18th November

Last week it was a wee bit quieter at work, so I thought it would be a good time to get some work done in the orchard.

We have five really established apple trees and sixteen younger ones.

The established five were in need of a good prune, and they were all needing weeded round the base.

We have had the hydro in cutting back trees from the power lines, and they leave behind wood chip piles.

So, we dug a three-foot circle around the base of the trees and pulled out all the weeds.

Then put compost down and cut some old terminate and put that on top of the compost and round the trunk of the tree.

And finally with all that free woodchip, we wheelbarrowed one wheelbarrow of woodchip around the base of each tree.

It is a job I have been meaning to do every year and always forget.

This will hopefully keep the base of the trees weed free for a good while.

With all this cleaning up around the orchard, and standing back admiring our work, it occurred to me there was a space.

I like clean lines everything nice and straight and even.

So, to fill the gap and keep everything nice and neat, I bought four Victoria plum trees.

Now they are in, and everything is in line and looking good.

Another wee job I have been pondering over, was building a shed for putting the fleece in over the winter, nothing too big around 10 meters wide, by 5 meter deep and 3 meter high.

We would make the sides and the back out of old pallets, these let the wind get through and dry up any machinery or fleece that we put in.

But the posts for holding the pallets and wood for roof truces would need to be bought, and you get thick green polythene for tunnels we would use that for the roof.

I have built three sheds of various sizes like this before.

But as I was in the orchard and looking at the fifteen-year-old willow tree wind break, this needs a thin out every year and is over 20 foot high in places.

The branches are pretty straight and thick, and they were needing thinned out.

So, I cut one, then cut all the branches of, and I was left with a fairly straight thick post.

Twenty thick branches later and I have the start of the shed.

Willow trees can grow anywhere and no matter where you cut them, you can just stick them in the ground, and they will grow.

So, I am going to use the willow trees to make the shed.

There is going to be a lot of cutting pallets and manoeuvring things to make everything fit, as the willow tree posts are not straight.

I have made a start on one corner, with four willow tree posts already in and four pallets fixed.

Hopefully be next weeks I will have a few almost finished pictures to post.

But we do have a day of almost now work on Wednesday as we have our soil association inspection.