A beast in the orchard and some fedging

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Some hedging and fedging has taken place, completing the actions from one grant and achieving a milestone in another. Plus the beast was let loose in the new orchard area.

Fixing some storm damage

We had set up an outdoor covered enclosure for the chickens, but with the recent storms this was left in a rather sorry state so reinforcement was required.

Chicken shelter before the storms.
Now with some extra strength clamped on.

Young farmers

Our youngest farm member is experiencing the farm’s luxury transport vehicle.

Progress on our Transpennine Express grant

Part of our successful grant application to Transpennine Express included planting some hedges along the boundaries of our livestock pens. This is the first stretch of approx 20m and we got the whole thing done in a day. We will do another run of hedging (possibly next spring) on the opposite edge of the same field.

Geraldine, Wendy and Lee-Anne did most of the work planting this hedge.
Harry stirred up trouble by saying they were too close together, but we got all the way across the livestock pen with plants to spare.

Kelly’s dad Dave was able to bring a digger on site to scrape the top off this pen and level it out to give us a better base for planting grasses suitable for geese, hopefully next year. Big shout out to Dave for spending his time in the digger on the farm in appalling weather to do this for us.

So what is a fedge?

A fedge is a hedge planted woven and shaped into a fence – obvious really! Ours is being planted as a screen around our composting loo.

Planting the fedge in two sections, there is to be an arch between them.
Martin and Jenny did a fab job on the pattern weaving.

A beast in the orchard!

For some time now we’ve been clearing a previously overgrown area to extend our orchard of fruit trees. It’s been hard but now it looks great.

The beast was let loose to bash down the remaining unwanted growth. The Beast is the old cast iron mower – not Harry.
Some other beasts have joined the farm.
Reg is minding the muck! After shifting a load of old compost out of the way (in the rain) the delivery vehicle bringing the new compost kept slipping in the mud and couldn’t get it any further, so it had to be dumped in the middle.

Offerings

The farm is offered many things from people wanting to help, which is great, and we’ve been very lucky with sheds, polytunnels and greenhouses in the past. Recently we’ve been offered a very large greenhouse and so have decided to replace two of our small greenhouses.

Huge new greenhouse coming soon! We need to clear space and create a base for it first.
Only took one afternoon but our little greenhouses have been taken down and one was transported around the corner to a grateful allotment keeper.

Is it Spring yet?

These popped up near the gate and looked rather nice, shame it’s where the skip has been placed!
These also popped up at the edge of the car parking area.