Late Summer Flowers

After weeks of sweetpea arrangements, they're starting to come to an end, and so this week's centrepiece arrangement is a bit different (apologies for the shaky photo).

Golden rod, achillea, echinacea, grasses, and lysimachia in this week's flower arrangement (© Ian 2014)

We went up on the hillside, too, and it's very pleasing how the apple walk and graftlings are coming on. The apple walk's structure is a lot clearer than I thought it would be, in its first year, and the shoots need tying in again. In the graft bed, I'm delighted that we seem to have three viable Hessle pears, two each of the apples, Crimson Superb and Craggy's Seedling (a third, of each, is in the walk, grafted directly). There's only one of each of quinces Ivan and Vranja, and medlar Dutch, which is, admittedly, all we needed to make the effort a success. Sadly, the medlar Royal didn't take, in any of the three attempts, but there you go. I make that a 12 out of 21 success rate, for my first grafting attempts.

Tonight, we potted on three giant scabious, a load of Lysimachia ephemera, and a tray of Hidcote lavenders; all seed-grown, the first and last from the RHS. That's freed up a couple of module trays for some perennial plugs that will arrive soon.

Paths

Today started with a soft-fruit picking session. The raspberries are nearly over: probably one, maybe two more pickings left. However, the gooseberries are really just starting: the fuzziest, first variety at the top of the bed, Invicta (which also seems to have bigger fruit) is mostly ready, and some of the red and golden Hinnonmaki are there, too. While I prickled myself collecting these, and then a bowl full of blackcurrants, Liz collected about 80% of the redcurrants. The whitecurrants are always a bit later, and some of the red weren't ready yet...but it's still a lot of fruit. The bushes have now properly hit their stride, in their fifth year (we planted them in December 2009), although one of the blackcurrants isn't doing nearly as well as the other two. That's a shame, as blackcurrants are my favourite (compared to red/white/pink...I don't know how I'd choose a soft fruit, let alone a fruit, as a favourite), but there you go. I'm hoping that a couple of year's good mulching and pruning might see it straight. Alternatively, it may not be getting as much irrigation, as it's at the top of its bed (which is, literally, the highest point of the kitchen garden, and furthest from the watering system inlet).

A few clumps of ragwort have been growing in the orchard, and while certainly not an infestation (there's a nearby field which is just a mess of ragwort—and, worryingly, is a horse paddock), I wanted to remove it before it sets seed. When we bought the land, there was, comparatively, quite a lot, which a year of strimming and pulling has mostly resolved. Anyway; I pulled up what I found, and checked in on the graftlings, which all seem to be doing ok.

When I'd done so, Liz had weeded beech bench bed, and the bed to either side, and had also put down cardboard mulch sheets around the beech. That was a prerequisite for spreading chippings around the beech, which will now have much less competition for light, water, and soil, and look a lot tidier. I moved the turf stacked in front of them, and the spoil heap of stones (including a couple of large lumps of concrete, and several stones worthy of walling or pond-side). Between us, we've laid out weed-membrane, and covered it with chippings, to form a path down that side of the lawn. During the winter, when we're bringing wood up from the wood shelter, that path quickly gets muddy, so this should be a better route, now.

This was really part of a larger chipping-spreading activity, as we've put a path (membrane and chippings) through the middle of the herb garden. It's not planted, apart from the lavender lines crossing it, and having the lined path will mean a bit less weeding. The un-dug part of the potager, which has had weed membrane down on it for some time, has now also had a layer of chippings, which makes it look much more attractive than black membrane.

Putting this path down meant moving four box that were an edge in the old design, but are no longer, as the edges have moved, and aren't going to be box any more. The four plants have moved into the long border, replacing clumps of alchemilla, and will gradually form balls.

Lastly, I've had to add more strings to the legume supports, as they finally, slowly, start to grow. They went out too late, really, delayed by the work on the back of the house, so it's not going to be a productive pea and bean year, sadly.

