Rat Problem

We noticed a few rat burrows close to the chicken feed area. I have not seen any rats themselves, but if we block the holes by collapsing them they are soon repaired. We don't like the idea of poison bait as other animals may find the corpses. We've tried metal vermin traps to try to catch the rats live, but without success. The rats are clever enough to remove the bait without springing the traps.

This week I purchased 5 kilograms of Dry Ice pellets. In the process of a couple of applications we stuffed the entrances of the burrows with Dry Ice. This vaporises producing carbon dioxide gas which fills the tunnel system and fumigates the rat burrows by asphyxiating the vermin. It is quick and painless.

Since application we've seen no rat activity. This is not the cheapest solution with Dry Ice costing about £10 per kilo in small quantities, but it avoids causing harm to other animals or birds.  There is no residue left in the soil.


Update: One week later.
I was too optimistic, the rat activity started up again. It seems their burrow system was much larger than we'd estimated and the CO2 gas didn't reach everywhere. We've given in and tried rat poison. (Tomcat Bait). Our particular horde of rats seem to be immune to the poison (Bromadiolone) as they have munched through 1.5 Kilo's of bait in less than a week. The guidance is to never under-bait!  Just as I arrived on site with a batch of different poison I found our first dead rat. Overall their activity seems much reduced, so fingers crossed it may have worked.

Update 13th May 2015
The new bait seems to have worked; there are no rats living close to the chicken run. I keep the bait topped up and it gradually decreases, I think this is from visiting rats.

Complexities in creating an orchard

It pays to look and think when planning work on agricultural land. When we purchased the land just over a year ago our solicitor did the usual searches for drains and pipes close to the land but nothing unusual showed up. We also ran our own internet searches with the national grid and nothing showed. Once we'd cleared the undergrowth around the hedges we noticed a couple of marker posts just inside the boundary fence of our neighbouring farmer. The detail plates were missing from both marker posts.

The posts were clearly quite old and covered with lichen. There were no obvious clue as to what utilities lay nearby. None of the local people seemed to know what services were represented or whether they no longer existed. After a lot of work tracking down old plans we were able to find the record to two pipes crossing the adjoining field.

One of the pipes is an old water clay pipe with a six inch diameter. This is now disused. A little further away to the south is a more modern plastic pipe (18 cm) also believe to be carrying clean water. I'm not sure when these pipes were laid, but there are no signs of soil disturbance, though the plans I've seen a date of July 1993 for the plastic pipe.

The small circle on the plastic pipe in the plan represents either a bowser point (A point on a water supply system where it is planned to put one or more water bowsers in the event of disruption to normal water supplies)  or an inspection hatch (A vertical access shaft from ground level to a surface

water sewer to allow cleaning, inspection, connections and repairs). We need to do some more investigation to establish the exact location because even though the pipe is not on our land it can influence what we plant.

Recommendations for tree and surface planting:

• Poplar and willow trees should not be planted within 10m of the water main

• The following trees should not be planted within 6m of the pipeline – ash, beech, birch,

most conifers, elm, horse chestnut, lime, oak, sycamore, apple and pear

• No shrubs or bushes should be planted within 1m of the centre line of the pipeline

• The following shallow rooted shrubs/bushes are suitable for screening purposes in close

proximity to water mains – blackthorn, broom, cotoneaster, elder, hazel, laurel, privet, quickthorn,

snowberry and most ornamental flowering shrubs.

As we are planning to undertake willow spiling on the river bank we need to be sure it is 10 metres distant from the water pipeline.

ASBOs for orchard owners.

The UK Government is introducing new rules aimed at preventing the spread of invasive alien plants. Landowners are exposed to 2500 GBP fines and a criminal conviction if they don't control these plants on their land. The focus is on Japanese Knotweed and also Giant Hogweed. However they've also included Himalayan Balsam in the scope of the legislation. 

We have found some Himalayan Balsam on our orchard plot and during the year have taken action to carefully remove the plants when we find them. The problem is largely under control. The seeds seem to be carried to the field along the route of the Ecclesbourne river. There are large infestations both upstream and downstream of our stretch of the river which act as a source so it is going to be a continual process of eradication. I do wonder how the adjoining land owners/tenants will deal with their infestations. As we're on the edge of a residential area there is a risk of ASBOs (Antisocial Behaviour Orders) and a criminal record.

Other links are here.

Electric fence progress

I spent a few hours in the orchard today to complete the main part of the installation of the electric fence. There's now five stands of fence wire installed and correctly tensioned mounted on suitable insulators. In total there is over half a kilometre of  wiring, 60 insulators  and 25 wire knot joints. Feeding the high tensile wire was really hard work because I didn't have the correct "bobbin" to roll out the wire. Instead I had to work from the coil of wire. The coil was constantly threatening to explode into a birds nest of wire tangle. I had to feed each inch of wire carefully whilst keeping a tight grasp on the main wire coil.

