Real nature in the Orchard

Yesterday evening we came across a clutch of five pheasants eggs in the longer grass in the Orchard. They were located about four metres from the riverside public footpath. The pheasant hen had probably abandoned the nest after being inadvertently disturbed by passing walkers. She was just too close to the path.. Normally you'd find more than five eggs in a clutch.

All of the eggs had been raided and pecked open leaving just their olive green shells. Presumably this destruction was the work of a magpie or a crow. 

Most of the newly laid hedgerow is now showing progress in most places with small green shoots thrusting upwards from the stem of laid blackthorn.

The willow is sprouting

We've had good results with the willow planted in a grove in the orchard. We planted 100 wands of Salix Viminalis and we've had a 100% success rate in their rooting and sprouting.

The above picture shows the healthy growth so far on one of the wands.

Burning the blackthorn after hedge laying

We now have piles of thorn bush trimmings to burn  following the hedge laying process. It really is nasty stuff. The thorns can easily pierce shoes, jackets and thin gloves. If the thorn penetrate your skin they can often cause a septic wound unless you remove them and cleanse the wound.  I use some rawhide welding gloves and wear heavy boots when moving the stuff. It takes awhile for the thorn to ignite, you need quite a fierce and large fire running to get the process started, but once it is going you have to work hard to feed the fire with thorn branches.

The picture below is me working in the orchard a couple of weeks ago burning some of the earlier batches of thorn wood. I'm using my trusty Sheen X300 flame gun to get the process started.

Burning thorn bush trimmings left from hedge laying

The sapling behind me is Alder which was growing wild like a weed on the land following the earlier dumping, we are removing them. The american cowboy hat is merely to protect my shiny head from the sun and the thorns.

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.