Apple Walk Arches

Earlier this year, we planted the twenty-two trees of the apple walk, each one next to a tube that formed the base of an archway. In time, each tree will be trained up the arch (with horizontal espaliers on one side), forming a living arched walk. Of course, we're some time off that point; but several of the trees have grown strongly this year, and have reached to the top of the steel tube already (about 1m). That's meant that I've had to get round to adding the arches themselves, in order to have something to continue tying apple growth on to—and that's been today's work.

I ordered a number of 6m length, 10mm diameter reinforcing bars (rebar) some months ago, and they've sat outside the kitchen waiting since then. I constructed a bending jig out of timber, and used this to help shape the arches. Each one is a semicircle of 2.4m diameter, with straight legs around 90cm long (I had to trim kinked ends off the rebar, so they're not identical). These are then slotted into the tubes, and fixed using three A4 M5 bolts at the right height. Before they went in, I painted the straight sections: painting the rest will be another day's work, in the next couple of months).

Once they were all in, I've added a horizontal rod at the level of the third espalier tier (1.2m height), and one along the apex of the arches. I still have 4½ rebars left, which will probably all be needed in diagonal braces between arches (to stop them leaning over as one). Again, that's another day's work: bending 11 arches by hand is quite enough effort for one hot July day.

I did, however, prune and tie in the new apple growth: they're doing very well. All but a couple have the first tier well formed (Hunt House took a long time coming into growth, and is rather behind); many have a second tier tied down and growing out; a couple (Cat's Head and Grandpa Buxton) even have a third tier started, and one or two more will get there this year). I've had to order more soft-tie wire!

Elsewhere: the sweet peas keep coming.

This week's sweet pea centrepiece (© Ian 2014)

Quick Morning

We've spent the afternoon with Liz's family, celebrating her grandfather's birthday, but managed to get a fair bit done this morning, all the same.

Liz has weeded most of the orchard (that is, cleared around each tree -- there are still plenty of 'weeds' growing!), and cut back the grass growing between the grafted fruit. Of these, many have taken: sadly, none of one of the medlars, but at least one of each other has, including all the apples and pears, pleasingly.

While she started this, I finished putting the roof on the bike shelter we started a couple of weeks ago. That can be painted tomorrow.

It's been a couple of weeks since I started trying to get round to it, but I've also trained the new growth in the apple walk. That's meant cutting back the inappropriately placed shoots to 10cm or so; tying the espalier-destined shoot onto the horizontal wire, and tying the vertical shoot onto the steel tube. Two apples (Cat's Head and Grandpa Buxton) are tall enough that they've got two tiers tied down, and need the arch itself putting in, as they're almost at the top of the support tube.

Redesigning the Knot Garden

The herb garden's been in the planning for some time, and the design's evolved in the making. Originally, we thought we'd have just box edging, and primarily herbs. We added roses to the planting, and lavender to the edging. Then, when we worked on the design, rather than the concept, we came up with something that needed three edging materials to work well, and so we added step-over apples. The last couple of years of growing the kitchen garden suggested that we actually needed a little extra edibles space, and so we added runner beans, peas, and French beans to the planting -- which helped with height -- and then over-wintered onions, garlic, and elephant garlic. Trying the design last year made it clear that the squares of the design weren't really big enough, so we made them 50% larger. In turn, that meant the design changed, and now we need only two edging types once more. The design, now, is really one of a potager, or ornamental kitchen garden, encompassing roses (technically edible), herbs, apples, and ornamental vegetables -- the attractively podded (and flowered) Shiraz mange tout, Blue Cocoa runner beans, and red/purple Brussels sprouts. Out have gone the inedible box (now to form evergreen box balls in the herbaceous border), and a predominance of herbs.

This weekend, then, we've spent getting as far as possible with the new design. We got started on clearing the ground a week ago, and (after a vet trip that took much of the morning), continued this yesterday. We finished that by about mid-morning today, and then, in an afternoon punctuated by someone coming to finally take away the oil tank, finished preparing the ground by about 5 o'clock.

The oil tank, half-way out ( Ian 2014)

The oil tank has been waiting for removal for a while, and we eventually found someone who wanted it, thus avoiding having to pay (several hundred pounds) for someone to remove something we didn't want. Getting this heavy steel tank off its piers, missing the greenhouse (just the other side of the protective sheet of ply in the photo), across the patio, down two sleeper-built steps, and the length of the games- and pond gardens, and then up the driveway to the truck was, shall we say, tiring.

