In the past, traditional orchards often played a central role in village life. Farmers would call in help from all sorts of places at harvest time, enticing workers by offering cider or beer on top of regular payment. In fact, many workers would choose a farm based on the quality of the alcohol.
Orchards have played such a pivotal (yet understated) role in the history of the British Isles, and have been apart of our culture for at least the last 2,500 years. They were places for meeting, socialising, and celebrating. In much the same way, modern community orchards are still fantastic places for people to come together and share in the experience of growing and cultivating food. But more than this, community orchards offer a space for communal activities such as blossom days, picnics, natural play, storytelling events, and festival celebrations.
Orchards contain such vast and (unfortunately) untapped potential. They really do deserve a home in every community, but unfortunately they’ve been in massive decline over the past hundred years or so. That said, there’s never been a better time to bring them back and explore all their wonderful possibilities. So let’s take a look at a few and see why community orchards offer so much more than a basket full of rosey apples…
Orchards provide a place for communal reconnection
Orchards can be especially beneficial in cities and heavily-urbanised areas where people are more isolated from nature. By interacting with green spaces, no matter how small, children and adults alike can reestablish a connection with natural world and feel empowered to protect the nature that surrounds them. The importance of this really can’t be overstated, as people living in built-up urban areas can suffer badly from a sense of disconnection – not only from nature but from their neighbours as well.
Planting orchards in areas like these could massively boost community wellbeing by establishing and reinforcing social ties, and encouraging neighbours to come together and share in communal endeavour.
They can make us happier
Spending time in an orchard means spending time outdoors, and being outdoors can work wonders for our mental health.
Investing our time, effort, and emotion into something living and growing can fill us with a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment. And by sharing that experience with others, we have the opportunity to engage in a communally uplifting pastime.
Not only that, but the physical exercise involved in tending an orchard can make us physically healthier and stronger. And exercise influences the release of endorphins in the brain, which makes us feel good. In fact, even short sessions of gentle exercise can increase alertness and boost mood – another reason to get out in the orchard!
Activities like jam- and juice-making are also fun ways to explore the many possibilities of growing and harvesting fruit, and can bring lots of joy to people of all ages.
Orchards offer a space for traditional skills training
Pruning, grafting, thinning, picking, wildlife watching, jam making. One of the great practical advantages of a community orchard is the platform it provides for the transference of traditional skills from generation to generation.
Many school children (especially those living in more urbanised areas) may never have come into contact with a living fruit tree before. Not only does an easily-accessible orchard provide functional educational opportunities, but it can also act as a living gallery in which children (and adults too) can observe the natural cycle of fruit growth.
On an even simpler level it also connects us with the cycle of the seasons, demonstrating the ebb the and flow nature in a microcosm.
A space for bringing people together
The physical space in which a community orchard is planted may affect its ultimate use and purpose. But in any case, whether it’s on the grounds of a school, hospital, or residential care home, an orchard can very easily become the focal point of the surrounding community, providing many opportunities for social interaction and peer support.
This can be particularly important in places such as care homes and hospitals, where spending time interacting with nature can enormously increase emotional and social wellbeing. In fact according to Mind, the mental health charity, spending time in green spaces growing food can improve mood, reduce feelings of stress and anger, help make new connections, and boost self-esteem.
There’s also scope to involve community members in less-commonly celebrated events like the Wassail and Apple Day, allowing them to connect with older traditions.
This all makes an immense contrast to the often isolating experience of being inside alone. Whether it’s in a school, nursing home, or hospital, sitting at tables and beds can scarcely compare to the feeling of sitting on the grass under the shade of a fruit tree.
Organic and heritage growing
There are thousands of varieties of apples that have been cultivated over the years. Yet in most supermarkets you’d be hard-pressed to find more than a handful on offer.
Establishing community orchards allows us to re-establish heritage apples that most people will likely never have tasted in their lives. Take greengages, for example, which are rarely available commercially due to their shorter shelf life — so one of the only ways to enjoy this wonderful variety is to grow it yourself! This is a very exciting and empowering prospect, and really helps people to reconnect with the tradition they’re engaging with.
Also, considering that around 70% of the apples we consume are imported, growing unusual varieties in local orchards is a fantastic way to champion local produce. This also helps to reduce food miles and lower our carbon footprints.
And let’s not forget the utterly incomparable taste of a freshly picked apple versus a supermarket variety…
Orchards as a refuge for wildlife
Orchards offer a beautiful home to a multitude of animals and insects. From lesser spotted woodpeckers to red-headed cardinal beetles. They’re a mini ecosystem in their own right. The trees and surrounding grasslands support a huge variety of insects by providing them with nectar, grass seeds, fallen fruit, and wildflowers to feed on. The insects, in turn, offer a food source for birds and small mammals, which themselves fuel the food chain all the way up to larger mammals and birds of prey (like peregrine falcons).
Community orchards in cities could even help to establish birds like owls, kestrels, and sparrow-hawks in more urbanised areas.
