Weed and seed day

Today, as it turned out was a day of weeding and seeding. The first major and laborious task was to continue clearing brambles out of the orchard. Rosy and one or two helpers attempted to dig out each and every bramble where we would be extending our wildflower meadow.  With their long, thick running roots the task proved to be a long hard slog, as we had to dig out as much root as possible to prevent regrowth.  They dug and dug and dug, and eventually got there in the end and the area was nice and clear - many congratulations on a brilliant day's work!

Matt digs out a bramble

Rosy rightly looks pleased with her work

Meanwhile, while all this was going on in the back orchard, Helen also did her share of digging in the fruit cage. While the weeds in there were nowhere near as invasive and difficult as brambles, the task still took the majority of the session to complete. The cage was full of dandelions, couch grass and many other weeds with deep and rambling roots. In a similar case to the team in the back area, Helen also had to dig out as much weed root as possible to prevent regrowth and competition with the fruit bushes. We keep this area heavily mulched, but it will be a few years yet before we are completely on top of the deeper rooted weeds.

Helen in the fruit cage

Matt on log sawing duty

Matt, Chris, Ellis and Dan also took regular breaks from bramble clearing to saw up more logs for the fire pit. Whilst they were doing that, Ray made a good start on the path-side fence, which needs attention and lots of brambles woven into it. He also brought along a little friend to keep an eye on the proceedings...

Ray's little friend 

After all this digging and sawing, it was such a relief to finish the day by sowing some wildflower and grass seed into the prepared orchard. A highly relaxing task which will hopefully yield stunning results come the Spring and Summer.