Beginnings.

I may as well start at the beginning, the picture above is the site as it was before we started work on the house.  The pasture was old and overgrown with thistles.  Someone had heaped rubbish around a few tree stumps that had been pushed into a heap.  And the blackthorn in the hedge had crept about twenty feet into the paddock.  A lot of work looking at us.

This is what I hoped would become my orchard.  It makes things look worse than the first picture, the truth is it was.  The picture was taken five years ago.  The heaps of spoil are what was dug out for the foundations of our house, I had to dig back the top soil and level the heaped subsoil and then push the top soil back over the area.  I didn't make a perfect job but I didn't make a bad one, the soil is higher in clay content where I pushed the spoil level but I think it will be OK.  Unfortunately I didn't keep a complete photographic record of the progress of the paddock to orchard but I should be able to find more pictures for the next post.