Natural branch chipping

Following the winter tree felling work on the orchard we've been left with two large piles of branches requiring disposal. I checked the rental cost for a suitable chipping machine and found one for £114/per day from the local Buildbase. Of course fuel would be extra. I looked at transporting the wood to a Local Authority dump for disposal, it needed the rental of a trailer (£40/day) and several trips to the dump.

Eventually I decided on a centuries old method and lit a bonfire. The piles of branches were cleared in 3 hours hard work. I'll be gym fit in no time if this carries on. No fossil fuel was required, though I did need a glass or two of cider afterwards to recover.

The future of the Orchard Project at Turnditch

We've just been reflecting on the future of the project to create the orchard site at Turnditch. The current objective is to provide an amenity space for the public. A lot of the work and financial investment so far has been targeted at providing a safe place for local children and families to visit. It's been a lot of  hard physical work to clear the previous neglected scrub land. The recent events of theft, intrusion and damage to the fences makes us wonder if there's some resistance or lack of support from the local population. 

In reality the land is not of any great agricultural value, it is too narrow for economic farming. Perhaps it might be better if we used the land for development instead of the orchard. We should be able to house ten families on the land with some careful development of suitable multi-occupancy buildings. It will still be possible to provide social benefit from the project by making the housing low cost for families who cannot afford the high Turnditch property prices. Alternatively it would be an ideal location to house some refugee families. My friends in the Home Office tell me they are desperate for such sites for the Syrian refugees and will provide substantial grants for such developments.  It would also help Derbyshire County Council meet its targets for housing refugees.

We won't make a decision yet, and will continue with the orchard project. However before we invest too much more of our retirement savings in this project, it is probably worth visiting some old friends in Whitehall to sound out their views. 

Crime in sleepy Turnditch

Crime visits the sleepy village of Turnditch, or rather the orchard site we're developing. We'd installed an electric fence between our site and the adjoining farmer's field The purpose was to stop sheep coming into the orchard and destroying the young fruit trees. This electric fence also had the side benefit in that stopped the farmer's sheep wandering on to the Ecclesbourne Valley railway. Those sheep are not our responsibility, but it cost nothing to have extended the protection, so it was a courtesy.

This evening we visited the site to charge the battery which powers the fence. When we arrived we found that someone has stolen the fence energiser unit. We'd hidden this unit out of sight under a builder's bucket, but anyone following the fence line would be able to find it. It was positioned in such a way that a deliberate premeditated activity is needed to locate the unit. 

It is a red coloured Hotshock A15 energiser worth £137. and was equipped with an iron stand post.

Ironically the thief left the lead acid battery in place. It was worth more than the energiser, but weighing in at 20 Kgs was less attractive. This crime will be reported to the police so will be included in the official figures for the locality.

There was also damage to the street side stock fence where someone has cut through the wire stock fence to gain access to the orchard. It is quite a distance from where the energiser was located, but this criminal damage is probably related to the theft. This will be reported as a crime. The combination of the two activities means it is possible for the sheep to gain access to the road. 

Hole cut in roadside stock fence

By the way, the unit is forensically marked. Should anyone be daft enough to buy it they'll find out the hard way such things are traceable.

Tidier orchard

We've just given the orchard it's first grass cut of the season. The quality of the grass is improving with a lot less weed than previous years, but it had grown a bit too tall. The weather was rather hot and we had to drink a lot (plain water !) to keep hydrated.  The field trimmer worked well despite giving us a bit of a scare earlier in the week when large cloudss of dense white smoke came out from the engine. After some investigation we realised we'd over-filled the oil sump in the engine, when we serviced it, and this had been picked up by the piston when we were attacking a slope. The dip stick for the engine oil is easy to misread.

We also did some weeding around the base of the trees and some of the herbs.  It was hard work overall but quite enjoyable in the current spell of fine weather. Our thoughts go to the volunteer team who are tucked away in their home revising for school exams.

Most of the trees are looking healthy with the exception of the Queen Cox Apple. I don't think it has survived the winter and the poor soil in the place we planted it. You live and learn. Our new Medlar planted earlier this year is doing well.

Planning for fence removal at the orchard

A couple of years ago we had a hedging professional on the orchard site re-laying the boundary hedge between our plot and the adjoining field. Previous owners had neglected the hedge over the years and had allowed the Blackthorn to run wild. At 11 GBP per metre it was not an insignificant investment. We needed to protect hedge from hungry sheep in its early stages of regrowing. We also needed to fill in some gaps to keep marauding sheep away from the young fruit trees. There was a real risk of damage by sheep to both the fruit trees and the relaid hedge as an earlier Blog post can attest. 

To provide this protection we installed a semi-permanent electric fence just inside in the boundary of the neighbouring field. It had driven wooden fence posts, with insulators screwed into them. The fence part was constructed with four strands of high tensile electric fence wire. The top strand was polypropylene rope with stainless steel strands interwoven. There's almost one kilometre of wiring.

