working alongside Tom Low and the orchard’s group of volunteers.
Coneygree, one of the two sites the community orchard has set up, is a stone’s throw from our HQ campus in Eastington, and Tom has been incredibly welcoming since we acquired our factory and production facility there a few years ago. Now that we’re fully on site as of July 2026, it made sense to build a closer working relationship with the team next door.
Equisera has committed a team of two volunteers every month, running from September 2026 through to August 2027. It’s hands-on work: lawn mowers, strimmers and loppers rather than hard hats, helping the orchard with whatever the season calls for. The first session saw the pair get through a lot of mowing and strimming before moving on to pruning.
The commitment continues through autumn with more mowing and heavier pruning, and the timing lines up well with the orchard’s own harvest season, as Eastington Community Orchard moves into Apple Days, juicing and cider-making.
Run entirely by local volunteers, Eastington Community Orchard maintains two sites in the parish, Coneygree and Brownings, and now has over 150 members, including work party volunteers, apple day helpers, and juice, cider and perry makers.
Coneygree Orchard is planted with a real mix of traditional and local varieties across apples, pears, plums, damsons, gages, cherries, quince and medlar, alongside walnut, oak and hazel. Several trees carry a distinctly Gloucestershire pedigree: Foxwhelp and Tom Putt cider apples, Blaisdon Red plum, and the Gloucestershire Underleaf apple all trace back to the county’s cider and perry-making traditions. Dessert apples like Egremont Russet, D’Arcy Spice and Ashmeads Kernel sit alongside cooking varieties such as Bramley and Annie Elizabeth, with perry pears including Green Horse and Beurre Clairgeau, and damsons like Farleigh and Merryweather rounding out the collection. You can see the full list of the trees planted at the orchard here.
This is part of a wider commitment to people and planet at Equisera, and supporting the community groups on our doorstep is a big part of that. It’s great to be putting down roots with our neighbours!
Find out more and get involved at Eastington Community Orchards.
