Sunday 24 November 2013

Chippings

Back in June, we made some progress getting the paths in the kitchen garden towards their long-intended final state. They'd always been grass, in theory, which in reality meant mud down the middle, and weeds along the edges. Long dissatisfied with this, we wanted to level them, put down weed membrane, and lay a thick layer of chippings. This worked well in front of the woodstore, and so a week ago I arranged for our friendly tree surgeon to drop off a truck-load of sycamore chippings. This is the small branches, twigs, and leaves, put through a Timberwolf shredder. The mix is quite a lot like hedge clippings, which compost well, though it's probably got more wood in it. Anyway; while it's not as 'nice' as bark chippings, it has a lot to recommend it. It's free; it's a waste product that would otherwise be processed by someone into peat-free compost; it works well on paths to keep them weed-free and drier.

The biggest benefit: after a year, it should turn into really nice mulch.

We put a load of the chippings onto the paths, which now look really tidy. We then started scraping up the chippings from the front of the wood store, which have, now (after six months in a heap, and a year on the path) turned into really well broken down compost. That's been going on the sweet-pea beds, and we're about half way up the path, replacing it with new. We ran out of light, unfortunately, which is often the case at this time of year. Four weeks, I make it, until the solstice.

Other than that, we've started clearing and levelling the ground where the apple arch walk will go, in the corner of the orchard. I think we've hit a terracing wall, as I seemed to be digging out a pile of stones. It's gone reasonably, though: I think another couple of days clearing/levelling, and a couple of days actually digging the planting trenches (which will probably need a good deal of compost or topsoil adding in).

Sunday 17 November 2013

Almost Ready

After most of another weekend of work, we're almost ready for our bare-root hedging plants to arrive (whenever that is). It's the time of year when, in reality, there's not much time to be outside. By the time we're up, have eaten, and got ourselves sorted, it's normally half-ten, and the light starts to fail by four. That makes a scant five hours available to work, out of which we lose at least some time for lunch.

These things can't be helped.

I used Sigrid to make a first pass at clearing the middle of what I'm going to term 'the boundary clearing' (on the left of the hillside, and which merges, at present, with the neighbouring territory), before we manually cut back the gorse, and pulled up gorse trunks. Over the years (decades, probably), the gorse bushes have straggled out, and many have six foot trunks, lying on the floor (buried by leafmould), with the bush some distance from its rootstock. Fortunately, once you've cut the spiny top, the branch usually pulls up readily enough. We cleared the clearing's left side, making a huge heap of gorse and brambles, yesterday. Today, we tidied up a little, and have marked where we intend to plant some of our hedging plants, in order to create a continuous barrier at that side. At the moment, you can see straight into Ivy Cottage's windows from the clearing, which suits no-one. Once the beech, hazels, plums, and apples are there, and growing, the clearing will feel more sheltered, secluded, and secure.

We're aiming for something that doesn't feel like a hedge, but a more natural boundary. I won't trim the plants into a squared-off shape, and they're not in a straight line. Once they're established, I'd quite like to grow some roses, and some ivy, through them, for flowers, winter foliage, and wildlife (ivy's a fantastic late-season food for pollinators).

Until then, there are just little cairns of stones, marking each of forty-six spots, running down to the corner where the fence ends. It takes in a number of small trees that are established (hawthorns and blackthorns), and skirts a holly tree. At the moment, you can enter the clearing from the orchard at that end, but eventually, once we've cleared more blackthorn, the entrance will be further along, about a third of the way along the back boundary, where you'll go through an arch of plums, and either left to this clearing, or right into the other.

Once we'd placed these, we used the last hour of light to go back to that other clearing (the birch clearing), and keep cutting back the gorse there. We're done, now, with manual cutting, and I need to go back with Sigrid to clear the brambles and bracken. The structure of the clearing is now clear, and we'll be planting a short run of the same hedge mix at the back of it, to delineate the clearing, and give it some boundary. There'll be a 'gate' above the birches, up the hillside through the heather, or a passage leading left into a cluster of trees, and then on into the boundary clearing.