But now it's gone, and we have a 6x4 space in which a shed might go -- and now no smell of kerosene on warm days.

Now: back to the herb garden. We'd marked out the pattern (basically unchanged) last time, so apart from fine tuning a couple of measurements that had been hindered by rocks (which Liz made excellent progress moving: it really feels thankless work), we were able to immediately see where each square/diamond went.

Into several of these, I sank the climber supports, which Liz started yesterday by painting (I'd only done some of them). We've not had time to add the woven willow sides, so these will have to wait until autumn. For now, there are strings tied round them to get everything growing: they'll be invisible soon, and the willow will be in place for the winter, when it's actually meant to be an attractive feature.

Having sunk the six supports into the ground, we topped up the soil in all of the squares (but not the edges: lavender doesn't want rich soil) with compost, neatly finishing the 'ready' bay of compost, and started planting. The plants are mostly those that we potted up and set outside a few weeks ago, and included enough lavender to complete those edges that we've cleared space for (almost).

From the greenhouse have come the Laguna, Speedy, and Castendel French beans, the White Lady and Blue Cocoa runner beans, and the Shiraz and Delikata peas/mange tout. We've also planted out 32 red sprouts, a load of chicory, a dozen or so bronze fennel, a pot's worth of aniseed, and the Japanese ginger we bought at Tatton. All that obviously needed watering in, and tying to supports where necessary, and it's meant rather a late finish (I came in at 11, and Liz only came in half an hour earlier, to cook)...but it's looking really good.

Floor Finished

We made a list on Saturday morning of some things we wanted to try to do this weekend (a long one). Pleasing progress has been made, although, as it ever was, not quite everything happened.

Painting the last section (3/8ths) of the garage floor with bituminous sealant happened on Friday evening, Saturday lunch time, and Sunday morning. The plan was that the last coat (Sunday first thing) would then have a clear 24 hours to dry before we put the rest of the floor down.

Saturday morning, before we could do the second coat, we spent digging over a further section of knot garden. While I cut turves, and dug over the stony ground, Liz was busy clearing our stone dyke from last time. We've not worked on extending the herb garden since September, in order to get the overwintering alliums in the ground, so it's nice to once more make progress on it. Although we only did a couple of hours work (too hot!), we returned to the garden on Sunday, and have marked out anew the pattern. We needed to do this because we've changed our mind about the size of the squares (diamonds), which we decided were too small (roughly 1m edges), and needed to be 50% bigger. There wasn't quite enough space in them to allow planting, but still be able to walk through them.

The original (rough) plan for beds and edges in the herb garden (© Ian 2013–14)

That also means we'll only have two sorts of edge: lavender and step-over apples (which I'll try to graft over the winter). The box will be grown on to form box balls in the garden, instead of hedging: we think they might, for one thing, replace some of the Lady's Mantle that's really a weed in the long border. They'd occupy the same niche, of a rounded green mass, but with the advantage of year-round structure, and less invasive self-seeding.

The new pattern fits around the corner nicely, and finishes in about the same place, which is good. We then moved the part-painted climber supports into the beds, settling on a layout that has the taller of these forming a backdrop to the garden, in the boxes furthest from the house. There are only four of these at the moment, but I can always make more in time. The smaller are nearer the house, and there are squares that suitably frame views from the windows with supports. It looks very pleasing, and once the supports are painted, and sunk into the ground, I hope it's going to look really good.

On Saturday afternoon, we constructed a hinged roof that goes over the steps down into the wet cellar from the driveway, which will allow us to store bikes on the steps but keep the worst of the weather off them. It's a simple wooden frame, with tongue and groove cladding, but it looks quite smart...although it does draw my attention to the falling-apart (non-structural!) wall next to it, which edges the pathway. Another day's work there, I think. At the same time, Liz cleared the driveway of a pile of apple prunings that have been sat there drying: they'll be rather fragrant kindling next winter.