The electric fence has worked out well and the hedge no longer needs any protection. The fruit trees could be damaged by the sheep, but the regrown hedge, plus some wire stockfence, is now providing an effective barrier.

The time has come to remove the electric fence. This should be a simple task were it not for the high tensile fence wire. The wire is very springy and easily tangles if not managed carefully. When delivered it was just a coil of wire contained by some soft iron wire wrapped around the coils. We had to carefully unwind the coils to avoid tangles as we laid the fence.

To help manage the recovery of the fence wire we've been busy in the workshop fabricating wooden drums/bobbins to receive the recovered fence wire. They are about one foot (30 cm) in diameter and about six inches (15 cm) wide. We've recently taken delivery of a large bandsaw in the workshop. This machine made the process of cutting circular disks of plywood for the bobbins an easy task. Air powered nail guns improved the accuracy and speed of nailing the bits together. While it is possible to buy old used plastic cable bobbins or use some old electric power cable cardboard bobbins it is quite satisfying to just build them from scrap bits of wood. It certainly is much more fun than commuting to a city office and spending the time doing boring paperwork and tedious phone conferences.

Soon we'll be drawing back the wire from the electric fences. We'll recover the gripples we used to tension the wire. The fence posts will be lifted and reused for wooden fence building further down in the orchard in the part we've yet to recover from the scrub land. The fence insulators will be recovered and stored for later use.

One lesson from all of this is that if you are considering buying a plot of land for an orchard be sure to check the state of the boundary fences. Estimate the cost of restoring the fences, hedges and walls to a good condition. It takes time and money to fix them. Sometimes your neighbours will show no interest in funding long term fixes for the fences.

A busy time of the year in the Orchard

Suddenly everything is springing into life in the Turnditch Orchard. The grass is starting to shoot up and will soon need trimming, but I want to leave it until the Celandine flowers have died away. These plants look a bit like buttercups but are a different species. We're still clearing piles of branches by burning them, but I've noticed a pair of robins nesting in one of the piles so we'll have to be extra careful in moving any pile. We need to rake the area where the trees were felled to remove any small branches from the grass or we'll be having trouble with the mowing machine.

The fruit trees are starting to flower, but we are still getting frosts at night. With the orchard positioned at the foot of a hill there's a risk of damage. I'll need to have some fleece fabric available to protest the fruit trees at this delicate stage of their annual growth cycle. Hopefully there will be no more sudden flooding. We need to mulch around the base of the fruit trees with compost to improve their resilience to drought and also to improve the soil quality, though we've applied some fertiliser I think in some areas the tree growth is retarded by poor soil quality. I'm beginning to realise that the land has been given little care over the past hundred years.

The areas where we planted herbs in the winter needs to be weeded. There are some areas where I need to use a flame gun to burn back weeds so can do some planting. Another walnut tree has arrived for planting.

Back at the house I need to get on with the annual service of the motors of the power equipment.  Typically I've left that a bit late. The volunteers are in the time of the year when they need to be revising for important exams so are not available. Coupled with an unexpected work commitment in London and a death in the family life is a bit complex at the moment. We were planning to buy the gates and posts for the roads side gateway, but an unexpected repair bill for my car windscreen has soaked up those funds, maybe I'll built them from timber rather than buy prefabricated steel gates.

Overall we are pleased with the general progress, but the work does seem to be mounting up.

Edit: 21st April 2016 Today we mulched around the base of the fruit trees with a one inch layer of rotted farmyard manure compost then covered the layer with large squares of discarded carpet to provide weed suppression. We've also undertaken the end of season servicing of the power machinery; cleaning filters, changing oil checking belts etc. Our dogs had great fun chasing field mice which had hidden under the carpet squares at the base of the trees.

Riverside gate

As part of the safety work on the Turnditch Orchard project, we have installed a metre high wire stock fence along the edge of the river bank where the public footpath runs. Normally the river level is low and safe, but after heavy rain the river quickly turns to spate. The swollen waters are fast flowing and dangerous.

We've always intended to allow access to the river, but didn't have a the time or funds to install a gateway through the fence. We did however design the fence so a small gate could be easily installed.  Last weekend we didn't work on the orchard, but instead used the time to set to work in our man cave to build a new gate. It has been built from timber left over from an earlier project. The timber is larch and has been pressure treated (tannalised) with chemicals to resist fungal and insect attack.

We cut mortice and tenon joints for the frame of the gate and added bracing, so it is quite light but strong. Its dimensions are 90 x 60 cm. We've given the finished unit a couple of coats of ranch paint to improve the water proofing and weather resistance. No screws were used in its construction (except for the hinges), as the mortice/tenon joints are quite accurate.  The cost of the gate, excluding the hinges, was about £4. When we looked around at suppliers the minimum price was £45 for a ready made unit.

Riverside gate on the Ecclesbourne

We'll be installing the gate today, the next stage will be to build some steps down the steep bank to the river adjacent to the gate. There's no complicated gate latch, just a loop of fencing wire to hold it closed.