ilultham

 So if you have read this blog for any length of time you'll know that I love damsons. When ripe they're up there with some of my favourite fruits. One reason why I put about another 14 in this year in our new hedge in the second field.  Unfortunately, other than the one in the photo above (a Merryweather - my favourite as it is a "freestone" damson), the others don't seem to be doing so well in the orchard that I planted 8 years ago .  One seems to have reverted back to it's rootstock and is growing like crazy. But no fruit and very spiky. I'm not sure if I should try grafting or budding this one over to something else, or to rip it out with the digger and plant something else completely, especially as I'll have more damsons than I'll know what to do with with once the hedge as established.  The second had started growing with a serious lead. Duel domancy I think it's called where it ended up growing two leaders. Unfortunately this has lead to...

 I was walking with the children on one of our Lockdown walks the other day, and the route goes through a commercial cider orchard. Very different to what we have, the trees are planted at different spaces, they're pruned and harvested differently, but we could see that the work they do in these places is a constantly evolving space.  New Tree planted to fill a gap They had young trees filling in gaps in the rows and some older trees that had been ripped out. it looked like they had started pruning as well - must be quite a daunting task with these fields being about 10 acres or more!  Older tree removed for some reason - maybe disease  But it gets me thinking about my own orchard and trees. We constantly plant new trees and queeze them into different places but also maintain the trees we have. This last summer I ahd a coupl edie for no reason (or not one I could see). They need to be replaced.  One is in the main orchard (pictured above the nearest tree) it was...