They've been sitting around for longer than they should (by some way, really), but we've bottled the five demijohns of wine that were waiting.

• Dandelion, from May 2013. For whatever reason, the dandelions rather passed me by this May, so I don't have a new batch on the go. This one seems good, though.
• Greengage from October (a more reasonable time-scale). This was slightly fizzy, so I added a Campden tablet, and bottled it a couple of days later. The taste seemed improved, too, after this.
• Elderflower from July: very good, this one.
• Blackberry from September, a predictably dessert-wine red. It was also slightly fizzy, but a tablet and 36 hours rest sorted this out.
• Chardonnay from a kit, in June last year. It's really rather Chardonnay-like!

In the same vein, this evening we've made a five-pint batch of elderflower cordial. Different process to previously: a dozen flowerheads, a pared then sliced lemon, and then a boiling sugar solution poured over them (1 pint water, 1lb10 sugar). You add 2.5tbsp of citric acid, once cool, and allow to sit for 24 hours before bottling.

The batch of cider that we pressed last autumn has, in turn, finally been racked into two demi-johns. It's not tasting quite 'right', but as I understand it, cider often needs a decent maturation period, so I'll bear with it.

Sunday afternoon was spent, largely, making a hatch for the garage loft, and putting up the last of the insulation. Hanging the hatch will have to wait until I've found the right hinges.

Today, then, was spent finishing the garage floor. The sealant paint was nicely dry by mid morning, so we were able to immediately start work on laying the insulation, screwing down the battens, and filling the gaps with solid insulation. The plywood sheets went on with relatively little fuss, so by about 1530 we'd finished. An hour later, and the room was tidied up, rather than having everything stacked into the half that had a floor, and we've even managed to set out the two armchairs we've had stored in a corner since 2009.

Last thing for the weekend was getting some of the preparatory work done for our new patio doors, which arrived on Friday. They're being fitted on Wednesday (including breaking out the hole for them, replacing the garden window in the dining room), and we've done as much fitting of hardware, and so on, as possible.

Weed Control

In one way or another, the whole day's been spent controlling weeds (and the lawn). Liz has spent the entire day weeding, and has mastered the copse bed, the heuchera bed, and the sweet peas' bed. I've put cardboard and chipping layers to mulch the blueberries; put cardboard collars around the fruit trees in the copse bed, the apple walk, the grafting beds, and both clearings; and mown the lawn. I also installed the horizontal wires onto which the first tier of the apple walk espaliers will soon be trained.

Last thing was putting the loft insulation into the loft, after it arrived at lunch: not installed, but out of the way, ready for a rainy day.

We're shattered.

Climbers' Supports

A mixed day off, today: Liz spent a lot of time getting beds weeded, which is tedious but necessary work. I've cut back the ivy and Virginia Creeper on the front of the house (the former was encroaching the dressing room window rather); re-attached the hanging basket bracket that came down over the winter; and repaired the bikes.

On Monday evening, Liz painted the feet of my sweet pea/legume support structures with bituminous paint, to protect them once they're underground, and we painted the above-ground bit with outdoor paint last night. That meant that this afternoon I was able to continue putting the woven willow sides into them, and we've now done two of the four sweet pea wigwams. (It's surprisingly slow work.)

We managed to spend fifteen minutes looking at the hillside. A lot of the hedging isn't doing so well, unfortunately: either deer or slugs, but we're not sure which, or whether it's just taking its time to come into leaf. Much better are the grafts, which appear to be mostly alive, and starting to break into leaf. And a lot of the apples, old and new, are in flower. A couple of the old trees, which bore really well last year, seem very light on flowers. We're not sure whether we've missed them/they're not out yet, or whether they're at risk of biennial bearing, having had such a good crop last year. Only time will tell.

Strimming the Orchard

The orchard's been starting to look rather overgrown, after a number of months without cutting the grass, so I was pleased to be able to spend this morning going over it with the brushcutter. Pleasingly, I was able to do this on my own, as it's now almost all grass (and a few short brambles, thistles, and the like), and Liz was able to get on with other work: painting the support tubes for the apple walk. They're now a very striking cream (a second coat will follow in due course), and stand out from much further. Only the Grandpa Buxton apple appears to have broken bud; but many are swelling. By the same token, a number of the grafted fruit trees look as though they will break bud, but not quite.