So every tree is a potential home, and the more the merrier. But taking the human perspective into account, orchards are a win-win. They’re good for us as they provide us with food and a space to socialise, and due to their utility it’s easier to motivate people to protect them. Because the reality is that we only tend to protect the things we care about – so the obvious solution is to empower ourselves and others to care about the things that need protecting. And, more often than not, it’s much easier to cultivate a caring and protective attitude towards something once you’ve authentically experienced and understood it.
So, given time and proper engagement, a small community orchard can become something of a miniature wildlife reserve.
In fact, they offer such special and diverse habitats that the National Trust aims to create 68 new orchards by 2025 in an attempt to increase the number of wildlife-rich areas in the country.
Creating a community orchard
For more information on creating community gardens, you can take a look at some of these great resources:
– Farm Garden’s community orchard start up topic sheet
– East of England Apple’s and Orchards Project
– The government’s community orchards how-to guide
– The Orchard Project
Building with Wattle and Daub
A dear friend challenged me with building her a summerhouse/rain-seat. It had to seat two or three people, look organic and have a tin roof so the rain would sound amazing in a downpour.
An early suggestion to this challenge was to build a hollow tree stump covered with a tin roof. I suggested creating wooden ribs to attach oak slab-wood to. Whilst a giant hollow tree would’ve looked and felt pretty cool, it wouldn’t have been as fabulous as the creation we ended up making.
As we were mulling over ideas I was asked if I’d ever dabbled in ancient building practices like cobb or wattle and daub. Being a Lincolnshire lad where wattle and daub, (or mud and stud as it’s known up there), was pretty common, I jumped at the idea of giving it a try. How hard could it be??
I’ve made wattle hurdles before, and built sheds with tin rooves, so this should be a doddle right? The vision soon formed in my mind. It was going to be a curved structure with two knobbly characterful pillars either side of the entrance.
First things first
I bought some chunky oak for the ground plate and set about looking for my knobbly pillars. They have to be durable as they will stand at the entrance and will get a little weather. Yew is perfect as it’s full of character and very durable.
I also like all the folklore and history associated with yew. Groves of yew were considered sacred places by pagans who often used its branches in ceremonies. The spiritual association was adopted by early Christians with many churchyards being home to huge veteran yew trees. My friend and her close friends are in touch with their spiritual side so that was another reason why it was nice to use yew trees as the entrance pillars.
Construction begins
The oak ground plates were screwed together on site and the upright pillars fixed in place. I marked out the curve and drilled a series of holes around 40cm apart. These housed the hazel uprights which were around 4cm or 5cm in diameter, sometimes known as staves.
Weaving in the Hazel
Hazel is great stuff as it coppices so well. This means if you cut it down it grows again, often into vigorous straight shafts that are strong yet flexible – perfect for our needs. I was after long straight rods of 2cm to 3cm diameter tapering down to around 1cm. These ranged from two to three metres long and are sometimes known as withies. Even in well worked coppice, the quantity required took some finding. I must’ve spent a day and a half coppicing, not that I’m complaining! There’s worse things to do than sustainably harvesting whilst wandering around sunny woodland.
When it’s freshly cut hazel is nice and flexible. Don’t cut it too far in advance or it’ll get too brittle and difficult to work with. Weaving the hazel withies in and out the staves is a satisfying and creative job that everyone can get involved with. Just make sure each withie is tapped down tightly and try and keep the courses level.
I was astonished how quickly this part of the process came together. I was also amazed how quickly the walls became strong and ridged.
Roofing and Daubing
Once the hazel was at the required height, we built a tin roof over the structure. I designed it to have a shallow pitch to maximise the sound created when rain-drops land on it. I made some oak gutters and fixed a chain in place as an alternative to down-pipes. Water runs down chains really nicely. The chains run into oak plant-pots where water loving plants such as ferns and mosses can thrive.
Now the building is watertight, the daubing begins. I researched many papers on daub mixtures. Ancient daubs have been forensically researched to work out the ingredients. There’s lots of different analysis and hypothesis out there. The one common ingredient is sticky mud – clay being ideal. I found accounts of clay being transported by the cart-load to daub larger houses. The trouble with clay is that it shrinks and cracks as it dries. You’ll never stop this happening, but the cracking can be reduced by mixing in some sand or aggregate. In the past they would have used whatever stone, chalk or aggregate that was local. Our mix was three parts clay for one part sand/aggregate.
Mixing the clay and aggregate sounds a lot easier than it actually is, and that’s an understatement!! I dug my clay from the bottom of a pond to ensure it was good and wet, but it still wasn’t wet enough to mix with sand. We cut it into smaller and smaller pieces with a spade, applied more water and shovelled and squidged the sand and clay together. We walked on it barefoot, regularly turning it over with a shovel and mixed and mixed. This is truly hard work. What we were aiming for is the consistency of play-doh or soft plasticine.
When the consistency of the daub is about right, we mixed in hay. Traditionally they would mix in hay, long horsehairs from manes and tails or even straw. This fibrous material helps hold the daub together as it dries and cracks. It literally strings it together. Mixing in the hay was also hard work. Clay is so heavy and sticky, but good for an all-body work-out.
