Apple grafting and wax workshop

Most weekends I stay on the smallholding but last weekend Sue and I had booked to go along to a beeswax workshop in West Norfolk, courtesy of the brilliant WNKLBA (read as Winklebar, West Norfolk and Kings Lynn Bee-keepers Association).

But late on Thursday evening I came across a Facebook post on the East Anglian Landworkers Alliance Group to the effect that there were places left on an apple tree grafting day.

Not only did the timing fit in perfectly but it was in the same direction as the other course. Time is valuable. Petrol is priceless.

A couple of emails later and everything was sorted.

Easy Graft
Apple grafting is something I've not tried before. I've just never really got round to it. It's not only used for apples. The principal is that you put the fruit tree you want onto the rootstock that you want. It means you can control factors such as the size and vigour of the tree. These will be determined by the rootstock. February and March are the time to do it.

And so,  in a polytunnel on the site of Norfolk Farmshare on the outskirts of Norwich, I first learned the theory and then got to try the art of grafting. First I chose my two apple varieties. You just use what is basically the end of a twig. This is the scion, the cutting which will be joined to the rootstock. I wanted something new, so I went for Queen Cox on a small rootstock so that I can squeeze it into the forest garden. Secondly one which I'd never heard of, Gloucester Underleaf,.. I was attracted to this as it is a Cider Apple. I went for a larger rootstock on this one as we'll want lots for juicing.

I could get into this grafting business. It's a great way of being able to propagate and play with my favourite fruit trees. 

While I was grafting, Sue was exploring Norwich. Come lunchtime she picked me up and we headed back west to a village hall in West Norfolk. 

Waxing Lyrical
West Norfolk and Kings Lynn Beekeepers Association really is a fantastic group. Today's meeting was about using old wax from the bee hives. We joined in with a series of demonstrations, from lip balm to candles, wax wraps to furniture polish. We even got a sample of each to take home with us.

Smallholding is about using every little bit of what you produce. It's about doing things sustainably. After today, thanks to some people kindly sharing their knowledge, I am a little closer to that.

Orchard haircut

Pruning is a dark art which I don't want to go into in much detail (mainly for fear of showing my ignorance). Through Fenland Smallholders Club I've been lucky enough over the years to meet a few people who could show me the basics. 

For the first few years I would tentatively approach the orchard trees, RHS fruit book in hand, and try to figure out how the living creature in front of me was supposed to match the diagrams in the book. After a while I learned the difference between leaders and laterals (main branches and side shoots). 

And after a few years I began to understand how the trees respond to having their branches cut, where the fruit likes to form, what happens if you cut too much, or too little.

And so I have reached a point where my RHS fruit book lives a comfortable life in the bookcase, only coming off the shelf for a new variety or when I need to revisit. 

The time to prune orchard trees (not stone fruits) is winter, when the trees are dormant. I like  to wait for dry conditions and ideally a nice, sunny and crisp day, you know, when you can actually imagine that spring is on its way. If not over my Christmas holiday, this is often between mid January and mid February.

It is one of those rituals which marks the passing of the seasons, clearing the debris of last year and preparing for new growth and new harvests. Every year I take a picture of a couple of trees, mainly as this crops up in my blog on an annual basis. 

The same trees, 2022 (top), 2021 (middle) 2020 (below)

Bramley apple tree in the chicken pen

One form of pruning which I was not so happy about was what confronted me one frosty morning this week. A Pixie apple tree which has just come into its fruiting prime has been completely de-barked. It will take a miracle for it to survive. The culprit was one of  the Shetland sheep which must have hopped the electric fence under the cover of darkness and proceeded to wreak havoc. A couple of other trees were damaged too, but not fatally. Not only have I probably lost a good tree but I'll have to invest in a stretch of proper fencing to discourage such unruly behaviour.

2021 Week 5 - Pruning and Zooming

You've got to retain a sense of humour.

Pruning Orchard Fruits
This week's big job has been pruning the fruit trees and bushes.

These two apple trees (a juicer and a cider apple) form part of the canopy in the new forest garden.
They've had a good haircut!

