Out with the tractor and mower, but mowing around the meadowsweet which is coming to the end of it's flowering and forming seeds that I want to disperse.
A little more rain recently meant as well as quite long grass, the existing recent orchard trees haven't required so much supplementary watering. Some of the grass was layered badly from recent rain and where uninvited campers had been - The small local group I'd given permission to however, had responsibly left no trace of having been there.
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
I'd arranged a delivery of topsoil from Dandy's near Chester, to level some low patches and for dressing around newly planted trees (over and above the bracken / sheep wool compost from Dalefoot Composts that went in the holes around the large pot-grown fruit trees).
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
Another delivery down at the field, was a couple of tonnes of shredded tree waste as a mulch for around the planted trees from local tree-surgeons DKC Contracts also near Chester.
Delivered on a busy day with variable weather prospects, a handy gazebo covered the brewing and cooking gear (stew on the go over an open fire).
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
What looked like a casualty from amongst the earlier orchard planting of 14 mulberry, 12 walnut, 5 quince, 2 pear and a medlar and a plum tree, was a sweet chestnut. bought-in mail-order bare rooted, then potted up in April this year, it hardly had much more developed roots when transplanted in July and soon had it's leaves turning brown:
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
It did however recover recently with new growth and had a bit of corrective pruning.
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
Another job was some new fencing near the neighbouring field. Since they have been grazing horses this year, random dog-walkers seem to be taking a short-cut over my fence rather than sticking to the footpath and the wire fence was starting to suffer. The post-hole borer on the tractor also proved useful for tree-planting preparations with a larger drill-bit fitted. New posts with 4 rails have now gone up (in a "get 'orf my land" sort of way, as dog-mess and random sticks aren't fun when mowing grassland).
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
The next orchard planting scheme has gone in - doubling the quantity of trees with mainly apple trees:
Bramley, Tentation, Golden Delicious, Orange Pippin, Lemon Pippin, Arthur W Barnes, Elstar, Ribston Pippin, Sops in Wine, Herefordshire Russet, Beckley Red, Limelight, Jonagold, Pitmaston Pinapple, Rode Boskoop, Elison's Orange, Châtaignier, Crimson Gravenstein, Gascoyne's Scarlet, Tom Putt.
Three quince were also planted: Champion and experimentally the understocks quince A and quince C to see what they actually produce as trees.
Two recently acquired young walnuts from Oxfordshire were added to the existing lines.
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
I also acquired a Cambridge roller, although I had to be a bit selective with price (I guess the scrap metal market prices have pushed things up, it's fairly heavy).
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| From Meadowcopse 2011 |
Cheers to a couple of people who have helped out with materials and planting.
Wildlife down at the field has ranged from bees still in the hollow ash tree, 2 buzzards, pigeons, swallows, voles, moles and beetles and wasps chewing at willow leaves. Quite a few toads and the occasional frog.
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