Interestingly lots of the old daubs contained cow or horse dung. Some theories have dung as a necessary ingredient, whereas others disagree. I fall into the latter camp. I can’t really imagine how semi-digested well chewed grasses are going to help bind the material together. Having laboured and sweated in mixing daub, I can well imagine using horses or cattle to trample the clay for me. If they were penned in a small area, on a mix of clay, sand and hay and made to walk around as you threw water to the ground their weight would do the mixing for you. The only downside would be a bit of dung in your mix, which believe me, is a price worth paying for the labour it saves!
Having made your daub mix you then roll it into balls about the size of your palm, known as cats. You’ll know if your mix is the right consistency if you can squidge it at least half way through your withies. Start at the bottom and daub both sides of your wall at the same time so it meets in the middle and binds together. You’ll be amazed how much daub you get through. We used well over a tonne on this little summerhouse.
Cracking-up and Buttering up
You’ll stand back and think your wattle and daub looks amazing! Job well done and congratulate yourself with a cider or three!! Then a few days later ‘cracks will appear’ – (could be the origins of that term). This is perfectly normal, so don’t panic. I recently visited a 15C farmhouse where lathe and plaster had been applied to the servant’s quarters. That plaster had never been buttered up and still showed the drying cracks which were almost identical to the cracking on this summerhouse.
To fill the cracks, also known as buttering up, just push some more of your daub mix into them. Given that the walls are some 10cm thick, the drying/cracking process may last several months. Rest assured, once it’s dry, the cracking will stop. Once dry the walls were often plastered or painted with thick limewash, which I suspect filled in any hairline cracking as well as for aesthetics. However, we like the warm earthen finish of the natural daub on this structure.
Experiential
I was surprised by the intimacy of sharing this space with another person. I think that experience is a sum of several different factors. Obviously knowing and liking your company is essential, but over and above that, the earthen walls seem to offer unique acoustics. They deaden sounds from the outside world, and internally your voice seems to carry better. There’s no echo at all and I became aware that I could talk quietly and found listening easy. Its a very intimate experience, in some ways cut off from outside, but with a beautiful vista of it. Visually the outside world is framed by the knobbly yew trees which looks beautiful on a sunny day. I can imagine how cosy and nurturing that space is going to feel when rain is drumming on the tin roof with that wet earth smell all around.
I’ve loved building this creative structure and thoroughly enjoyed the company of all those who’ve helped in its development. It’ll be durable enough to last decades. Over that time I really hope some fabulous experiences and memories are made there. I know I’ll always treasure my time there.
These gregarious little birds like a chit-chat with their neighbours.
When I was a lad, (yeah yeah, I know…….a very long time ago!), there used to be lots of sparrows. They were by far the most common garden birds but these days I rarely see them. In the UK we have house sparrows and tree sparrows, but both species are really struggling. There are probably various reasons for their decline, including changes in agriculture, the way we garden and nesting opportunities. Here’s where you can help!
These social little birds like to nest around other sparrows. It’s amazing the see and hear the commotion of sparrows nesting on-mass in the spring. The chitter-chatter, squabbling, chirping and singing is nothing short of spiritually uplifting. They make one almighty of a din for such a little bird, but I love to see and hear their antics. Such great little characters.
I had a load of oak off-cuts laying around having built various other structures. I’d be deeply flattered if you checked out my gallery page to see my bird tables, bug hotels, hedgehog houses etc. Ordinarily, short off-cuts end up being seasoned as kindling to light my wood-burner. This lot were a bit warped and some had sap-wood edges, but just long enough to make a couple sparrow homes. I’ve made a block of sparrow flats and a row of terraced houses for them.
My oak planks are rough sawn, 20cm wide and 2 cm thick in various lengths. Some are a bit bent and twisted which is why they are rejects, but they should be perfectly ok for sparrow boxes.
First I made a block of sparrow flats.
The back of my box is 110cm long. It’s a good 20cm longer than the sides are to allow for fixings to be drilled through it to attach it to a building or a tree. I’ve attached a couple of battens to the back which will support my roof and screwed on sides and the ground floor. My sides are 80 cm long.
Then I divided the length into four compartments and screwed in the dividers. Each sparrow flat is approximately 20cm x 20cm x 20cm. Next I cut two 45 degree angles at the top of the front and attached that.
Last on was the roof with a good overhang to the front and sides to shed the worst of the rain. Finally I drilled 32mm holes into the front of each flat for the sparrows to come and go and hammered in a little nail as a perch under each hole.
This one is a bit trickier to make due to more bits of wood needing to be cut at an angle.
I started with the floor first with this one. I’m aiming for the next boxes to be approximately 20cm x 20cm x 20cm so the floor is a smidge over 80cm long so it can accommodate four nest boxes.
I then cut my sides and dividers. They are higher at the back (17cm), and lower at the front (15cm), so there’s a slight slope from back to front to shed the rainwater.
