Hedge laying almost complete

The hedge laying at the orchard site is is now almost complete with the final section of hedge by the road gateway. The hedges are thin, thanks to the neglect by previous owners, but they should fill out soon, though in some parts we'll have to plant new shrubs.

We've been left with about a dozen large piles of thorn bush for us to build bonfires and burn.

Thorn bush piles left to burn.

Overall the field side hedge looks much better, but the next stage will be to install a wire stock fence to provide security and to protect the newly laid hedge from sheep/cows for a couple of years. You can see the laying is typical Derbyshire style with no binding rods between the posts. I'm more used to the Midlands style.

There are clear signs of spring with daffodils growing in random places in the field. These are almost certainly relics of the earlier dumping of waste soil and rubble during previous ownership.

Planting trees

We had a busy day in the orchard site yesterday planting most of the fruit trees. We'd planted the maiden bare root apple/cherry trees a couple of days ago. The first thing was to transport the trees in their pots from where they'd been overwintering in our garden. The buds were beginning to sprout so we had to transport them carefully two at a time in the back of our estate car from Belper. It took a total of five return trips. 

Next we visited Lester Lowe for a bundle of 50 hedging stakes which we'll use to provide to provide protective enclosures for the trees. They are about 20 mm square and 150 cm tall with tanelised sawn wood. They should last for the first few years of the tree's lives after which the trees should be tall enough and tough enough to resist the predations of any marauding sheep who sneak into the orchard. Hopefully by then our newly laid hedges will be providing some protection too.

We had a good three hours hard work, assisted by our German Shepherd Dog, digging holes and driving fencing stakes to provide the new home for the trees. The heavy post knocker we purchased last year has proved to be a great investment. The bottom of each pit was lined with a mix of coarse sand and manure compost to give the trees  a bit of a head start. We planted all but three of the fruit trees. We'll complete the tree planting today, then during the next week we'll build the protective enclosures for the trees. It is interesting to hear the comments of people walking by on the Ashbourne Road, clearly there is some interest in the progress of the  project from our neighbours.

Elka the GSD puppy discovered a mud wallow

We had a bonus in the shape of a walnut tree given to us by our neighbours in Belper. The tree is about four years old and about 2 metres tall. This also has been planted in the orchard. It took a rather large hole to accommodate the root ball! Our dog Rocky has been left to guard this tree.

It looks like all of the hundred willow wands we planted are sprouting new leaves in the grove we planted earlier this year. We should be able to harvest some of these for the spilling work on the river bank next  Autumn.

In many places we found clay and builders rubble which had been dumped on the land during previous ownership. Odd garden flowers such as crocus are appearing on the land. This is a clear sign of dumping which has effectively ruined the land for agricultural purposes. However the original alluvial soil is good and should be good for the trees of the orchard. I'm sure we'll build quite a large rubble heap over the years as we extract bricks from the soil.

Where's a northerly wind when you want one?

We were working to clear some of the trimmings from the hedging process yesterday. We needed to burn some massive piles of hawthorn and blackthorn branches. Unfortunately we really need to have the wind coming from the North West so the smoke from the bonfires does not drift across the Ashbourne Road. Mostly this winter it has been coming from the South West.

We'd gathered a large pile of Ash branches fallen from the large old tree and dragged them to form a bonfire, as yet unlit, to form the nucleus of heat to burn the thorn bush branches. We'll need a large hot fire to get the process going, but once it has started it will just be a matter of feeding the fire with branches. We think it is about two days solid work to move all of the thorn branches. We've located the bonfire site on a patch of Alder which had grown up during the period of the neglectful owner. This will be an easier way to destroy these "weeds" rather than dig them up.

We've now planted some of the fruit trees in the orchard site. We chose the bare root saplings as Spring is rushing toward us and the sap will soon be rising. That leaves the saplings in pots to be planted. While we we there we tidied some of the heavy boughs fallen from the large Ash tree in the autumn storms. Those were converted into logs with our chainsaw and as they were already dead on the tree they are nicely seasoned and we were able to use them on our open fire kitchen range 

The Ash wood is a really nice fuel. The logs split easily, the fire is hot and almost smokeless and there is only a tiny wood ash residue afterwards. It is indeed a welcome bonus from the orchard site.

