Three months into the project, the fruit trees are all deer fenced in (having lost a bit of the Braeburn and the set fruit through complacency). We’ve used a really lightweight approach using plastic deer netting and hazel twigs to hold it in place.
Much of the hedge has worked fine – the divided shrubs have pretty much all taken and about half of the hazel twigs have actually struch and are starting to put out leaves. Probably only got away with it because it was so wet. Anyway here’s a view looking up the site from the pools.
Parotica Persica and Fruit trees
So far so good – I’ve also planted the Japanese wineberry from our friends at Alara and bought an eleagnus – variety limelight – at their suggestion. This variety supplys some tasty little fruits as well as acting as a nitrogen fixer. Unlike those Australians we’re a bit stuck for those here. I’ve also put a couple of Rosemary bushes into the hedge as apparently deer don’t like aromatics and finished off with 3 litlle clumps of welsh onions.
The area round the quince and the plums has this year been commandeered by the memsahib for wild flowers. Next year more soft fruit / comfrey / legumes.
The real success story has been the potatoes. I had been a bit worried about the acutal mulching efficiency of the sheet cardboard as we have a serious infestation of ground elder (actually introduced by the Romans as a salad crop but really too invasive to be welcome) but not a bit of it. The cardboard plus manure plus alstro straw treatment seems to have done the trick and the crop is looking really good. We had a threatened light frost about a week ago so I was tatting about at 12.30 in the morning covering them up after visiting the pub. (Tuesday night is music night round here) and while I originally thought it wasn’t necessary the few spuds that were left out are now definitely showing scorch marks.
They’ve been planted between the Blenheim and James Grieve apples (which has quite a good crop) to prepare the way for soft fruit. Between the James Grieve and Braeburn I’ve put in some Redcurrant scrap we had left over from the nursery and these are recovering nicely. While the divided Rhubarb is establishing itself just next to it.
Potatoes and Fruit Trees
That’s it till the spuds are ready and we put in some more soft fruit – rasps or gooseberries I think.