You leave stone fruits alone at this time of year, but the apples and pears needed their annual trim. Pruning is always presented as somewhat of a science and for several years I would accomplish the task with my trusty fruit growing book with me. Unfortunately the trees didn't always grow as they were supposed to in the book.

As I have gained experience, I have come to understand how trees and fruits respond to pruning. I have realised that pruning achieves various purposes. Firstly, there is pruning to take out damaged or diseased wood. Then there is taking out any branches which cross as the rubbing of the bark leaves a route in for infection. Once these fundamental steps are completed, there is pruning for the sake of producing fruit and pruning to keep the shape of the trees. 

As far as fruit production is concerned, I have realised that if you cut back the small side shoots they will eventually, over a year or two, turn into what we call fruiting spurs. To put it another way, what would have grown into branches is stopped and produces blossom and fruit instead. 

Pruning for shape is not just for aesthetics either. You need an open structure so that air can circulate and you need to make sure you can reach the fruit for harvest. Increasingly as our weather turns warmer and wetter fungal diseases are becoming the biggest problems, those and problems associated with alternative periods of drought and excessive rain, so thinning branches and thinning fruit has become more and more important.

This year I felt confident enough to show another couple how I prune. I concentrated on a holistic understanding of how the tree responds and what you want to achieve. I hope it was useful.

Pruning the Soft Fruit Bushes
All the soft fruit bushes needed pruning too, blackcurrants, red and white currants and gooseberries (a prickly subject!).

You need to understand how they fruit and how pruning affects new growth, but the principles are very similar to those that apply to apple trees. 

Fruit pruning days provide a very special treat for the Shetland sheep.
They really appreciate all the cuttings, even the spiky gooseberry twigs.

The soft fruits have been festooned with berries and currants for the last few years. New plants are ridiculously easy to propagate too. As a result, I've actually ended up with too many bushes which have expanded leaving no room to get between or for airflow. So this year I have pruned them quite heavily (pruning is not a science and subjective decisions need to be taken). I thinned out a few bushes too. The only problem with this is that the open ground becomes a haven for grass and weed growth. However, since I want this area to become part of my forest garden, I shall put smaller herbaceous perennials in the gaps which hopefully will require little attention and give us some novel crops.

Imbolc

The week's weather has been generally good, typically late January weather, some days cold, some warmer and wetter. The bees ventured out on a couple of days and I've heard robins, great tits, blackbirds, a song thrush and skylarks in song. This made pruning a pleasant task.

I've seen much talk of Imbolc on social media. It seems to have become very trendy to acknowledge these ancient festivals. Imbolc is allegedly a Gaelic festival to mark the start of spring. I am all in favour of appreciating and marking the passing of the seasons, but come on! I think it's a tad optimistic to be talking about the beginning of spring so early in February. There is sometimes a gap between reality and hope. 

One of my favourite plants at this time of year is mahonia or Oregon Grapes. Ours has split into two plants and become quite statuesque. It flowers and fruits really early and is an important food source for the bees when they venture out of their hives on warmer days.

I won't say that spring is quite here yet, but there are hints of its approach. To brighten things up in future, I had ordered a whole load of bulbs to go in the hazel coppice as I have now moved the strawberries on from that area. Hopefully they'll survive and we will have the delight of snowdrops, aconites and bluebells coming through. Planting them all was a lovely job to do with Sue and the dogs helped by enthusiastically digging up some lawn.

The garlic cloves I set in the ground a few weeks back have all come through strongly now. Once they get their roots in I'll take the netting off. The birds do like to tug at them though.

But the week ended with more heavy rain and the water has come higher than ever before. There comes a point when wellies become standard wear and you give up trying to go round the mud and puddles. 

Covid update

It's been my week to teach from home so I have almost no direct contact with the outside world. This makes me feel safe. School staff are now taking twice weekly lateral flow tests. These are notoriously unreliable but they do give a little reassurance despite being pretty uncomfortable to self-administer. We now look forward to gag-tastic Sundays and Wednesdays!

