These notes first appeared in the Botley parish magazine. They attempt to be a frank and candid account of our doings in the orchard and were to some extent inspired by a similar column written by David Macer-Wright in the Countryman magazine several decades ago. The conviction behind them is that orchards are very interesting places to be, where a mixture of contemplation and action, stillness and movement, nature and artifice etc take place. Orchards are great places for solitude, parties, barbecues, camping, dancing, learning, and good places to express thanks to our wonderful Creator who gives us good things to enjoy. I may occasionally extend these by adding a bit more, space in the parish magazine is limited. I assert my moral right to these words, who knows if there is enough interest there may be a book some day.

2001

• January 2001
• February 2001
• March 2001
• April 2001
• May 2001
• June 2001
• July 2001

  2000
  

• September 2000
• October 2000
• November 2000
• December 2000

The weather has been fine for the soft fruit, except when we get a shower just before picking, and the garlic, which we are now lifting. It may surprise some of you that garlic grows well in England, others will know of the famous garlic festival held on the Isle of Wight each year! Fresh garlic is particularly pungent and when cut exudes an oil that sticks to your fingers. It’s a nice “catch crop”, as you can usually harvest it in time to get another crop out of the same piece of ground that year, eg fast maturing peas, French beans, lettuce or leeks. It’s easy to grow, just plant the cloves like onion sets ideally around November. It grows very slowly through the winter (frost is no problem) then shoots away in the spring to harvest around July.

Wildlife in the orchard makes life more interesting. Our favourite animal is the newly fledged kestrel, which makes a continuous “ki-ki-ki” sound as it flies across the orchard into a big Black Poplar tree where it’s parents are still feeding it. Less happily, moles are making tunnels and hills everywhere. I found a rabbit in the broccoli nets, it got away. We also have to net the redcurrants against blackbirds, but fledglings still find a way to get in-Julia has had to release 3 of them every morning this week.

Crows, to our rage and disgust, have destroyed the crop of Irish Peach. We only have one tree of this lovely early apple, it would have been ripe in a few weeks, but almost every fruit has been pecked and ruined. We will have to net the Epicure and Miller’s Seedling-the birds always go for the early apples, as they are so sweet and juicy. Next year we must have a scarecrow competition in the orchard. I had a fright last week when I disturbed a snake. I was summer pruning the Ribston Pippins when I heard a rustle, looked down and saw a big snake sliding close by. It was about a metre long and so thick (probably a gravid female about to lay eggs) and dark I thought it was an adder at first, but I saw the yellow band behind it’s neck and after my initial shock I could see it was a harmless grass snake. It curled up at the base of a blackcurrant bush and waited for Julia and I to go away. The Codling moths are showing up in our pheromone traps. Unless we beat them, it’s maggoty apples. There is no effective organic control. Spraying against codling maggot is therefore the most critical job at present, along with picking and marketing soft fruit, making jam, taking garlic to the farmer’s market, bottling cider, checking the bees, hoeing the onions, designing and printing leaflets, tending the website, last years’ tax return, budding apple trees, training espaliers, summer pruning, keeping records, mowing the grass, picking the peas, and catching that rabbit!

Stephen Hayes
5th July 2001