This week we are in the final stages of planting our latest project, our Orchard.  We’ve been planting a variety - apple trees, plus some pear and plum trees too, but mainly apples. It’s a freezing cold February day and it’s blowing a gale, yet that isn’t stopping the team and the last batch of trees are being planted. The wind chill here is made even worse by how close we are to the sea, but hopefully the trees will love the sea air. The view from the field is spectacular as the ground is rather high, we can see the menacing sea, today its rather dark and the wind is whipping around so the trees will need to be tough cookies to survive these Northern temperatures! The apples are mainly Old English varieties which will be able to withstand our climate. It’s very interesting that the arborist we have helping...

Although we are growing thousands of hazel trees in our new woodland eco project, as well as oak, holly, rowan, beech and many more trees it was the hazel trees we were originally determined to plant. Whilst I appreciate that tree growing isn’t a short term hobby and many of the trees we have planted will take more than our lifetimes to look like the forests I had romantically envisaged before planting, I appreciate that some of our trees are looking rather more interesting these days rather than just a few leaves on a stalk inside the protective biodegradable tubing . This clear tubing is used to protect and nurture the baby trees from the elements, and hopefully speed up their growth.Chris planted some hazel trees in some spare rough ground near our house many years ago but these were eaten by deer and died sadly but he had also planted...

Chris and I visited our new pond and woodland today, the pond has filled nicely, the deer fence is up, and the trees are now being planted so there is major progress for our farm project so I thought I'd share it with you on this lovely day. It was such a lovely uplifting morning to visit the site, the sun was shining, the dogs had a great walk and sniff of the hedgerows, and the lovely birds were singing, it was almost deafening! I saw my first skylark, ok Chris pointed it out to me, and I heard it singing as it flew past otherwise, I wouldn’t have known what it was, but hey, now I do. The site looks huge, it covers almost ten acres, so it is going to be a substantial woodland for a bird and wildlife haven on our farm, it’s been a few years in...