Bonfire

Earlier this year, we cleared a lot of gorse from the hillside, and have added—during our subsequent clearing and trench digging efforts—brambles, hawthorn and gorse to the heaps. We decided it'd had long enough drying, and the conditions were about right, to burn. It turned into an all-day job, as it burnt better than expected, meaning that we spent the day feeding the bonfire, but it means that it's all done, rather than taking several efforts.

In the nettle-y corner up from the house, I set a small fire (few sheets of newspaper, four bits of kindling and, pleasingly, a single match & firelighter!), and started feeding dry gorse into it. That burnt well, and so as Liz brought over dry material from the various heaps we'd accumulated, I cut the branches from the other hawthorns we wanted to remove, and we burnt them, too. Even though it was wet, it burnt well once there was a good, hot bed of charcoal.

As I say, that took all day, in the end, and we've spent today mostly on the hillside, too. Breaking it into several sections, I've used Sigrid to brushcut almost the entire orchard, clearing grass, gorse, brambles, thistles and ragwort. Liz cleared up behind me, thus replacing a lot of the heaps we burnt only yesterday. So it goes.

Fortunately, the hillside now looks immeasurably better.

In between brushcutting, we got a few jobs done in the garden-proper. All the brassicas have been moved up a pot size (purple sprouting, romanesco cauliflowers, January King cabbages, kale, sprouts), to grow on before being planted out after alliums or potatoes come out. We sorted out the irrigation system in the fruit beds, which had been disturbed when we mulched them in the spring. Lastly, we've sown some more lettuce/salad leaves, and resown Swiss Chard in the barrel (previous sowing was a no-show).