The Gripple line tensioning tool (Torq) worked superbly and made the job of tensioning the wire really straight forward. Tomorrow I'll be ordering the lead/acid  batteries to power the fence.

Electric fence at Turnditch Orchard

Edit 25/10/2014

The electric fence is connected and live as of 5 pm today. The connection process was straightforward as a consequence of the careful planning work and preparatory effort. The "hot" wire strands are interconnected at various points along the length to ensure maximum connectivity and to minimise any power leakage, The measured voltage on all strands is 7000 volts. The bottom strand will not normally be connected to the power, but will be configured as a ground wire.

Edit 15/01/2015
We were beginning to wonder if we'd wasted money and effort on the electric fence. However when we drove past the site today and noticed the sheep were back in the adjoining farmer's field. The fence seems to be keeping the sheep out of our orchard. Yippee!

Busy in the Orchard today

I spent most of the day in the orchard driving fence posts into the ground. I had to dig holes a metre deep for the larger posts and used a 20 kilogram post driver for the other wooden posts.  I covered 120 metres run of fencing. This will be used for the electric fence. By the end of the day the post driver was feeling very heavy. The next step is to cut back the under growth with a brush cutter before I install the insulators on the posts. I'm creating a six strand fence.

Update Sunday 20th. 
Yesterday I had a couple of hour's hard work to cut a swathe through the weeds and blackthorn saplings. These had sprung up on the neighbours field side of the hedge following last winter's hedging work. There's now a 120 by 2 metre strip free of weeds along the route of the electric fence. 

Today I installed the insulators on the fence posts and both the top and bottom strands of the fence. The bottom strand is high tensile galvanised steel wire it will not be electrified, but will be grounded to earth, The top strand is white polypropylene electric fence rope of approximately 7 mm diameter. It will be electrified to 8000 volts. I've chosen this to make the fence obvious to anyone passing close by to the fence. Once the Gripple fence tool arrives I'll install the other strands of the fence using 2 mm alloy wire. This wire is specially designed for the job with a very low electrical resistance to reduce voltage drop along the length of the fence. However the thin grey wire is difficult to see in poor light conditions,  hence the obvious white top strand.

I've spent a while this evening practising the knots used for fencing wire attachment of the insulators mounted on the end posts. Along the length of the fence the gap between the wooden posts is about 12 metres. I'll be placing lightweight plastic step-in posts between the wooden posts to act as wire spreaders. These will discourage sheep etc from pushing through the fence strands.

Fence is broken

As I drove past the orchard site yesterday I noticed the top wire of the new fence at the roadside was slack. I stopped to inspect it. At the lower end someone or something had pulled back a couple of metres of wire. When I followed the length of the fence, about 100 metres, I found a break in the wire. It looks like a stress break so I'm not sure what caused it. The fence after all is only one year old. Such are the trials of land ownership.

I effected a quick temporary repair and pulled the wire back into place by hand. It will need some proper tensioning and a permanent repair. The fence has a 15 year guarantee, but it seems a bit mean to call the fencer out just for a single wire break. 

As it happens I had been driving back from Lester Lowes with a pair of 8 foot  by 6 inch fence posts. I'd purchased them to form the end posts for the electric fence which I'm planning on the other side of the field. I needed to have a method of tensioning and fixing the high tensile conductor wires for the fence at each end. Last night I've decided to invest in a Gripple Torq wrench and some Gripple fixings. I can use the tool for the fence repair, the electric fence installation and also for future fence repairs. I'll no doubt do some damage to fences when I start coppicing trees on the embankment. and river bank.

Edit 21st Oct 2014

The Gripple tool arrived today. After checking a training video on YouTube I went to the orchard to fix the fence using Gripple fixings. I repaired and retensioned the fence in less than five minutes. It gave a neat strong repair.

Road closure in Turnditch

We've just discovered  in a newspaper report (Derby Telegraph) that the A517 Ashbourne Road which provides access to our orchard will be closed  during the day (9:30am - 3:30pm) by Derbyshire Country Council between 20th Oct until 10th November. The gate of our orchard is within the closed section of the road. The closed section is from the Railway Inn (B5023) to Windley Lane. For vehicles over  7.5 tonnes the diversion adds 8 miles to the journey from Cowers Lane to Ashbourne.

We'd planned a lot of works in the orchard during that period. Let's hope we can make some access arrangements otherwise it will delay our planned work, possibly by another year!


Edit: 9th Oct 2013 The inhabitants of Turnditch have made contact with the council and suggested their needs are taken in to account with the planned closures. It is believed the original plan may be modified somewhat. Local businesses losing custom for three weeks was somewhat unwelcome.