Next on is the back of the nest boxes. I cut my plank down to 120cm so it’s a fair bit wider than the nest boxes. This means I can use the ends to drill and screw through when I attach it to a building. I planed the top edge at the same angle as the ends and dividers so the roof will sit snug. I also planed the front plank at the same angle for the same reasons. I don’t want my sparrows to complain about draughts!
Screw on the back and the front and drill your 32mm holes for sparrow access.
All you’ve got left to attach is the roof. You’ll want your roof to have a good overhang on the front and sides, so ideally it’ll need to be 30cm deep and have a good 5cm overhang on the sides. I didn’t have a 30cm wide plank so I improvised. I attached the front plank first with the overhang I wanted. Then I butted up another behind it cut to length and width. Even though the planks were butted up pretty tightly, that crack could allow leaks into the box, particularly if the wood shrinks a bit as it dries. To keep my feathery friends dry and cosy, I attached another plank along the full length to cover the join.
These boxes will last 25 years plus, so hopefully a few sparrows will find it and I’ll have the chitter-chatter of sparrows to enjoy. If not, I’m sure the other small birds won’t miss an opportunity to nest is such a des-res pad, and they’ll have an amazing choice of flat or terrace.
A sparrow next box flanked by Kent bat boxes. I’ve also written a blog on how to make those if you’re interested.
I’m going to talk you through the building of one of the most easy to construct bat boxes. And it’s arguably up there with the best of them, being self-cleaning and offering lots of nooks and crannies for bats to hide away during the day.
There’s a few different bat boxes on the market of various designs and constructed from all sorts of materials. I’ll be showing you how to make the Kent Bat Box, named after the Kent Bat Group who designed it. www.kentbatgroup.org.uk
It’s really simple to make from a plank of oak 200mm wide and 20mm thick, some 15mm battens and some 20mm battens. Battens are just smaller bits of wood, 15mm or 20mm thick by about 30mm wide. All my oak is fresh sawn, (not planed or sanded), and not treated with any preservatives. The fresh sawn finish will be grippy enough for bats to hang onto and oak is durable, so it doesn’t need chemical preservative which may be harmful to bats.
The exact lengths of wood are not desperately important, although you wouldn’t want to go too short. However, the size of the crevices your battens create is important. As I said, you’ll need some 15mm and some 20mm battens.
The back of my box is 550mm long. I’ve attached two 20mm battens across the top and bottom to hold it away from the tree or wall I fix it to. This will allow bats to get behind the box as well as in it. They move around a surprising amount depending on the temperature and humidity. They’re pretty fussy creatures.
My next plank is cut to 400mm and I’ve attached another couple of 20mm battens along the sides of it.
Flip your back plank over and fix this to the front of your backing plank. I’ve used screws to fix mine, but nails would work just as well.
Then repeat the stage above but with a plank 250mm long and battens of 15mm. This will offer your bats a slightly narrower crevice to get into. Fit this to the front. Try to line up your planks and batons at the top so there aren’t too many gaps when it comes to fitting the roof. Alternatively you could cut 3mm off the top once they’re all screwed together to give you a nice clean end to attach the roof.
My roof is 300mm x 170mm when lined up with the back my box it gives me a good overhang all the way round to prevent water getting in.
The more boxes you can put up, the better. Bats are fickle and picky when it comes to temperature and humidity. So if you’re installing them outside, put boxes at various heights, (no lower than two metres) and facing in different directions. Bats will move about during the day from box to box if one is better than another as the sun passes over. The same goes for the insides of buildings/loft spaces – place your boxes at different heights and against as many different walls as you have.
Build as many boxes as you can and spread them liberally around your garden. Hopefully you’ll attract crevice-dwelling species such as; Pipistrelle, Brandt’s and Whiskered bats. Alternatively, give me a shout and I’ll be happy to help.
Having thought about their home, perhaps you can improve your space for their food, namely flying insects. There’s lots you can do to improve the habitat for bats. Flowers, trees, hedges, meadow etc are all great. I’m always happy to help if you’d like a hand.
Andy
A hiber-what-do-you-call-em I hear you say. A hibernaculum is basically a safe place for hibernating creatures to see out the winter months. Ideally it’ll protect them from the worst of the weather and predators.
We built the big one for Sutton and East Surrey Water, and the smaller one for Toyota’s wildlife friendly gardens. You can scale it up or down according to space you have. Anything you do will be beneficial to amphibians as well as other wildlife.
It’s sensible to mark out your area so you’ve a rough idea how the scale you’re thinking of looks on the ground. Ideally you’ll locate it near a pond or stream, but it’s not essential if you can’t. It’s surprising how far amphibians will travel. In this example we dug a new pond next to our hibernaculum.
Pile up a bank of wood in your marked area. Don’t be too neat as you want to create lots of crevices and cubby-holes for the newts to get into. Three to four foot lengths of branch wood is good as it tends to be twisty making lots of hidey-holes. Just pile it up to a height that’s proportionate to the area you have available. You don’t want to make it overly steep on the sides or ends. Just make a gently sloping bank.