I also received an oximeter in the post. Both Sue and I have been feeling unusually breathless at times but the oximeter showed a normal oxygen level so I guess it must just come down to getting old and maybe carrying a bit too much weight around the middle (me, not Sue).

I received my Google timeline update too.

124 miles travelled in the whole month and never further than 8 miles from home. I think this was 6 trips to work, one drive out for fish and chips and one trip to the hardware store.

A sign of the times.

Unexpected Windfalls

Red Admirals are appreciating the fruity windfall too

So far this year we have had a winter with virtually no frost, we had about a foot of rain in 3 days and we had temperatures touching on 100F.

Every year has its variables but these weather extremes seem to be more and more frequent and each comes with its own challenges for growing food.

On this occasion it was strong winds that did the damage. Many plums and apples fell from the trees, but worse still was the damage to several of my plum trees. Our recent weather seems to be encouraging rapid, soft growth of new wood which does not stand up to the strong winds which often come in August when the trees are fully laden with leaves and fruits.
The trees which sustained the most damage were actually those which were not overburdened with fruit.

The damage did me one favour though. One of my plum trees went severely off piste a few years back. Basically the rootstock outgrew the grafted tree and we ended up with a huge tree which bore very little fruit. It looked good, but was growing fast and taking too much from the surrounding fruit trees.

Last week's winds literally split the trunk into four, so it was time to 'lightly prune'. Fortunately plum leaves and bark are a favourite for the Shetland sheep.

Fungal disaster avoided
Wet and warm weather is leading to more problems arising from fungal diseases. One of the plum trees in the chicken pen was absolutely dripping with fruits and I hadn't got round to thinning them adequately. Just as they were turning ripe, brown rot set in. Every fruit was rotting on the tree just as it was ripening. It looked as if we would lose the whole crop, as well as potentially infecting all the other plum trees.
I carefully picked every plum that was showing any signs of rot, often precariously balanced a the top of a step ladder, and removed every single trace of fruit from the ground. These weren't wasted, as the sheep very much appreciated them.
I have continued to remove any infected fruits and any that have dropped to the ground and disaster seems to have been averted.
Over the last few days Sue has picked a thousand plums off just one tree. It is still not empty.

Self-thinning Apple trees
We missed the June drop this year - this is when fruit trees often drop much of their fruit. in response to environmental stress. I didn't really keep on top of manually thinning the fruits either. This should really be done for several reasons. The branches can split under the strain of too much fruit; fewer large fruits are generally better than multiple dwarf fruits; thinning the fruit allows for improved air circulation.
The recent winds fixed the problem of not thinning though! Many apples came off, to the delight of the geese and sheep.

Asparagus put to bed

Saturday 13th January 2018
Sheep stuff
I was rudely awoken by Sue with the news that the three ewe lambs had pushed through the electric fence and got in with Rambo and the breeding ewes! Normally they go nowhere near the fence so I don't know if something spooked them. Luckily Rambo did not seem to be showing much interest.
The lambs were overdue their monthly worm treatment anyway, so we herded them all into sheep hurdles and got the syringe loaded up with the drench (oral medicine).

With that accomplished, we separated Rambo and led him up to the top paddock to spend the next few months with the other two ram lambs. So now all the girls are together and all the boys are together.

Asparagus put to bed
A rare dry couple of days and just about warm enough for the fingers not to go too numb.
Sitting on the to do list for a while now has been to clear the asparagus bed. The ferny tops had yellowed and dried out but needed chopping. This helps keep the asparagus beetle down. With the stems cleared away I could get to the weeds. Asparagus is an absolute pain to weed, as its fleshy roots run shallow. So it is a hands and knees job. I piled a good layer of sand and manure on the bed last year which helped inhibit the weeds and improve soil structure. Most of the weeds were easy to remove but couch grass roots had encroached from the edges and needed carefully forking and teasing out.
I then lightly turned the soil in the trenches and let the chickens in to pick out the slug eggs. Early in the spring, when the chickens have been banished from the veg plot, I'll mound up the ridges again and add more manure. There's no point doing it now as the chooks will just scratch it all over the place.

The chickens taking advantage of turned soil and doing me a favour too.