Liz also managed to get the construction wood (3x3 posts, 3x1 planks, and the like) cleared from the site of the pond, so I can get to the old shed panels. I need to chainsaw these into sections, for making compost bins.

We've had to chilli-oil the trees on the hillside, again, as one of the Scots pines has been attacked by deer.

After several years languishing in pots, we've finally been able to plant out our amelanchier, lilac (both in the corner where a pine was, near the top of the drive), and weeping willow (on the SE boundary). Hopefully they'll be happier in the ground, and the amelanchier, in particular, should be a nice feature on that border of the garden.

A Full Greenhouse

We didn't do anything much in the garden over the weekend other than walk round it, as Philip, Rachel and baby Luke were visiting. It must be said that walking round it was rather nice, as it's an opportunity to ignore the weedy patches, and the not-doing-anything-yet herbaceous perennials, and enjoy the daffodils in full glory, the swelling buds on trees, and the daily lengthening of rhubarb stems.

After they'd set off home, though, we sowed a number of seeds (marigolds, stipa, pennisetum, lupins, verbena, cucomelon, I think), and I pottered briefly in the greenhouse. This is our first spring with a greenhouse, and the young plants we've overwintered in it are much further on than those in open ground. The extra warmth and protection are fantastic. It's full, inevitably. Many of the plants in it are going to be forced out soon: they're hardy plants, that didn't need the greenhouse (even un-heated, it's got no lower than -1°C, and mostly been frost free), but have clearly benefitted. However, with a steady train of seedlings germinating inside, they older plants will need to make way for new plants, and eventually even these will get planted out, to be replaced with tender veg. We've got germinated tomatoes, chillis, sweet peppers, and aubergines, which will all occupy the glasshouse for the summer.

For now, though, it's almost all perennials, and about a hundred sweet peas.

Greenhouse full of young plants, grown on over the winter, and ready to plant out soon (© Ian 2014)

 There are a lot of small lavenders (on the right), which were intended for the edges of the herb garden. We've been doing a bit of a think about this: further work is probably off the cards until the autumn, as anything we do will be trampled by wall insulation this summer. The lavender will have to be planted out in a temporary location. On the far bench are some of the sweet peas, the tulbaghia and agapanthus from Tatton Park, a couple of dozen deschampsia from seed last year, and in the back left the cut-off rootstocks from grafting. These have come into leaf, and look like they've rooted, which is marvellous news. They'll go into a nursery bed for future grafting. On the top shelves on the right are a load of vegetable seedlings: brassicas, beetroot, spinach, chard. There are also some perennials: six herbaceous potentillas, for example. On the left are ungerminated seeds (which don't need so much light), and other perennials: half a dozen astilbes, some geraniums, some clivia (technically not hardy, but they've done fine), and some hostas that are in pots waiting for a bog garden to be built. And, also, a tray of hosta seedlings from last year, which are just coming out for their first 'adult' year.

One-year-old hostas (© Ian 2014)

Pruning

After spending yesterday chopping a load of firewood, today was more pleasantly spent doing a load of winter pruning. The clematis growing on the arbour (Alba Plena) need cutting back to 18" in March, for instance, and the roses all need tidying. A lot of the spring bulbs are showing signs of growth, and the flowering currants are just in bloom. By next weekend, the daffodils should be coming out.

The biggest winter pruning job is that of the apples. The established apple trees all needed a tidy-up, just as they did last year. One more year, and they should all be reasonably organized: we've spread the wok over a few years, to avoid removing too much in one go. Several of the new, standard-trained apples needed laterals trimming, although most still haven't reached their 1.8m height, at which they get topped, and start forming the framework proper.