Then lay some sort of membrane over it. Membrane is just a fancy word for some sort of sheet that allows the water and air to pass through it. For this one we bought commercially available sheeting called terram, but to be honest, a cotton bedsheet would do just as well. Basically, you just want to lay a sheet over it to stop all those nooks and crevices from being filled with soil, but still allowing air and water through. You don’t want the inside of your hibernaculum to be bone dry. Don’t bring your sheeting right down to ground level. Cut it so it lies over your logs but leaves a three to four finger gap all around the sides and ends.
So you’ve got your bank of logs and covered it with your sheeting. Now cover it with turf and soil, again trying to ensure you leave a gap all around the edges so your newts can get in. That sounds a lot easier than it is. The soil tends to roll off your sheet blocking access. Whilst you don’t need to be overly pedantic, you still want to allow access to your newty friends. I found it easier if I laid turf around the edges first. You can even pin the turf in place with bent wire or hazel rods if necessary. If your sides and ends aren’t too steep, you should then be able to pile twenty centimetres or more of soil and turf over your bank of logs. The big one we made had well over two foot of soil over it in places. That’ll help to keep the worst of the frost out. You can grass seed your bank so it looks like a telly-tubby mound if you wish, or leave it to naturally colonise.
Our soil came from digging out the pond next to it. The pond and hibernaculum is an incredible piece of habitat creation that will benefit a multitude of species over and above the great crested newts we build it for. I regularly see dragonflies, all sorts of water insects, ducks and wading birds etc etc.
Every now and then I’ll have a dig around the edges with a spade to make sure the newts can get in, but to be honest, the gaps they can squeeze into is astonishing. I’m probably doing it more for my own peace of mind than necessity.
You can build one for your garden much smaller. Make a frame from marine plywood and lengths of timber.
Just as before, fill the inside with logs, secure a sheet over it to ensure the voids don’t get filled in. Then place soil and turf over the top to insulate it from the worst of the cold. I dressed the front mine with oak as it lasts a long time and looks smart.
Your amphibian hibernaculum will become a haven for other wildlife too. You’ll get solitary bees, possibly reptiles, and all sorts of creepy crawlies that make a healthy ecosystem. Give nature a helping hand.
If you like the idea but would rather have a little help, send us an e-mail and we will give you a quote. info@conservationandaccess.co.uk
Now you’re probably asking why a conservation and access firm is making cider. What’s that got to do with conservation or peoples enjoyment of the natural world? That great man Sir David Attenborough once said something along the lines of; ‘In order for people to care about wildlife, first they need to appreciate and value it.’ One thing that most of us relish is a cool glass of cider on a hot summer’s day. That is probably reason enough to look after your apple trees!
Orchards are a fabulous habitat for all sorts of species, from mosses and lichens, right up the food chain to insects, birds and mammals. And orchards don’t have to be acres and acres of trees. One or two in garden is still a valuable resource for you and your local wildlife. I could bang on about soil conservation and permaculture too….but back to the headline here…you want to make cider!!
Cider making always was, and should be today, a social thing. Get some like-minded friends to join you with your apple pressing. The more, the merrier. Imagine a BBQ, some booze and apple pressing with a good bunch of friends. That’s a recipe for a great afternoon. Then there’s that wonderful winter tipple, mulled cider. Knocks mulled wine into a cocked hat in my opinion.
If you want to have a bash at the whole process yourself, read on. If you want us to come and help you, skip to the bottom.
Stuff you’ll need
Firstly, and obviously, you’ll need apples, and quite a few of them. I always advocate making a good sized batch of cider. You can make just a gallon if you are going small scale, but five or six gallons is a far better quantity. If you make a cracking 1 gallon batch of cider it’s over disappointingly quickly. You’ll only get seven pints off it by the time you’ve syphoned it off the dead yeast. You don’t want to be precious with it. The whole point of home-made cider is to share it with friends and have a good time. So, assuming I’ve convinced you to make five or six gallons, you’ll need roughly a wheely-bin (couple of dustbins) full of apples for each six gallon fermenter.
Don’t worry about the variety of apples. They all make good cider. Often a mix of cookers and eaters makes a great tipple. The joy of home production is the different flavours your various apples give you. If you don’t have your own fruit trees it’s always worth asking those with trees if you can have their apples. So often people are only too pleased that their apples are going to be put to good use, and if there’s a pint of cider in it for them, they’ll be thanking you for taking them.
Scratting your apples
Next you’ll need something to chop your apples up. This is the dullest part of the process so if you can mechanise it, or talk children into doing it, so much the better. The finer you can chop them, the more juice you will get out of them. In the old days they were crushed with a big stone wheel in a circular trench, often powered by a donkey. These days we use scratters, which are machines to break up your apples.
I’ve got a couple of hand cranked scratters and an electric one that’s like a garden shredder. As fast as you pour the apples in the top, fine apple pulp is delivered at the bottom. It’s not so effortless with the hand cranked ones!
I’ve heard of people getting inventive at designing their own scratters; using garden shredders, making attachments for a drill that they push into a bucket of apples etc. Once scratted your apple pulp soon goes brown. Don’t worry about that, its fine.
