…the second best time is now.

Apparently an old Chinese proverb told to me by my brother David Kesteven. Wonderful advice that I have taken up today when I planted 4 new trees; Two Victoria Plums, a Serbian Gold Quince and a Bramley Seedling. I have been renovating the orchard and wanted to extend it both in size and variety of fruits.

 

I am so grateful to my predessesor Stuart who, probably about 20 years ago, started the orchard of around 20 trees ( William Pear, Comice Pear, Conference Pear, Katy Apple, Cox’s Orange Seedling Apple, Spartan Apple, a Greengage, a Cherry and two trees with orange small fruits that I cannot identify).

The trees were quite overgrown and the orchard was over-run with nettles. Some of the trees were producing no fruits or the fruit was of poor quality. I have worked through, weeding around the bases of the trees and adding some underplanting (mainly daffodils which the rabbits don’t eat). Today I added some tete-a-tete daffodils, thyme and chives which I think may be unpalatable to the rodents ( although having said this they ate the lavender that I planted before).

My aim is to have an orchard that is both productive and a lovely place to be. We put our arbour down there (bought with wedding present tokens) and it is my favourite sitting place. I go there to find some peace and it is a good distance from the house so that it is far enough away to have it’s own atmosphere. In the Spring it smells wonderful with the blossoms and in the Summer it smells wonderful with the fruits. If I can find underplanting that the rabbits won’t eat, all the better. My ideal is an orchard humming with bees and the right underplanting can potentially keep coddling moths away from the fruit without the use of chemicals.

One day I plan to have a beehive down there to complete the scene and to increase productivity. I also wonder about fencing it in to keep the animals off the fruit ( I suspect deer stole my pears last Autumn when we were away!) and to provide a framework for soft fruits like raspberries and gooseberries.

The orchard is definitely my happy place.