Having finished planting the last of the new fruit trees and completed pruning the last of the trees that I planted as one year old maidens last year I can now turn my attention to the ditch bordering the orchard on the North side. The hedge in on my side of the ditch therefore the hedge ditch and its maintenance belongs to me. Not that I'm complaining about the job, I'm not. It means that I am able to work the hedge and clean the ditch to my satisfaction and I don't have to wait for or ask others to do the job. The hedge is or was hawthorn and covered with ivy, you may remember my struggle to kill off the ivy last year. Well the ivy is now gone but the hedge is well beyond repair and in places it was hanging over the ditch so close to the ground as to make effective ditch cleaning all but impossible.for the last half of the ditches length. This is probably why it appears the ditch hasn't been cleaned for may years. So having cleaned the first half of the ditch to my satisfaction I had to start on the last half. If you wonder why I'm bothering the reason is simple, last year the ditch was overflowing, the water was running down the orchard, down our patio steps and onto the patio before running down the drains.
The picture above shows the partially cleaned ditch with hazel stumps on the left. The hazel will respond well to the savage treatment it has just received and regrow quickly. I will make sure the blackthorn doesn't, I hate the invasive stuff. I am going to thicken the hedge at the top of the orchard with more hazel. Yes I know I won't get any nuts, the squirrels will beat me to it just before they are fully ripe. But so long as they don't touch the fruit I don't mind the squirrels. Rabbits are another matter entirely. The only treasure I have found in the ditch bottom is a copper belt buckle. I've never seed a buckle made of copper before and it's showing the wear I would have expected from such a buckle which has been well used. Anyone else would have found a gold buckle only I could find a copper one, still its better than a coil of used rusty barbed wire.
The final remains of the blackthorn the smaller branches of the hazel and some hawthorn. It's amasing what you can get rid of with a good fire. I do try to pick a day when the wind is blowing away from my neighbours.
The picture above is of the top hedge, furthest from the house. I cleaned out the bottom of this hedge last year. There are four or five wild plum trees in the hedge, I suspect that they have all grown from rood suckers from a tree which is now no more. I removed what looked like the decayed remains of the trunk of the original tree. These trees didn't produce many fruit for the first couple of years of our occupation but last year they surpassed themselves, I suspect this was because some of the plums I planted as two year old pot grown trees flowered last year, giving a much better source of pollen. The plums are about the size of a small damson but are yellow with a strong blush of red, looking something like a very small victoria. They have a very intense plum taste and are only sweet enough to eat when fully ripe, they do make very good plum brandy. I am back at my proper job tomorrow and won't be able to get back into my ditch until next Saturday, that's something to look forward to. Don't I know how to have a good time?
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