We have installed two gate posts in the orchard. These have been installed so that they fit two gates – a 10ft gate and a 3ft gate personnel gate.
Longer term, these will be used as as the main entrance to the property. Once the gates are installed, we will repair the dry stone wall along the roadside to fit with the new gate post.
We dug the holes for the gate posts today. One was easy, the other had some large stone in it, but this was soon dealt with!
A combination of some great weather recently followed by some wet weather has really brought the orchard to life.
I mow the grass on average around once a week and slowly the quality of the grass seems to be improving. It doesn’t take long. Around 30 minutes. Much of this is down to it being a mulching mower so there is no grass to collect. I try to cut the grass just before it rains as this helps the clippings rot down a little quicker.
The trees are doing well too. There is a lot of fruit on the trees, particularly those that I pruned back last year. Surprising since I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time. Our lone pear tree has no pears. But there again, it was one of the trees that I didn’t cut back.
A combination of some very hot weather followed by some very wet weather has really brought the orchard to life.
Bizarrely, the trees that I heavily pruned last year seem to have the most fruit on them. There are mainly apple trees, but lots of different varieties.
More apples, but from a slightly older tree.
I don’t know what it is, but it definitely isn’t an apple. And you never realised that I wasn’t a gardener! I think it is a damson. But it could be a plum.
Yesterday we dug out the last section of wall to reach the stone gate post in the adjoining field. We made good progress building up the wall and I reckon that we will be all finished in the next couple of working days. The main challenge is that we are likely to run a little short on stone for the wall. We do have some surplus stone elsewhere on site, so we are going to need to sift through the various piles on site to find suitable stone.
The gatepost for the adjoining field is in the foreground (no idea why there is a letter “D” on the gatepost) and there is probably only a couple of days work left to finish off the wall.
Almost there!
We are now nearing the end with the dry stone wall in the orchard. We are within about 4-5 metres of the stone gate post of the adjoining field. This will be the end for this part of the dry stone wall. We have now started working on the wall from the other side as this is slightly easier. Digging out the old wall (complete with tree stumps) has been hard work in the hot weather.
Jo has been on holidays this week, so two of us have been working on the wall together. Progess is more than twice as quick with two people!
We are starting to clear the far corner of the orchard (hence the chainsaw on the wall) so that we can finish off the wall.
The empty bottle of wine in the blue trug was found under the hedge (honest!)
We are getting there and having two people working on the wall makes progress really quick (in relative terms).
Now working in the adjoining field and working towards the old stone gatepost
We are now working in the far end of the orchard. This is the “pointy” end of the triangular orchard. This part was behind the shed and had a lot of tree roots, not to mention a build up of soil. Much of this was cleared with a machine last week. Now it is down to clearing the ground by hand and rebuilding the wall.
We called it a day around 2pm due to the extraordinarily good weather. The temperature was topping 27C and it was just too hot to be digging and moving stones around. This part of the orchard has little shade from the sun, so it was very difficult to keep cool.
We are now getting down into the corner of the orchard furthest away from the house.
We are probably approaching the last 5 metres of wall in the orchard.
I spent most of today using an excavator to clear the bottom corner of the orchard. This had been behind one of the large timber sheds and there had been a build-up of debris over the year. This combined with the old tree stumps and associated roots made it too hard to clear by hand. I have touched any of the wall or the shrubs that adjoin the road, but I have cleared the land.
Unfortunately, one of the hydraulic pipes on the excavator burst and had to be repaired and this meant that I lost 3 hours out of the day. Still, I think half a day was enough to have cleared this part of the orchard. I have never driven an excavator before so this was a real voyage of discovery. Many thanks to Richard Battye at HD9 Construction who showed me how to use it!
The next step is to sift through all of the debris that is now piled up. The soil will be spread onto the various “dips” around the property. The stones will be used to rebuild the walls and the stumps will be put on the bonfire.
This is what the corner of the orchard looked like before it met with the machine!
There was only just enough room to swing the bucket here, but this machine made quick work of removing the old tree stumps.
The main objective here was to remove the old roots and tree stumps from this corner of the orchard.
It looks a bit of a mess, but all of the roots and stumps have gone. The soil has been loosened up and it is a case of sorting out what is left.
The very far corner of the orchard (where a new gate will be installed) will need to be dug out using an excavator. The ground here rises up for some reason. Originally, there was a large wooden shed here and I suspect that waste was deposited behind the shed.
The wall was in pretty bad shape. I have pulled out as many of the coping stones as possible and then dug the foundations. Since one side is lower than the other, I can use bricks in the base of one side of the wall base as these will not be seen as they are below soil level. Using bricks is quicker and also means that they don’t have to be thrown in the skip.
The last section of the orchard wall has been started. A gate will be installed here roughly where the blue trug is.
I am starting to lose track of the days that have been spent on the dry stone wall in the orchard. I am tending to work on the wall in between doing other things, so very few of the days are dedicated to just building the wall. It would be misleading to say that this is day 33.
I am just about to start digging out the next 3-5m section. I doubt that I am going to be able to build much more until the bottom end of the orchard has been dug out. At the moment, the land rises up and is a good 2ft higher than the road level outside. No doubt this is the result of years of rubbish and undergrowth behind the shed that used to be here. The plan is to use a mini digger to reduce the soil level at this end of the garden. Then we can carry on building the wall.
The builders have offered to show me how to use the mini digger, so this could get interesting!
There is going to be a gate at the far end of the orchard, but I am not going to be able to go much further.
Only about another 10m or so to go in the orchard. Over 30m now completed.
The weather at the weekend was fantastic and we spent most of it working on the dry stone wall in the orchard. By the end of the second day, another 5 metre section had been completed. It is much quicker with two of us!
30.5m done. 17 to go. In the orchard anyway!
A weekend of fine weather sees another 5m section completed. Allbeit, without the coping stones.
I guess we must be approaching the half-way mark with the dry stone wall in the orchard. Must be time for a photo. Here’s a (slightly messy) panorama of the progress so far.
This is the current extent of the rebuilt dry stone wall in the orchard at the end of day 23.
© 2024 Hagg Leys Farm
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