Most excitingly, we also cut all of the apple walk apples down to height. They've all been cut to about 30cm, where we want the first horizontal tier of the espaliers to fall. In two cases, Cat's Head and Grandpa Buxton,  I actually cut them off at 45cm above this, at the height of the second tier, and have nicked above an appropriately placed bud to form the bottom tier. I've taken this approach as I wasn't absolutely sure that these hadn't been double worked, as there was a wound and new leader trained in above where the bottom espalier will be, and I didn't want to cut off all the Cat's Head/Grandpa Buxton, and leave an unknown interstem.

This left me with a bundle of eighteen sticks of various apples...and a reluctance to throw them away. So, instead, I've grafted them all onto the established apple trees. If they take, they're a back-up for the apple walk trees, and I can use them to graft new (possibly step-over) trees next winter. If they don't, I've not lost anything (well, apart from a couple of hours work).

Grafted

On Thursday, my order of grafting material arrived from the National Fruit Collection, in Brogdale. I'd ordered sticks of seven fruit varieties: two apples, Crimson Superb, and Craggy's Seedling; a pear, Hessle; two medlars, Dutch and Royal; and two quinces, Ivan and Vranja. The rootstocks arrived (MM106 for the apples; Quince A for the rest) a little while ago, and were planted out a couple of weeks ago, to give them time to settle in.

Today, then, was grafting day. I've managed to get three scions out of all the sticks, apart from medlar Royal and quince Vranja, which only produced two. That means at least two spare Quince A rootstocks, which is no bad thing. I collected the cut off rootstock, and have put them into pots, to see if they take as hardwood cuttings (it's not the right time of year, but there you go). I used a tongue-and-whip grafts on them all, and wrapped the joins with parafilm.

The grafting scions, well packed and safely delivered (© Ian 2014)

They're all in the nursery bed, apart from a Crimson Superb and a Craggy's Seedling, which I grafted onto rotostocks that had been planted straight into the apple walk last weekend.

The apple walk, with the two spoil heaps of stone (© Ian 2014)

The approach to the apple walk, with pear 'Hessle' in front and right of the first arch: the hawthorn on the left will be replaced with another Hessle, in time (© Ian 2014)

A side view of the apple walk, in its temporary deer-cage (© Ian 2014)

The nursery bed, with the other grafted rootstocks (© Ian 2014)

Apple Walk Planted

On Wednesday, our Yorkshire apples arrived, barerooted. They all came from an excellent (and relatively local) nursery in Pickering, called RV Roger, and are all young maiden trees, probably one or at most two years old from grafting:

• Court Pendu Plat (Norman)
• Joaneting (1600)
• Cats Head (1620)
• Ribston Pippin (1707)
• Dog's Snout (1720)
• Hunt House (1720)
• Balsam (1750)
• Greenup's Pippin (1750)
• Acklam Russet (1768)
• Hornsea Herring (1780)
• Yorkshire Greening (1803)
• Flower of the Town (1831)
• Fillingham Pippin (1835)
• Cockpit Improved (1850)
• New Bess Pool (1850)
• Winter Cockpit (1860)
• Nancy Jackson (1875)
• Sharleston Pippin (1888)
• Yorkshire Aromatic (1945)
• Grandpa Buxton (1990)

To these, we're adding Craggy's Seedling (I can't find a date for this, but guess around 1850), and Crimson Superb (similarly, but it's a sport of Laxton's Superb, bred 1897, so I'm putting it in the first half of the 20th Century, which is all the precision I need, as you can see). They're currently just MM106 rootstocks, as the graftwood will be arriving in a week or so.

We planted out almost all of these this morning, starting at the back left corner of the apple walk with Court Pendu Plat, and working through them chronologically, back right, then penultimate left, penultimate right, and so on. Pleasingly, this puts Cats Head (the biggest plant) next to Dog's Snout; and Cockpit Improved and Winter Cockpit adjacent. The bottom four on the left we've not planted, as we wanted to further increase the drainage, and re-assess the soil on Sunday.

They've all been planted with mycorrhizal fungi, and tied to their 2½" stake, next to their metal arch-foundation tube. I'll give them their establishing cut, at the height of the first 'tier', as part of the winter pruning in the next couple of weeks.