Pressing your apples
There are a couple of kinds of press for us enthusiastic amateurs. One is basically a slatted bucket that you fill with apple pulp and the other is a beam press which involves making layers of apple pulp in cheese cloths. Then there’s usually a coarse screw that’s wound down onto a block that squeezes the juice from your apples.
It’s a joyous moment when you see your apple juice flowing from those apples like liquid gold! I’d recommend you have a slurp of the fresh apple juice. You rarely taste fresh organic apple juice so go ahead and treat yourself!
Like the improvised scratters, I’ve heard about all sorts of home-made presses made out of bits of agricultural machinery and stone breakers etc. By all means have a go, but the press needs to deliver several tonnes of pressure so it needs to be robust!
Fermenting your apple juice into cider
In a nutshell, this is a food grade plastic or glass container that holds your apple juice. Yeast starts consuming the sugars and multiplies. Simply speaking, as yeast consumes the sugars it gives off two by-products. One is carbon dioxide, (the same gas we all breathe out), the other by-product is alcohol. It’s important to keep air out of your apple juice as its fermenting, which is why we use an air-lock. An air lock lets the carbon dioxide out but doesn’t let air in. The bubble air locks or the Speidel style piston are the most common.
Before pouring your apple juice into your fermenter its worth making sure it’s clean and well rinsed out. Bacteria like apple juice just as much as yeast does. This could be disastrous!
In my opinion there’s a lot of rubbish talked about getting the right yeast for your cider. People talk about killing the wild yeast by adding crushed up campden tablets to their apple juice, and then pitching in their special cider yeast. I would very strongly advise you not to do this. I’ve been making cider for years and never used campden tablets. I’ve had friends use the campden tablets and they’ve had problems with the fermentation and had an after taste in their cider. The joy of home-made cider is that it can be organic and chemical free. I steer clear of these sulphates and enjoy a natural product.
All I do is pour my apple juice into my clean fermenter and screw on the air-lock. There’s usually enough natural yeast around to get your fermentation going. If you want to be sure you’ve yeast in you apple juice, drop in some cider yeast, or even plain old baker’s yeast will work just as well. After a day or so, you’ll see your air-lock bubbling and you’ll know your yeast is making your cider!
Patience
Imagine your yeast as busy little fishes swimming about consuming the sugars from your apple juice and excreting alcohol and burping carbon dioxide. Whilst there is natural sugar in the apple juice their swimming about keeps the liquid cloudy. Once they’ve consumed most of the the sugar they sink to the bottom and the liquid clears. The rate of fermentation depends on the temperature. It’ll ferment much faster if is 30ish degrees centigrade and much slower if it’s cold. Allow at least a couple of months or so for your yeast to do its business.
There are all sorts of products that will clear your cloudy cider by various means. Some are more palatable than others, but my advice is patience. Why pollute your lovely organic cider with additives? Give it time and it will clear on its own. The cold can help clear it towards the end of fermentation, so a garden shed during the winter is perfect. Remember to keep water in the air-lock or you’ll have gallons of cider vinegar! As long as you keep the air-lock working it’ll keep in the fermenter for ages. I’ve had cider that’s been in my fermenters for well over a year, just stored in my shed and it’s absolutely fine.
Once your cider has cleared and the spent yeast, (known as must), has sunk to the bottom, syphon the clear cider from the top with a short length of hose. It is often incredibly dry if the yeast has consumed all the sugar. I sweeten mine to taste and put it straight in the fridge. The sugar could get your yeast going again, but if you put it in the fridge, the yeast will be fairly inactive.
The other thing that the books say, (that I’d advise you against), is killing your yeast with campden after fermentation. The main reason this is advocated is to help it clear and to stop any secondary fermentation. This is only a problem if you’ve bottled your live cider and the secondary fermentation produces sufficient carbon dioxide to blow the cork from your bottle – as in champagne. Some people prefer fizzy cider and this is how you make it. A little sugar in a 2l coke bottle with your live cider will make sparkling cider within a few days. It might make explosive cider within a few weeks so open it outside!
We can help
I can bring my scratters, press and food grade plastic buckets to your party and help you and your friends make cider. It’s a great social event if you can get 6 to a dozen of so friends together. I’d also be happy to host at my farmhouse if that was easier.
BOTTOMS UP!!!
Whatever you need, feel free to drop us a line and we’ll get back to you. Drop us a line at info@conservationandaccess.co.uk
Our connection with nature is deep-rooted
Happily, there seems to be a growing awareness on the importance of our mental health and wellbeing. I’m not in the least surprised that our modern lives can be pretty stressful. Compare what we do today with our lifestyle a few thousand years ago. We lived in natural environments, working in small communities in practical ways supporting each other with food, clothing, entertainment and shelter. In evolutionary timescales, that lifestyle was the equivalent of only a few hours ago. No wonder the lifestyle of today is something of a culture-shock;- living in big concrete cities, whizzing about in motorised metal boxes; staring at electronic devices; communicating in text; seeing the best of everyone else’s lives through social media; solitude and isolation from small supportive communities and the natural environment. If all that’s changed in the past few hours of our evolution, there’s little wonder it’s having an impact on our state of mind and bodies.