Even better, with the lengthening days they are starting to turn the extra protein into tasty eggs.

I didn't quite finish the whole asparagus bed but there's not much left to do. I had to call a slightly early end to the gardening today as the evening was set aside for a meal out with the Grow Your Own group. The Fens is a big place and we had a bit of a journey to The Lamb and Flag in Welney.
We had a lovely time and a very tasty meal (generous portions and they let me have custard and ice-cream with my bread and butter pud!)

Sunday 14th January 2018
Pruning the apples and pears
With the weather holding fine I decided to get all the apples and pears pruned. However much I read and watch videos, this is a job I am never quite sure if I am doing right. The trouble is that the trees don't often grow like they do in the books.
However, I've been doing it for a few years now so feel as if I am getting the hang of it.

I have to hold off on any stone fruits (plums, gages, damsons, cherries, apricots) for a while yet, until the sap is rising.

Let's hope the weather conspires for a good fruit harvest this year. Each year one crop or another catches a frost at the wrong time and one year I lost all the apples and pears to hail damage mid June. I'm not expecting that to happen again in a hurry.

Everyone's a Fruit and Nut Case

My one piece of advice to anyone setting up to be self-sufficient would be to plant fruit straight away, orchard trees, soft fruit bushes, nut trees and hedgerow fruit. It is an investment which takes a little while to start paying off, but it has rich rewards for the patient.

Our orchard is just starting to produce properly and can only go from strength to strength in the next few years. As summer gives way to autumn variety upon variety of apple comes ready, each with its own unique taste. There are pears and plums aplenty too, as well as more unusual fruits such as medlars. We have gradually added to the trees we first planted and will hopefully soon have an annual crop of apricots too.

All these, of course, can be bought in the shops (except maybe medlars), but some of the hedgerow plants I have planted are even more of a treat. Crab apples make a wonderful jelly, as well as being an excellent source of pectin when added into preserves.
And what about the elderberry - its flowers make an excellent cordial and an even better champagne, or let the berries ripen for one of the best wines. This year we harvested the berries (leaving plenty enough for the birds) to make pontack sauce. This old English recipe has enjoyed a recent revival, probably due to its inclusion in Hugh F-W's repertoire. It is a heady infusion of elderberries, vinegar and spices. The closest equivalent I can think of is Worcestershire Sauce. Pontack sauce stores indefinitely in the larder and develops its taste over the years, so Sue makes a big batch every few years. It adds an incredible richness and depth of flavour to meat dishes, particularly stews and casseroles.
Elders poke out from the edible hedgerows I have planted as well as being dotted all around the smallholding now. They are easy to propagate, grow well here and feed the wildlife as well as us.
Alongside them are blackthorn bushes with their yield of sloes. When you say sloes, most people instantly think of gin, but Sue prefers to add them to vodka. Once they have imparted their unique flavour to this beverage, the same berries are then used to make sloe port. Definitely a hedgerow fruit for the drinkers! We almost had a sloe disaster this year. After a blank year countrywide in 2016, our edible hedgerow has again failed to produce any sloes (or Mirabelles for that matter). I think I have been cutting it back too much in the winter and taking off the fruiting wood.
Sue's disappointment was tangible, but then I remembered that I had planted a few blackthorns in the woodland area which I have created. A closer inspection yielded several bushes laden with sloes ready to pick - a thorny job and it takes a while to fill a basket, but yesterday (edit - now a while ago as this post was superseded by other events) we collected 2kg of sloes, plenty enough for a lot of alcohol. They have gone into the freezer to simulate the frosts, as left on the trees the autumn thrushes would take them all before winter bites.

There are hawthorns and rowan berries too, though we don't have much use for them and leave them for the birds. Rosehips explode colourfully from the hedgerows too and every few years Sue makes a batch of rosehip syrup, a rich and sweet source of vitamin C. I actually grow plenty of rosa rugosa as its flowers brighten up the borders of the soft fruit area and it produces the plumpest, most vivid hips.