These trees planted, we also put the Hessle pear, and Marron de Lyon and Marigoule sweet chestnuts, which were part of the same order, in their prepared holes. Similar to the previous standard fruit trees, they're in decent planting pits, with more mycorrhizal fungi, a 2½" stake, and a 1.2m circumference, 6' height chicken wire cage, held in place with two 8' bamboos. (Sorry, terrible mix of units.)

Hessle, like the apples, is a Yorkshire native, coming from an eponymous village in the East Riding, near Kingston upon Hull. Sadly, there don't appear to be any Yorkshire-bred chestnuts (not terribly surprising, really), so we have the two French varieties that seemed best. I'm sure they'll be lovely.

Rootstocks

The MM106 apple and Quince A rootstocks arrived during the week, and have been heeled into a bucket of compost, waiting to be planted out. That was the first order of the day, so all but two apples are now safely planted in the nursery beds we dug on the hillside. We've put up the chickenwire cage that will protect all three beds from deer, and the rootstocks should now have a couple of weeks to settle in before we graft onto them.

Yesterday afternoon, we then drove the 22 tubes that will support the apple walk arches into the ground. These are 5/8" steel tubes, with the underground section cold-galvanized, and bitumen painted, for corrosion protection. They extend about 90cm above ground, and the rebar arches will slot into them in a few weeks. Alongside are the support stakes, that will ensure that the rootstocks don't suffer windrock while they establish.

Steel tubes, zinc-painted and ready for bituminous paint over-coat ( Ian 2014)

Having got these carefully positioned, we then dug the two planting holes for our sweet chestnuts, which are on the same order as the twenty apples and one pear (the last two apples for the walk are amongst the grafting set). This was astonishingly easy: we each went to one hole, planning to get started then reconvene once we knew how difficult they were going to be—and had the holes dug in a few minutes. Working in the very stony (historically terraced) corner with the apple walk has clearly given us a different perspective. The holes dug, I drove an 8' stake for each; this has the advantage of being able to see the position from the house, to check that they seem right.

The two trenches of the apple walk then needed refilling, so we poured in seven bags of sand, to help drainage, and eight trugs of compost, before scraping the spoil heaps back into the trenches. Even with the additions, the loss of all that stone from the trenches means that they were still underfilled.

To make up the shortfall, we've used loam from the stacks of turf we've been building in the copse while lifting turves from the quince, sweet-pea, and copse beds. Trenches topped up, we then decided to put up the chicken-wire cage for the applewalk, having previously thought of leaving it until after planting. However, with the centre of the walk now clear of soil (but still muddy and slippery), we decided there was good enough access, and the greater risk was of kicking a tree over while manoeuvring the heavy roll of wire net. The corner stakes aren't really secure enough to tension a fence (I couldn't drive them deeply enough into the stony soil), but they've sufficed for getting the protective cage round the apple beds. We also had to dig one or two more short drains, to ensure that the ground isn't too wet—the very wet weather of the last month means there are several stream flowing down the hillside, in the main gullies and land-drain, and the ground just inside the gap in the wall is a pond. Fortunately, all our drainage work last year seems to have done the job well, and the existing trees seem protected from the worst of it.

The fruit trees are scheduled to arrive this coming week, and so we should be able to plant up the apple walk next weekend, at long last.

Stakes

It's been an unpleasant job, in the wet and the wind, but we managed to finish digging the second apple-walk trench, as well as the three nursery-bed trenches. The latter came across far fewer stones, which made it easier than it could have been—we definitely picked the stoniest part of the field to build the apple walk.

Having dug the trench, we drove the first set of posts in: 2½" posts, 5'6" long, and spaced 3' apart. The first set of eleven were straightforward, but getting the second set parallel, with each one squarely opposite its pair, was a slog. Eventually, though, we got them all in, and are happy with their position. They're a bit wonky, in fairness, and not perfectly straight. I hope that we'll be able to drive the tubes for the actual arches a little more accurately. The stakes are off-set from the arches by a few inches (up-hill and outwards): the trees will be planted just outside the arch's tubes. As they're on MM106 rootstocks, they'll only need the stakes for a few years, to protect against wind rocking the roots, and then the stakes can be pulled up, or sawn off at ground level.