Nature immersion
We are hard-wired to appreciate the natural world in the same way as we are hard-wired to stare into a camp-fire. There’s growing evidence from all sorts of quarters that’s actually quantifying what we all know deep down – nature is good for us. Studies in hospitals have shown that people with a window overlooking a natural space tolerate pain better and heal sooner. When people are asked to close their eyes and think of a stress relieving place, the vast majority will think of a natural environment. Two of our basic states of being are “fight or flight” and “rest and recuperation”. In the modern world with pressures, deadlines and expectations of keeping up with the Jones’s we spend far too much time in fight or flight mode without giving ourselves that time and space for rest and recuperation. I love a quote I saw on Twitter.
Consider having a go at new activates in the countryside. Forest bathing is becoming very popular as are holistic therapies in natural environments. Far better to give nature a chance before we reach for the medical cocktails of uppers and downers.
Active involvement in the natural world
It’s undoubtedly beneficial to immerse ourselves in nature but the wellbeing benefits are taken to a whole new level if we can positively engage in our natural surroundings. Building a longer term relationship with a piece of land gives us an insight into seasonal changes and resets our rhythm of life. I was astounded when a friend once asked when apples are ready, but having thought about it, why would he know that kind of thing having been largely divorced from nature all his working life? If you have regular access to a piece of land/garden, and an opportunity to improve it for nature you will know when the birds are nesting, when the flowers are growing, where to find interesting wildlife and when the forgeable foods are good for eating. This deeper understanding and appreciation is good for our mind, spirit and sole.
When did we lose our connection with nature?
Once you’ve been bitten by the metaphorical nature bug, (and perhaps the odd real one), the wonder never ends. There’s always a something amazing to catch your eye, whether it’s the flash of a bright dragonfly, songbirds singing, frogs spawning or the vibrant colours of a butterfly. Sir David Attenborough was once asked when he became so interested in nature. He replied that he had always been interested in nature, as are most children. He went on to wonder how on earth people lose that fascination.
I guess busy lives take over, but being busy is all about prioritisation. What could be a bigger priority than your health? If you have a garden, make it a wildlife friendly garden. And the tech doesn’t have to be your enemy as it can bring you closer to nature and inspire the next generation to care about it. I’ve installed bird nest cameras and put out trail cameras. I’ve captured amazing footage of wildlife in my garden and shared quite a bit of it on social media hoping to inspire others to do likewise.
If you don’t have a garden, consider volunteering for a conservation organisation like a Wildlife Trust, RSPB or the National Trust. Connect yourself to a piece of land and help improve the habitat for nature. Learn about the ecosystem and enjoy the positive effects your work has for wildlife. Being a countryside volunteer also adds a great social element, working alongside similar minded people. And…..there’s usually cake!!
Don’t let your life be filled with worries
Upon his retirement as a countryside ranger, a good friend of mine quoted this poem by William Henry Davies;
Treat yourself to some time to stop and stare. Time could be a limited commodity. Enjoy it.
I’ve recently been challenged to come up with some garden nature habitats made from upcycled products. I thought what could be more fitting for garden nature than a pair of old gardening boots? I made the right foot into a bug hotel and the left foot into a bird box. They’re a bit of fun and super easy to make.
First step, admit your old boots have had belter days and treat yourself to some new ones!
Roofing your ‘bootiful’ place for nature
You need your bird boxes and bug hotels to be dry, so to continue the up-cycling theme I’ve cut down an old car tyre for the roof. Cutting down the tyre was easier said than done. I tried a jig-saw, reciprocating saw, a skill saw and the angle grinder. Of the lot, the angle grinder with a super thin metal cutting disc worked best, although it does create a fair bit of smoke. Wear gloves and eye protection as a minimum.
You want your tyre to be held open to provide a nice roof. You could use a bit of threaded bar to attach your tyre to the wooden back-plate, but you’d get through several nuts and washers in ensuring you don’t squish the tyre towards the wood. And easier and less fiddly option is the use of 250mm sleeper screws and a bit of old water pipe. I drilled holes in the side wall of the tyre for the screws. To prevent them from squashing the tyre walls together, I inserted some alkathene water pipe that had been dug up because it was leaking – another upcycled product.
Kick-starting for Wildlife – good for the ‘sole’
So you’ve got your roof on, now attach your boot. Even if you think your boots pong a bit, don’t Febreze or Oust them. The wildlife won’t mind any nasty-niff as much as your partner does!!
Drill a hole through the heel of your boot. Pre-drilling is essential as it turns out. I’d not realised the sole of my boots have a steel plate in them to save me impaling my foot on a nail. Once you have your hole you can screw your boot to the wooden back-plate. Another screw in the toe end, and it’s surprising how firmly it’s held.
Bug hotel
I stuffed the toe end with organic matter like pine-cones, moss, leaf-litter and even a bit of sheep wool. Once the toe end was stuffed I filled the ankle with sticks from various species of native tree and filled any gaps with bamboo. I drilled holes of various sizes into my sticks to aid creepy-crawly access. Tie the laces tight and your bug hotel is ready to be placed in your garden.
