A slow start to Saturday (a combination of Crohn's Disease grumblings and a Goth night in Wrexham late on Friday). First stop was a light lunch at DeliFine in Holt, then over to the field to mark out more orchard plantings.
A sudden revision to the planting plan, due to the opportunity of transplanting a young, but established cider apple orchard of up to 15 trees (the owner, a specialist micro-brewer with CaMRA recognition is moving, but had put a fair bit of thought into what he had established for a premium small scale cider production and was understandably reluctant to abandon it).
I'd been put in touch by a respected work colleague from a few years ago who, since retirement has gone on to specialise in fruit tree culture and grafting.
Some sizeable holes for the trees were dug and with a few other minor jobs around the field, it was dark by the time I'd finished...
During the day, the chance to chat to a couple of respected local folk, the nearest neighbour mentioned that suspicious vehicle activity and anti-social behaviour at the top end of the access track / minor road was still a problem, dog walkers confirmed that the sheep 2 fields away were prone to straying (glad I put the extra wire net fencing up now) and at the edge of the village, the gift of a pot of local honey.
Quite a few pheasants about, yet more mole hills, and owl hoots as darkness falls.
Saturday was a mild evening, so I carried on into darkness. Then things got interesting...
My Cousin said he might call, I left the gate to the field open whilst digging holes for the trees. A car came part way down the track, then cleared off. Another vehicle, a 4x4 was making it's way through the darkness, through the gateway and I assumed it was my Cousin. For a laugh, I put my oil lamp down a hole, turned off my head-torch and lurked in another planting hole. Only when the 4x4 slowed by my Landrover and put it's full-beam on did I notice the blue and lime-green chequers and the word 'POLICE'
Hmm, this could get interesting explaining a wheelbarrow and shovels at my side...
Turns out to be an unrelated incident involving vehicle movements along the lane at the top of the track. They saw the funny side, as if it's normal to be planting trees in near darkness in the middle of nowhere...
On Sunday I took the Landrover and trailer to the Wirral to start extracting the orchard trees.
A fascinating conversation regarding specialist brewing and the desire for something good to come of the trees. 15 in total and ranging from 10 to 15 feet tall!
Varieties: 'Kingston Black, Chisel Jersey, Harry Masters and Broxwood Foxwhelp.
Initial digging was 'challenging' - the large garden of a traditional estate cottage, one end had at sometime had a path and the ground was a bit stony as I initially dug a very generous diameter around the first tree to establish root spread.
For replanting at the field, I'll be part filling the holes around the roots with Barker & Bland's composted wool and bracken mix and with a sprinkling of mycorrhizal RootGrow granules and the fine alluvial soil from the field mixed in.
I am a touch concerned by the size of the trees compared to the root structure after digging up, particularly as they still have some leaves on. I'm hoping that some fine fibrous new root growth might start before winter dormancy completely sets in. Because of the size of the trees, staking is essential for a few years (although they all impressively stood unaided when the planting holes were filled in at their final location in the field.
By Monday afternoon, 9 from the 15 were satisfactorily transplanted.
The final holes to dig on Wednesday and hopefully transplanting completed by Thursday and looking forward to a fruitful collaboration for small scale cider production in years ahead...
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