Today I was asked if I voluntarily wanted to take part in a survey about orchards. It is not the main topic of my writings. However, when thinking about the answers to each question I was asked, the Orchard definitely seems to be a very important part of my farm -so, our lives. It might be worth sharing something about it!
We luckily had an orchard already planted when we acquired our home. The story of this Orchard is very sad. It was born as a tool in a conflict between neighbours, to block access to certain area. As a response, the hedge along has been left by the neighbour to shade the fruit trees. There was an original Orchard in the farm that we might recuperate one day, but at the moment there’s only one non original orchard.
At some point, our orchard hosted, within a high fence, trees and rabbits. So some of the apple trees had damage on the lower trunk. As a result and combination with other factors, we have lost four trees within 5 years. One was still in the plant pot as it was brought in who knows when, and was never planted into the ground. There’s still some 25 trees still standing.
The first year, I did some research on pruning: books, websites, videos… I took some tools in a cold sunny morning in February and rang my dad for rough instruction on how to go about it. I shared with him some pictures of the trees I had in front of me and he guided me through the process. Technology once more wiped off the distance between two countries. I only pruned 6 trees that year and it took me forever. That summer I picked some damsons and apples. It was obvious that pruning is actually very needed for a productive Orchard.
Second year, second pruning and chickens, better harvest. We ate plenty of apples and plums. To avoid waste, chickens and alpacas had a share of spoilt and excess fruit. They loved the apples.
There is no space between trees for machinery. There’s the fence around it. Next we hosted our chickens in the Orchard. With this, the grass was kept short, the soil turned and fed. Hmm, new uninvited rodents appeared, crows came over too and the chickens inhabited the trees and invited themselves to the fruit.
The branches we pruned soon became a big thing next to the track. We have to keep on devising solutions for every little thing we do with the Orchard.
Third year. The chickens visit to the Orchard is planned and seasonal. With other adjustments to improve the functionality of this area, and not having enough time for it, I requested a quote for professional pruning to gain time for other tasks. Too expensive for us at that time, this alternative is still in our minds as the sunny days in winter are few, and most of them we are away busy with our other jobs. We haven’t been able to delegate this task yet. Once again, we organised the workload and had some lucky sunny days to help and did most of the trees. The branches were put through a shredder that year.
Autumn came with a full trailer load of apples. We counted five different varieties. That was something serious. We have a lot of produce from this little unplanned Orchard.
By then, only a few years on, this Orchard was maturing and giving us much more than shade. The list was nearly endless:
- plenty of fruit for humans and animals to eat,
- blossoms to decorate the end of winter,
- early food for bees to start making honey
- juice through the whole of the winter,
- some juice made into cider,
- seasonal shelter for chickens,
- chippings of the branches for chicken bedding when they’re not housed in the Orchard,
- some chippings for landscaping and gardening, some for composting,
- some chippings are soaked to extract natural dyes,
- some branches were spared in piles to promote wildlife near some of the hedges,
- after harvesting, the alpacas feast on the lower leaves,
- autumn leaves complete the piles of compost for the year,
- Damsons became my favourite dyeing material for the yarns,
- apple sauce and jams to feed us through the winter,
A few years on, we can definitely say the Orchard is one of the most productive corners of the farm. Also, it is not the one that requires most of the work. And that gives me great pleasure!
Kestle Alpacas 