The nursery trenches were easier, as they don't have to be too accurate. There's a variety of heights, either 8' posts or 5'6", depending on what we intend for the adjacent tree. We can't be sure that we'll actually need them all for grafting: I've ordered three rootstocks per variety, but if the scion material is short, we may only get one, or two, scions worth from each. That's manageable: the rootstocks will 'keep'.

Once the support stakes were in, we also had posts to drive in around each set of beds (four around the nursery beds, six around the walk), which will support an anti-deer chicken-wire cage. We'll only put that up once the trees are in, to give maximum manoeuvrability for planting. 

Second Trench

It's amazing how long some jobs can take.

We've almost finished digging the second 11m trench into which the apples of the apple walk will be planted. To do so, we've had to cut about 10m of drainage ditch, as well; lift (at a guess) six tons of stones out of the trenches (including two >500kg boulders); and flatten out a 35m² area.

I've kept telling myself that, one day, it'll be beautiful.

We need to finish the last couple of meters of the second trench (ran out of energy and day-light), and then we can start driving the stakes and foundation rods for the metal work. The trees will arrive in the second week of February, and can go straight in the ground. Similarly, the rootstocks and scions for the six varieties we're grafting will get to us in the next few weeks: that means that the nursery bed trenches also need to be finished. Both apple walk and nursery beds will need chicken wire protection, for at least a few years, so that will need building, too.

A Trench or Two

We've spent our time outside this weekend digging the trenches for the apple walk. To start with, I had to demolish the large stone (boulder) that we uncovered last time. It took a bit of whacking with the sledge hammer, but I managed to make it small enough that we could drag it out of the area of the walk.

Unfortunately, I then found an even bigger stone sitting the middle of the other (lower) planting line. This one was massive: about 6' by 3', and at least a foot thick: probably the best part of a metric ton. A long while later, I managed to break it in two, then make the larger piece small enough to move out of the way. We've now finished, eventually, digging over the first trench, and will try to get the other one dug next weekend.

We also have to prepare enough ground for 18 rootstocks, for fruit we're planning to graft with material from the National Fruit Collection. The rootstocks should arrive later this month, and scion material thereafter. There's a good spot near the plums where they should all fit, bearing in mind that they'll be there about a year.

Start of a Break

We finished work for Christmas on Thursday, and spent Friday getting ourselves a little more organized for the holiday. There's a list of things we want/need to to get done, and I think we're on top of the urgent ones. Ideally, we'll spend a day quilting towards the end of the holiday, and there's some things we'd like to work on outside, weather permitting. There's always boring administrative things to get done inside, when the weather fails to cooperate (like filing the receipts for 2013...). We spent a lovely day with my parents yesterday, having a pre-Christmas dinner, and finally watching the first Hobbit film. The pork liver pâté we made in October (and froze in anticipation!) was delicious.

With some luck, we should be able to make progress on preparing the site of the apple walk. We started about a month ago, having had the idea back when we visited Barnsdale. The apple arch there (photo on this website), and a similar one in the Highgrove walled garden, are the kind of thing we're trying to create. Each side of a 33' long, 8' wide tunnel will have apple trees planted (every 3'; eleven up each side). They'll be trained up each arch of the walk (each arch being 4' vertical, then a 4' radius, 180° arch, and back down 4') to the top, where two apples will meet. They'll be trained into one-sided espaliers, with 3' long arms coming off every 18" or so, to create the structure of the apple walk.

Ideally, on a level site, each tree would have arms on both sides, half the length. However, because the walk is going to slope upwards, unavoidably, this won't work. Branches trained downhill will fail to grow.

We've got twenty apples on order, and I've found two more that I can obtain grafting material for, which we'll try grafting ourselves. They all originate (as far as we can tell) in Yorkshire, and date from Roman times, through Norman introductions, and the Victorian boom in apple varieties. Whimsically, we're going to arrange them chronologically, so that the oldest are at the top, and the most recent (just a few decades old) is at the bottom, or start.

However, long before it looks like anything at all, we need to smooth the plot, dig out the stones, and improve the soil. And, probably, dig some drainage.