OUR ORCHARD FARMING SYSTEM
At Orchard People, we believe that farming puts people at the centre of holistic interactions with animals, plants and fungi, soil and microorganisms, water and sunshine. Often criticised for our impact on the planet, humans also have the unique ability to nurture, guide, and care for ecosystems. By observing, learning, and carefully managing the balance, we can become part of the orchard ecosystem — its guardians and beneficiaries. Inspired by regenerative farmers who are rejecting conventional, extractive methods, we are proud to take this approach to the highest standard and be certified organic with the Soil Association.
Our logo – O – represents the circularity of the natural systems at our farm and our holistic approach to their interdependencies. By doing things a little more slowly, with responsibility - and without destructive chemical shortcuts - we are producing high quality, healthy food that can feed us in perpetuity from nature’s bounty rather than by extracting nutrition from the land.
OUR PRINCIPLES
HEALTHY
We farm organically because healthy soil grows nutritious food. No shortcuts, no compromises. What your food eats matters — the diet of a plant or animal determines the nutrition it passes on. By ensuring that everything in our orchards thrives without pesticides or artificial fertilisers, we protect the natural balance of nutrients. The result is produce that’s wholesome, nourishing, and perfectly in tune with how our bodies are meant to absorb goodness from food.
NATURAL
At Orchard People, we farm in partnership with nature. Our orchard system goes beyond organic standards, built on care, observation, and respect for natural cycles. Unlike conventional agriculture, where crops and animals are treated as separate, industrial units, our orchards integrate them into a holistic living system. Hens fertilise the soil, pigs clear fallen fruit, and bees pollinate the spring blossoms — each species supporting the health of the whole. Setting aside land for wildlife as well as encouraging creatures great and small into the orchards, we reject the factory model and let nature lead.
LOCAL
Nestled on a hillside above the market town of Sherborne, the orchards at Little Burton Farm are part of Dorset’s living history — marked on the first maps of 1886 and still thriving today. We’re rooted in this landscape, farming slowly and carefully in a fast-moving world. Our produce comes straight from the orchard to shops and cider makers — fresh, full of flavour, and rooted in the Dorset landscape. When you choose Orchard People, you’re supporting small-scale, regenerative farming that protects the land, cares for nature, and helps sustain real food and local farming.
Healthy
Natural
Local
OUR MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
Our farm is small enough that a hands-on approach can be taken to ensure the best plant and animal health. We don’t sit in enormous machines, ploughing up vast squares of dirt; our orchard alleys are regularly walked and our animals have daily welfare checks. We carefully prune the trees to let in light and air and we spray gentle, natural teas made from seaweed, nettle, horsetail and garlic to boost the trees’ health and strengthen their natural defences. We can no longer name all of our chickens but we make an exception for Dave, Laurie and Snowy the cockerels, who help us to look after the hens as we regularly move their house to fresh grass, check their food and water and collect their amazing eggs.
Care
HANDS ON
Everything begins with healthy soil. By feeding the soil food web rather than applying destructive fertilisers, we enable the fungi, bacteria and microorganisms to provide nutrients to tree and plant roots. Healthy trees produce healthy fruit, rich in natural flavour. Healthy, living pastures under the trees provide an enormous source of nutrition for the hens to forage.
We spread woodchip across the orchard floor to combine with our hens’ manure in feeding the soil. Between the trees we have sown a colourful mix of grasses, wildflowers, herbs and legumes. This diverse sward attracts pollinators and micro-predators, improves soil structure, and brings yet more beauty to the orchard.
Our flock of free-range hens live under the apple trees, moving around the orchards in their mobile house. Their manure fertilises the ground, they eat the larvae of apple tree pests, and their scratching helps to recycle organic matter back into the soil – a perfect partnership of trees and animals.
As well as encouraging as much wildlife as possible within the orchards, we also manage 30% of the farm primarily for nature. We are privileged to care for a variety of habitats within our veteran woodland, streams and ponds. The more “edges” that we can create between a mosaic of habitats, the greater the biodiversity we hope to encourage.
The result is a vibrant, sustainable ecosystem where soil, plants, animals and people all thrive together – producing produce of outstanding quality, grown with care.
FEEDING THE
INTEGRATING
SPACE FOR
Soil
Livestock
Nature