Monday 11 November 2013

Elderberry & Apple Jelly

After cooking the fruit yesterday evening, and straining for 24 hours, I had a pan full of elderberry and apple juice this evening. I think, in future, I might cook and strain them separately: I think the elderberry would have yielded more without the almost mucilaginous apple pulp. However, 450g of sugar per 600ml of juice, brought to the boil until it reaches 104°C, as normal. This one was quite exuberant, and almost boiled over several times, but we got there in the end. There was quite a lot of foam, which I managed to contain to one jar, which will be hidden away for us to eat on our own. The rest look rather presentable, with a dark, rich jelly.

Sunday 10 November 2013

Clearings

We spent this morning stacking a delivery of firewood, which means the wood shelter is almost full, now. Until I've used a half-stack, there's not room to stack more: for the first time in a couple of years, we can't saw or split more wood, as there's nowhere to put it; an odd sensation.

Of course, that doesn't mean there's nothing to do. Saturday morning was taken up with wall insulation matters (technical survey), and the afternoon we spent in the main clearing on the hillside, getting out more gorse, brambles, and bracken from around the stand of silver birches. There's now quite a nice path becoming clear that leads you from the entering corner (from the future apple walk), along the front of the clearing, then round a arcing 'ramp' towards the stand of trees. We've got twenty 'Midwinter Fire' dogwoods on order, many of which are destined for this clearing, to start building a woodland garden which will probably look its best in spring.

This afternoon, our attention's been on the other side of the hillside, above the apples, where there's another clearing, which we've not done anything with previously. The two will wind up linked by a short passage, I expect, but entry into this, left-hand clearing will be from near the James Grieve apple tree, where we think we might create an entry arch with four fan-trained plums forming a pergola of some sort. Early days, for that, though. For now, we were working out what needs to come down in the clearing, where the treeline will remain, and what we need to add -- mainly, some purple beech and hazels along the left edge, near the boundary, where the planting is sparse. We cut down a number of blackthorns, and next weekend I'll take Sigrid up and start properly clearing the undergrowth.

Before we came in, I collected a big bowl full of elderberries, from the tree at the top of the colour-wheel garden, where they're still clinging to the tree, despite the leaves having all fallen. The berries, and 150% of their weight in roughly chopped apples, have been cooked with 600ml/kg of water, until pulpy. I'll set them straining through a jelly bag before bed, and tomorrow they can become jelly.

Monday 4 November 2013

Cider

We've been pressing apples for the last couple of evenings, scratting the apples, and pressing the milled pomace. A couple of trugs full of apples has been enough to put two gallons of juice into a fermenting bucket, which I've inoculated with 'Nottingham' yeast this evening, as well as bottle eleven 1l kilner bottles with pasteurized juice. The pomace is still in the press, dripping slowly, and there should be about another litre tomorrow evening.

I anticipate the cider fermentation to be a bit frothy and messy, initially, which is why the two gallons of must are in a five gallon bucket. Once it's calmed, I'll move it into a pair of demi-johns, to complete fermentation. I must remember to add pectolase, too, or it'll definitely be a bit hazy.

First Frost

Today sees the first frost of the winter: later than I'd expect, but October was mild, and we've only just put the heating on this last weekend. The rest of the weekend (getting the boiler fired up the first time each winter is not insignificant, with two thousand litres of water to heat from 14 to 85°C) was spent on bits and pieces, including chopping and stacking a few cubic metres of firewood, and—fortunately, given today's weather!—lifting the Bishop of Llandaff dahlias.

I notice that my 25th October entry, about putting up the orchard fence, is my 400th. Cue some stats and data...

Bizarrely, in both my first twelve months of this blog, and the second twelve, I managed exactly the same number of posts (111); and in each of the third and fourth years, I made 90 entries. As well as a round number of posts, it's almost exactly four years since I started keeping the log of what was going on in the house and garden.

I've now managed to blog on 73% of the days of the year: interestingly, I've always written something on 1st September. One day, I'd quite like to compile a collection of diary entries, one for each day of the year. I think they'd give an interesting view of the regularities and irregularities, as a 3rd March from one year is followed by a 4th March from another. Monty Don's book, The Ivington Diaries, follows this structure, and I rather enjoyed reading it.

Apparently, it'll take me at least one more year of blogging to accumulate enough entries to cover the whole year (I managed to 'collect' 29th February last year, by accident, so I don't need to wait until 2018 for that!), but I may get there yet.