Planting Elm Trees

The other day I finished reading this rather excellent book called "Barn Club" about a community project building an elm framed barn using traditional methods. 

 

One thing that really struck me was how there was still lots of elm trees about if you knew where to look. Not that they get to a good size anymore, unless in a pocket that never got seriously affected by the disease, but there are still some that get to useful timber size. Also how much this timber used to be used. Many of the old carpentry books I've got talk about it's uses, from water pipes to coffins to the hubs of wheels! 

Hedges Patched

 Good fences make good neighbours and all that. I decided that as I had a few spare plants left over it was worth just patching up the old hedge that divides between us and farm next door. 

Mainly hawthorn and I'll be honest and say I'm not sure how they'll be do being so shaded under the other trees. 

Hopefully enough will take that can be laid in a decade or so to help strengthen the hedge and fence line. A few hours well spent hopefully and a few more trees in the ground on our little smallholding! 

Over 500 Trees Planted!

I'm so pleased with the last week - we have a new fence and hedge in! Woop! 

We did this years ago with the first field nearest the house, to separate off the footpath from the field and make things more private. We kept thinking about doing this with the second field as well, but it was during lockdown and seeing how few people kept their dogs on leads and could control them that made us decide that this was the right thing to do. 

Planting 40 Plum Trees!

It's not been ideal conditions for planting trees, really the ground is too wet - but as they say time waits for no man so I decided we'd get them in and see what happened. 

Helpers - my eldest was poorly. 

To start with we planted up a new hedge between us and the neighbours. For this we used cherry plum trees, just little whips, and every 10ft put in a Victoria plum (they were £5) as a standard. Not sure how this will turn out but it should be interesting. I've read lots of people saying it makes a good edible hedge but when asked no one seems to have tried it!

Plums For The Whole Season?

The season for plums in the UK is from mid July until The start of October. These are from a variety of plum types, grown under different conditions, they're even growing plums under plastic now to get them even earlier. 

But last year I think we had plums for the grand total of 2 weeks. They were a glorious two weeks, but it left me thinking I've really missed a trick. Time to do something about it.