Our Story
Home of the tastiest mandarins in the world
Capel Seedless Mandarins is a family owned orchard located on a 10 acre property 2km soulth of Capel. We bought the property Christmas 2008 as an established orchard. Neither Jo nor myself had grown or managed an orchard before and we had no idea of what was needed or what we were in for. How hard could it be?
The previous owners John and Bella helped with great advice in that first year and we had a wonderful crop in 2009. Now we were on our own, Bit like having children and leaving the materity ward for the first time, plenty of ideas but then reality sets in. 2011 saw a massive hail storm that finished about 100m past our farm we were told. We were told becaouse we were away on holdiays for the April shcool holidays. We returned to find many of the trees de-foliated and 50% of the crop ruined. However becaouse of the reduced crop loading in 2011, 2012 was a bumper year.
The next 5 years were great and we felt we were starting to understad the business of running an orchard, all be it part time as both Jo and I have off farm employment. 2017 was a strange year. We normally start picking the 1st of June within about 5 days. This year we started picking 10th August, 9 weeks late? The fruit was dry and not the same flavour! A wet September in 2016 caused for a late flowering.
We are not organic but we do not use pesticides on the fruit, rather promote benificial bugs to do the dirty work. We run horses and goats through the orchard to help manage the grass and weeds, this has greatly reduced the reliance on the use of any herbicides. Our soils are a heavy clay/loam. These require regular aplications of gypsom. We spread over 25tonne of aged compost every year as a fertaliser and a soil conditioner.
We have two types of mandarine. Clementine Nules that are harvested in June, July & August and Mystique Mandarins that are havested in September, October & November.
We hope you enjoy our fruit as much as we enjoy growing it. All the best, Bruce, Jo, Harry & Alix.