A new BBQ at the orchard.

Today we lit the orchard's charcoal barbecue for the first time. Though we'd not intended to do any cooking during the first burn we couldn't resist the temptation. A quick visit to Anthony Andrews, the butcher 200 metres up the hill in Turnditch. realised the supply of one pork chop. The meat was soon sizzling above the hot coals. It was very tasty.

The world's most expensive cherries?

I was delayed from attending the orchard site for a couple of weeks following a neck injury. When I finally arrived I discovered the cherry tree had been stripped of its crop. I presume the culprits were either blackbirds or pigeons.

It is a great pity because the crop had looked most promising a few weeks earlier. We were able to pick just five cherries last year and they were delicious. Given the investment and expenses of creating the orchard, each single cherry has cost me £5000 (five thousand British pounds).

Hopefully the economics will improve next year.

Finally the gates are installed

After a lot of preparatory work the new gates to the Turnditch orchard have been installed at the roadside entrance.

While the gates are level there is a couple of inches height difference between the two gate posts. The posts installed by the management team are of course correctly aligned. The other post installed using the volunteer team, whilst being perfectly vertical, is slightly height deficient.;-)

Some work remains to add a small wooden gate to the stile. This will allow free access to people using the public footpath, but will prevent animals straying on to the road through the stile stone gap.

Keys to the Orchard

One of the consequences of the cutting the gate chain by persons unknown is the secondary padlocks, which were on the original chain, have been lost. Combined with the installation of new gates I'll need to have a few duplicate keys cut for the single padlock for the gate. 

I've continued the historic  informal licence of access across the land to the neighbouring farmer (the White family at Postern Gate Farm) and also to the local angling club who have fishing rights downstream from the orchard site. The farmer has already had a couple of keys provided free by me, but those have been lost. The angling club used to have their own lock daisy-chained in the old gate chain so they could gain access with their own key.

Having duplicate keys cut is not as simple as it might seem. The padlock is reasonably high quality and the keys need to be accurate. I've had keys cut at two different shoe repair shops and in each case the reproduction was not accurate. It was a waste of money for the keys, fuel and parking fees to visit the shop. I've found the only reliable way is to visit establishments who advertise locksmith skills and also to hand them the padlock to check their results.

A visit yesterday to the nearest Timpson store has produced some suitable duplicate keys. I now have the joys of getting the keys to the farmer and also to the fishing baliff. This time I'll absorb the cost, but if they need replacements for lost keys it will cost a minimum of £10 per key.

Good progress on the roadside gate

Yesterday we completed the installation of the metal gate posts for the roadside gates at the Turnditch Orchard. We'd already dug the hole for the right hand side post and lined the bottom with a pad of concrete, but this was to be the acid test of whether we'd got everything in the right position. The gateway is at the top of a sloping ramp leading from the field to the road. At the gateway the ground slopes in two different directions. As we have two gate leaves meeting in the middle it is essential their support posts are accurately aligned in terms of height of the hinges and the vertical aspect of the posts.

When we came to complete the work it was clear that all of the careful pre-preparation has paid off. The volunteer team lifted the heavy metal post into the hole and we commenced the check measurements. After a couple of sideways shuffles of the post we had exactly 12 feet between the posts and they were perfectly level and aligned. The volunteers had not seen the magic of postcrete in action before this installation. We (the volunteers' leader sent a pensioner down the ladder to the river) grabbed a couple of buckets of water from the river and filled the post hole approximately quarter deep with water then poured four bags of postcrete powder in the hole around the post. Using a scrap piece of timber we tamped down the concrete making sure the concrete mix was thoroughly dampened as we poured. Within ten minutes the post was held firmly in place and accurately positioned.

We'll leave the gate post concrete to harden for a couple of days before we mount the gates on their hinges.

We've now turned out thoughts to where we should build the barbecue. I'll be double checking to see whether I need planning permission. The intention is to allow local people to come on to the orchard and make use of the barbecue.

We are currently planning to locate it at the foot of the embankment approximately half way along the orchard. The soil at this location seems to be quite poor and fruit trees and other vegetation does not thrive.

Electric fence energiser housing

We're building a small cabinet in the Orchard to provide security and weather protection for our new electric fence energiser. Today we excavated the base and laid a small reinforced concrete slab to provide a base for the housing cabinet. The base is not large, approximately 100 x 60 cms, so we mixed the concrete by hand from ballast and cement powder (6:1 by volume). Sam's Steps by the river provided a convenient access to fill our water buckets.  The warm humid weather and summer flies buzzing around did not make this work a pleasant experience. Once the base slab has cured we'll build a lockable housing for the energiser and its battery. There will be some additional security features to deter thieves.

After the work had been done I checked the orchard and found four young sheep lurking in a far corner close to the railway. They'd knocked over the temporary electric fence posts  to gain access to our woodland. I spent a couple of hours installing some heavy duty wooden posts, driven firmly into the ground and set up a six strand electric fence to deter these four legged marauders.

Edit 24/06/2016
I found sheep in the orchard again this morning. They'd pushed the six strand electric fence aside. These must be some mighty hungry sheep if they are prepared to tolerate the powerful 3 joule shock this fence gives. I think the problem is they are dumb juvenile sheep not yet "trained" to recognise electric fences. The older sheep steer clear once they realise it is an electric fence.

I've now ripped out the extended section of the electric fence adjacent to the railway line and replaced it with 30 metres of wire stock fence mounted on wooden posts driven in at 10 foot intervals.

I removed the plywood shuttering from the base of the energiser shed. The concrete slab is looking good.

Edit 28/06/2016
The installation of wire stock fence seems to have worked, there have been no further sheep invasions since I upgraded the fence to a permanent structure. Last night I added an insulator mounted electrified high tensile steel wire top strand above the wire stock fence to enhance the sheep resistance. I'd been trying to avoid a permanent fence as we still have to fell some trees in that area, but it seems to be the only solution to deal with the sheep.

The battle with the sheep continues

The problems with sheep from the neighbouring field continue at the Turnditch Orchard. At lunchtime I found several sheep on the orchard. They'd found yet another route into the field.  Most of the fruit trees have now suffered substantial damage from Farmer White's flock. I must admit my patience is now wearing thin, I wish he'd do something to contain his animals, it is after all his responsibility and not  mine. The sheep seem to be very hungry. 

Damage to the plum tree

Leaves stripped from one of the apple trees

One of our young plum trees has lost most of its leaves and has had branches broken by the sheep. I'll have to prune them back to avoid infection in the tree. For some reason the apple trees have fared the worst. We've effectively lost two year's growth on the trees and will probably have to buy replacements and replant. 

I've found their latest point of entry, via two sections of wire strand fence and through woodland. The electric fence has been extended to cover this latest breach. It seems the theft of the fence energiser has had unexpected consequences.

The latest invasion by the sheep