A break in the rain

Snowdrops in Turnditch orchard

Sunday was a clear sky day so we took the opportunity to visit the field. There are snowdrop flowers breaking out in many places. It was the first time we'd let our German Shepherd pup free to run on the field, she had great fun splashing in the puddles.

Elka the GSD in the puddles

Hopefully we can start to plant the fruit trees if the soil is  not too waterlogged. In the background of the above picture you can see the hedge laying has progressed despite the poor weather.

Riparian owners in an orchard.

We did some research on the responsibilities and rights we gained when we took on the plot of land at the edge of the Ecclesbourne River. Officially at the place of our orchard it is a watercourse and not a river. The following is a summary and not necessarily correct legal advice on our part.

Riparian Owners 

You are known as a riparian owner if you own land or property adjacent to a watercourse. By virtue of being a riparian owner you have rights and responsibilities.

Your rights as a riparian owner are: 

• You are presumed to own the land up to the centre of the watercourse, unless it is known to be owned by others.
• You have the right to receive flow of water in its natural state, without undue interference in quantity or quality.
• You have the right to protect your property from flooding, and your land from erosion. You will in most cases need the prior consent of the Environment Agency and Local Authority for any works, however. In the case of The Ecclesbourne at Turnditch it is Derbyshire County Council.
• You have the right to fish in your watercourse, although this must be by legal methods and with an Environment Agency rod licence.
• Without needing a licence, you can abstract a maximum of 20 cubic metres of  water per day for the domestic purposes of your own household or for agricultural use, excluding spray irrigation, from a watercourse at a point that directly adjoins your land. Most other types of abstraction will require a licence from the Agency. 

Your responsibilities 

• You have the responsibility to pass on flow without obstruction, pollution or diversion affecting the rights of others. 
• You have the responsibility to accept flood flows through your land, even if caused by inadequate capacity downstream, as there is no common law duty to improve a watercourse.
• You are responsible for maintaining the bed and banks of the watercourse (including trees and shrubs growing on the banks), and for clearing any debris, natural or otherwise, including litter and animal carcasses, even if it did not originate from your land. 
• You must not cause any obstructions to the free passage of fish. 
• You are responsible for keeping the bed and banks clear of any matter that could cause an obstruction, either on your land or by being washed away by high flow to obstruct a structure downstream. Watercourses and their banks must not be used for the disposal of any form of garden or other waste. 
• You are responsible for keeping clear any structures that you own such as culverts, trash screens, weirs and mill gates. 
• You may have flood defences such as walls and embankments on your property, which are vital for the protection of both yourself and others. You should discuss the maintenance of such defences with the Environment Agency office. 
• You are responsible for protecting your property from seepage through natural or man-made banks. Where such seepage threatens the structural integrity of a flood defence, it may become the concern of the Environment Agency. 

Snowdrops at Turnditch Orchard

There's signs of Spring already at the orchard. We found these snowdrops poking their heads above the soil on the first day of February. Behind the flowers you can see the Ecclesbourne swollen by the recent rains.

Snowdrops by the Ecclesbourne

Rotten trees in the roadside hedge

The fencing contractors employed to install the wire stock fence, on the roadside of the orchard site, cut back some of the hedge bushes. This was fine by us. They needed relatively straight lines of sight for the fencing process which involves tensioning the wire. 

However the trimming back exposed several small trees of up to 15 cm (6 in) diameter which were rotten through to the core. I was able to push these trees over by hand. They then fell down the embankment into our field site. It would not have been good if winds had pushed them in the opposite direction on to the road. It is yet more urgent work needed to tidy the woodland on the embankment. The rotten trees were mostly Elm and Hawthorn. I'll collect the rotten trunks and store them either on the embankment or in a corner of the field so any wood boring grubs inside are not disturbed.

We'd intended to do this tidying work during November and December of last year but the temporary loss of my driving licence (a single 30 second blackout) has greatly impaired our ability to transport equipment to the site. Hopefully the Government officials will decide I've been punished enough for the single isolated health event and return my licence to me. Otherwise progress on the work of setting up the orchard will be impaired. It is unlikely the orchard will ever generate enough income to pay for the extensive use of contractors. There's just a couple of months left before the birds nesting season starts which will put a stop to any major works in the woodland.