The orchards

We are lucky to harvest fruit from several old, unsprayed orchards on Melukerdee Country in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and Huon Valley.

Capella orchard

Planted in July 2024, our home orchard is a little 2-acre experiment: 150 trees of 20 different cider apple varieties. The soil is deep loam over quartz sandstone and Jurassic dolerite, with sandier loam upslope and richer loam downslope.

We’ve spaced our trees (relatively) wide on a 6m x 6m grid to eventually allow sheep to graze beneath. The trees are grafted on the vigorous MM111 rootstock, which has the potential to produce a tree similar in size to a seedling or ‘full size’ tree. It also doesn’t need staking, even in the stiff Tassie winds.

Our orchard has been dry grown from the beginning, meaning the trees have never been irrigated. We manage the pasture under the trees carefully to keep the moisture in the soil when the season gets challenging.

We have biodynamically managed this orchard from the start using the Demeter method (we are currently in-conversion). The only external input we use is prepared 500.

Varieties:

  • Yarlington Mill

  • Kingston Black

  • Improved Foxwhelp

  • Somerset Redstreak

  • Blanchett 

  • Breakwell’s Seedling

  • Red Winesap

  • Fréquin Rouge Amer

  • Antoinette 

  • Cremiere

  • Dabinett

  • Tremlett’s Bitter

  • Bulmers Norman

  • Closette

  • Michelin

  • Browns Apple

  • Woodbridge Crab

  • Bedan

  • Cimetiere de Blangy

  • Sweet Coppin 

Pear Tree Cottage

Planted in 1987 by Lynne Uptin & Clive Crossley (who made the iconic Red Sails Cider) and now managed by Heather & Richard Clement, this incredible orchard must be one of the oldest dedicated cider orchards in Tasmania.

The site is on the shore of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, looking out over Bruny Island with beautiful old trees rolling down to almost the water’s edge. This orchard has never been sprayed and the diversity of fungi thriving beneath these trees is a sight to behold!

It is a privilege to be able to use this incredible fruit in our cider. Heather & Richard have also generously lent us the old Red Sails Cider shed to make our cider in for the 2026 season.

Some of the varieties:

  • Yarlington Mill

  • Michelin

  • Somerset Redstreak

  • Breakwell’s Seedling

  • Frequin Rouge

  • Brown Snout

  • Dabinett

Sally’s orchard

Growing right next door to the Capella orchard, Sally’s are the oldest trees we harvest from. They were part of the original Coxs Road orchard planting, which used to line the whole street. It’s the last little pocket that has survived the years and we are so thankful it has been spared!

The trees are some of the oldest apple trees we’ve encountered in Tasmania and are at least 75 years old, maybe older. Though Sally’s orchard is a mix of eating apples, we take mainly the Coxs Orange Pippin, a delicious dual-purpose heritage variety. It is a crucial component of our cider and makes up about 1/3 of the Trefoil blend. The fruit is gnarly and russeted, with an incredibly concentrated flavour and beautiful acidity.

However harvesting this fruit is not for the faint-hearted! The orchard has not been formally managed in decades, with silver wattle trees growing amongst the apples and blackberries trying to consume everything. While it’s made for an incredibly diverse ecosystem and a haven for local wildlife, it can be a challenge to pick. We think it’s worth it.