On Tuesday 28th April members of East Kent Fruit Society gathered for a farm walk at Chandler & Dunn’s Lower Goldstone farm at Ash near Canterbury.
EKFS Society – Chairman Alex Cooke – welcomed members to the first meeting of the 2015 season; Alex said visiting Chandler & Dunn was an excellent start to the 2015 programme of events and it is some time since the society had been to Lower Goldstone.
Host for the evening was Clive Chandler who manages the fruit enterprise at Lower Goldstone; Clive explained that the 210 hectares of fruit grown by the Chandler & Dunn family is split between two farms with Perry Fruit Farm at Wingham the other fruit enterprise.
EKFS farm walks are always well attended and Tuesday evening was no exception, with more than 70 members arriving at Lower Goldstone on a dry and generally sunny evening for a very interesting tour of the orchards.
Lower Goldstone has changed over the last decade from a traditional fruit business with Cox on MM106, Bramley, Pears and mix of Plum varieties; in 2015 the farm grows many of the modern dessert varieties becoming popular today and all on M9 rootstock.
Read more about the EKFS Blossom Walk in the next issue of The Fruit Grower magazine. www.thefruitgrower.co.uk
