Fruits of our Labour

I and the volunteer were working on the Turnditch orchard last night preparing the ground to remove some more blackthorn bushes which have invaded the field. With my wonky foot progress was a little bit slow but steady. We are working to make the land safe so other people can be invited on to the land.

I was able to take home a couple of the Queen Cox apples which we allowed to fruit this year. They have a gorgeous flavour. It gives promise of great fruit in the future.

Neighbours to the rescue

The young man who volunteers came to the rescue over the long grass on the orchard. He successfully took on the task of mowing the the grass and weeds. It takes about five hours to complete this task and is hard work. While I'm recovering from my foot injury it's not a job I should attempt. The dumped rubble prevents the use of a normal mowing machine.

It orchard is now looking as though it is tended and cared for thanks to his work with the field trimmer.

Off my feet

The grass is long in the orchard. A couple of weeks ago when I was cleaning out the stream bed I managed to tear the muscles under my right foot. It makes walking quite painful. The doctor called it Plantar Fasciitis and said it will take several weeks to resolve, but I shouldn't need surgery!

So no hard manual work for a while.

Meanwhile we were able to sample the first few plums and cherries from the orchard. They were delicious.

Removing sick Elm trees

We cleared out some sick Elm trees from the river bank this week. It is all part of the programme to open up the river bank down at the Turnditch Orchard Project. We used cable winches to prevent the trees falling into the river and a chain saw to cut the trees. I made good use of my new wader boots as the dummy in the water. 

It is a lot more open than it used to be when we first took possession of the field. There's a couple of pictures below showing the before state.

The river bank before cut back. Notice the marked trees.

Our dog getting ready for a paddle.

There is of course a very large pile of wood now awaiting destruction by burning on site. We don't want to risk spreading the disease any further. I'll devise some kind of furnace to keep the fire temperatures high. Elm is usually not a very good firewood, if left to its own devices it usually produces a lot of acrid smoke when it burns in an open fire.

This tree removal work will make space for us to introduce some erosion control on the river banks.

Hedge trim and river cleaning

We had a reasonably productive week so far. With the aid of the new volunteer help we were able to winch a fallen tree from the river. A pile of silt had built up on the river bed where the tree was impeding the water flow. Hopefully that will resolve itself or we'll have to carry many bucket loads of mud from the river.

Fallen tree in the river

We were able to remove some invasive and some poisonous plants from the orchard, namely Himalayan Balsam and also full grown Ragwort. Ragwort is toxic to grazing animals such as horses. The persistent toxins destroy the animals' livers.

I spent a few hours yesterday trimming the roadside hedge which was encroaching the footpath and also beginning to hide some road signs. Thinking about the work made me realise I'd trimmed something like 400 Sq Metres of hedge using hand tools, mostly hawthorn and some ash trees. Wearing bright yellow clothing while working on the roadside footpath was an essential measure. The hump of the railway bridge makes it a blind spot for cars and lorry drivers.

Help in the Orchard

A pleasant change to the routine yesterday evening. We had a volunteer helping out. This young man, who lives locally, is helping as part of his voluntary service for his Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award Scheme. We started him gently with using the field trimmer to cut down a large area of grass and weeds. He probably now has a good feel for the unevenness of the ground. He discovered the powerful motor (5.5 HP) can be stubborn when it comes to starting on the recoil cord.

He did a great job and was learning fast. As preparation prior to starting work he'd spent a couple of hours viewing safety videos on YouTube. The objective is for his assistance to help us improve safety so we can open the Orchard to the local community.

Himalayan Balsam at Turnditch Orchard

The River Ecclesbourne which runs along the foot of our orchard is a conduit for the seeds of the Himalayan Balsam (HB). This is an invasive weed which needs to be controlled. Over the  past couple of years we've been removing any HB we've found growing on the land. It is under control now. You have to be very ruthless about its removal before it has the chance to go to seed. The seed pods pop and explosively scatter seed over quite a distance when they are ripe.

However the adjoining field and the river upstream of our site are full of this resilient weed and provide a source of new "infections" of HB. I noticed some growing in the silt at the edge of our river a few days ago, so I donned some waders to deal with the weed. It is fairly easy to uproot the  weed roots and all by gently pulling on the stem. If you leave any broken off weed stems they soon regrow.

Here's a picture of before and after:

Himalayan Balsam at the Turnditch Orchard

Himalayan Balsam removed from river bank

Note I removed the pile of weeds shown in the lower photo, they'll be incinerated. There's useful leaflet about controlling the weed from the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust here.