Finding My Boundaries
When I looked at the area I'd been working, in the gathering twilight yesterday, I was reminded of how that sailor who'd been adrift for 14 months looked after he'd had a haircut and his beard trimmed. Despite the rain, I'd managed to clear the whole fruit bush area, cutting the bushes down to stumps, and taking all the top growth from the cherry trees. Should've taken photos, I know.
Now, I've got three big heaps of the cuttings to trim into manageable size, and pile up by the Frogs' Winter Palace, as additional refuge for the allotment's residents. I need to get a saw to finally coppice the cherry trees, which are trunks now, about 6ft high and 6ins thick. My dad's just pointed out that they'll probably grow back from the rootstock as wild cherries, but I can live with that, they'll just be another element in the hedgerow, and I can probably find something edible to make with wild cherries when they grow back. (Wild cherry jam? Sounds like marketer's dream.)
And where the fruit bushes were is banked up. I'm going to relocate the front row of fruit bushes to other parts of the boundary, and level the bank - but that's going to be bloody hard work, as it'll be full of fruit bush, cherry tree and nettle roots. Then I'll return to the Old Greenhouse Foundations, or raise the path, or whatever: different mode of working now, it'll be weekends only, weather permitting.
But there's no way I'm leaving it alone until spring, even though the allotment has a straggly, wintery feel to it now. I need at least to get all 240ft of boundary cleared before January, to get the bare root hawthorns in for the hedgerow.
Now, I've got three big heaps of the cuttings to trim into manageable size, and pile up by the Frogs' Winter Palace, as additional refuge for the allotment's residents. I need to get a saw to finally coppice the cherry trees, which are trunks now, about 6ft high and 6ins thick. My dad's just pointed out that they'll probably grow back from the rootstock as wild cherries, but I can live with that, they'll just be another element in the hedgerow, and I can probably find something edible to make with wild cherries when they grow back. (Wild cherry jam? Sounds like marketer's dream.)
And where the fruit bushes were is banked up. I'm going to relocate the front row of fruit bushes to other parts of the boundary, and level the bank - but that's going to be bloody hard work, as it'll be full of fruit bush, cherry tree and nettle roots. Then I'll return to the Old Greenhouse Foundations, or raise the path, or whatever: different mode of working now, it'll be weekends only, weather permitting.
But there's no way I'm leaving it alone until spring, even though the allotment has a straggly, wintery feel to it now. I need at least to get all 240ft of boundary cleared before January, to get the bare root hawthorns in for the hedgerow.
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