Back to the orchard fruits and damsons take centre stage. Our tree produced abundantly this year. They are a handsome looking fruit and handsome tasting too. All varieties of plum produce, in a good year, bountiful crops too much for simply eating the fruit straight. Pies, crumbles and jams go without saying, but Sue has had the dehydrator and the ice-cream maker busy too. Her plum yogurt ice-cream is delicious and dried fruits or fruit leathers make excellent healthy snacks for a hungry worker.






Finally there is the rather poshly named nuttery. The nut trees were an expensive investment when I planted them, as I opted for named varieties bred to produce fruits early in their lives. The almond tree has produced virtually since day one and the nuts taste delicious with that lovely marzipan kick of arsenic to them. The cobnuts are basically hazelnuts cultivated to produce larger kernels and these are producing more and more year on year. In contrast, the wild hazelnuts in the hedgerow and woodland will be keeping us waiting a good few more years before they even think about producing a nut.

Turkeys in a Twizzle

Frampton Marsh RSPB is turning into a very special little reserve

12th September 2016
A lovely morning spent at Frampton Marsh bird reserve.
I decided to do the long walk and explore parts of the reserve I'd not been to before. Sunflowers, cows, open skies and wading birds.
Returned to find a note that the roofer had been. It's their own fault for never bothering to communicate.

The sheep enjoyed the husks of the sweetcorn I cleared yesterday. This was the Sweetcorn Minipop which I grow for baby corns. The plants have grown way more vigorously than their relatives which produce full-size cobs. The early minicobs were impressive, but as the plants have matured they have produced woodier cobs with bigger kernels. The last of these got fed to the sheep so one way or another we'll end up eating them anyway!

Sweetcorn Minipop being cleared

13th September 2016
Temperatures soared to 30 degrees plus today. I was up early to greet the roofer.
We now have a skylight in the dining room, though it is not finished to anywhere like the standard it should be.

Turkeys in a twizzle!
The turkeys got a fright today for some of them ventured over the fence into next door's field, where they got a shock when one of the neighbours' ten dogs took an unhealthy interest in them.
I was alerted by strange alarm calls and looked up to see several turkeys flying up onto Don's shed - it's not Don's any more! I was worried that some might be on the road so opened the front gate and walked along. As I did so, one flew from the trees and crossed the road!

I continued with refurbishing and redesigning one of the chicken houses. I started it several weeks ago but then it came to a grinding halt. Necessity has spurred me into action though, as the youngest batch of chicks will be needing a house of their own in the chicken pen soon.

The freezers are down
At 11pm the electricity went off. Not all of it, so not a bulk standard power cut but a problem at our end. All of the upstairs lights and all of the sockets, including all our freezers!

14th September 2016
Texted electrician at 6.30am and problem was fixed by 9.20am
Even got into work for the afternoon.

The other good news is that all 8 turkeys are reunited.



15th September 2016



Foggy start
Warm nights bring foggy mornings. This didn't stop Arthur from making his first ever rabbit kill. He did have a slight advantage as all the rabbits seem now to have mixy. A small part of me feels sorry for them, but they are very destructive. Just one or two would be ok, but they are rather famous for multiplying rapidly. That's now one each for Boris and Arthur. At least they put the poor creatures out of their misery quickly.


16th September 2016
Stuck in work. There was good birding to be had on the east coast today, but not for me! Here's a pic of next door's ponies and sheep and another nice one of the dogs with the turkeys and geese.

17th September 2016
A flock of over a hundred linnets in the next door field today was great to see. Sizeable winter finch flocks are becoming rare as farming becomes more and more industrial and our farmland birds rapidly disappear.

A chick saved
Less good to see was that one of the baby chicks had been quite badly pecked by the others. I removed it and sorted out separate living quarters until it heals up. Chickens can be pretty vicious, but this time I think they weren't so much picking on a weak individual as being pre-programmed to peck at anything red.

Token apple harvest
A couple of the apple and pear trees have done well this year, though on the whole it has been very disappointing.
But there were enough apples on one of the trees to fill two large baskets and to spare quite a few windfalls for the sheep, who very much appreciated them.
Nuts!
We picked the cobnuts too. One tree had loads, one was average and two had none whatsoever. Explain that.