Autumn has started beautifully on the farm – with sunny days, warm temperatures and an abundance of heritage apples and pears almost ready to harvest. Here are just a few recent images
The hedge that we relaid last year has rejuvenated really well – we have also planted additional hedge to create a space for a small market garden next year.
It has been a great year for apples, pears, plums, damsons and nuts. Our fruit is harvested by a local artisan cider and perry maker and they harvest the fruit by hand and by type – which means coming back as each variety reaches the perfect ripeness.
The new hedges planted two years ago as part of our DEFRA funded traditional orchard restoration initiative are thriving.
The beehives have been slightly relocated and are set up for winter
You can just see some of the new replacement heritage trees we planted in the late spring (we added 50 to the gaps, next to dying trees if needed), all of which seem to have survived the summer drought, and the ‘deadwood’ piles. Deadwood is fundamentally important habitat in old orchards and we leave ours within each segment to support the biodiversity of the rare ecosystem and benefit our orchard soils.
Next year we will be adding a new orchard to the rear field – and finally starting work on the replacement farm house!