Hopefully you’ll attract a variety of bugs, bees and other mini-beasts. Maybe even a lace-wing or two!?! Ok, I’ll stop with the boot related puns now!
Bird Box
I think birds would nest in your boot if you just placed it as is. However, there are so many magpies, squirrels and crows around, I thought I’d offer my feathered friends a bit more protection by inserting a disc of oak into the ankle with a 40mm hole in it for access. Big enough for little birds but too small for most predators. I fixed it in place with some small screws through the ankle.
Usual suspects for occupying your boot nest with the wooden insert would be blue-tits, great-tits and maybe sparrows if you put a row of them up. Without the wooden insert you might attract robins, blackbirds, thrushes, starlings and maybe wrens.
And continuing with the up-cycle theme….
Introducing the up-cycled bird feeder!
We all know how bad single use plastic is. How cool to up-cycle your old plastic bottles into bird feeders. I’ve bought some one litre and two litre fire extinguisher holders and screwed them to the back-plate. Attach a little wooden tray and hey-presto, you’ve got a bird feeder. Place it near a window and enjoy watching your feathery friends come and go.
Up-cycled tyres as part of the garden planter
A raised bed is a great way of taking the strain out of gardening. They’re a comfortable height to weed or harvest your produce. Herbs tend to do very well in raised beds, often preferring drier free-draining soils.
In the same way we attached tyre rooves to our other up-cycled products, we’ve attached additional planters to the sides of our raised bed. As the herbs grow and start spilling out of them they’ll look better and better. We drilled holes in the bottom of the tyres so they don’t get waterlogged.
Some herbs have a habit of taking over. If left unchecked, mint can take over your raised bed and choke everything else out. As our challenge from this client was up-cycling, we’ve used tyres to compartmentalise the herbs.
What could be greener than picking your own herbs for dinner just before you need them. The flavours are more vivid with more vitamins and nutrients. No food miles either.
If we can help you with raised beds or planters for your garden, feel free to ask.
Spend less time mowing and more time enjoying nature
It’s got round to the grass cutting season again and if your lawn is like mine, it’s romping away. Instead of mowing it all, have you ever considered leaving a bit for wildlife. Less mowing in the name of wildlife conservation – talk about a win – win!
In the UK we have lost a staggering 95% of our species rich meadows. As farming became more professional, the relatively unproductive meadows made way for intensive cropping. Gains in productivity have led to losses in wild flowers, insects and birds that depend on the traditional rich hay meadow?
The European and UK government have recognised this sad loss and have offered farmers grants for the maintenance and re-introduction of hay meadows under the Stewardship Scheme. If you’ve got a lot of land, this might be worth considering. But even if you’ve only got a lawn, you can create a valuable little meadow for wildlife and yourself to enjoy.
A joy to behold
If you ever get the chance to wander through a flowering meadow on a sunny summers day it’s a joyous sensory experience. There are so many colours, sounds, smells and textures. Give yourself half an hour to really take in the sights and sounds of our native flowers; the grasshoppers and crickets rasping and jumping; bees and butterflies enjoying the nectar and harvesting the pollen; maybe a skylark or kestrel overhead. A species rich meadow is literally buzzing with life everywhere you look. It’s so uplifting to spend some time in one. Go on….treat yourself this summer!
Creating your own Meadow
Size isn’t important. Anything is better than nothing, so if it’s a little corner of your garden or several fields, it’s still worth doing. You’ll be amazed at the results within a few flowering seasons.
So here are the principals in creating your species rich wild flower meadow;
Don’t fertilise your soil.
Yep, I know that goes against almost everything the gardener and farmer thinks about growing things well, but in this case less is definitely more! Give me minute to explain. Ideally you’d like to encourage as many species into your turf as possible. Some of those species are more delicate and fragile than others. If the soil is really well fertilised the stronger and more vigorous grasses will out-compete the delicate, less competitive, herbs and flowers. The low fertility stops those dominant plants from completely taking over. Everything has a chance to flourish.
Give your mower and yourself a rest.
Enjoy your meadow area until late summer/autumn when your flowering plants are going over. This should allow the annuals time to spread some seed for the following year.
Having said that, there’s no harm in mowing some paths through your meadow if it’s large enough to do so. The varied heights of grass are fabulous for all sorts of creatures. You’ll get butterflies basking on the short turf and if you’re really lucky maybe even a lizard. It will be easier for barn owls and kestrels to hunt small mammals in shorter grass. It’s great to have a bit of diversity in your meadow area. The conservation word refers to is as a three dimensional sward.
You might need a bigger mower or lift your garden mower onto its highest setting to cope with a season’s growth in the autumn.
Rake up after you’ve mowed.
So having enjoyed your meadow all summer you’ve finally mowed your meadow in the autumn. There’s likely to be quite a bit of cut grasses and spent flowers that have gone through your mower. If left on the surface it will rot down and fertilise the ground. Remember what we said about fertilising your meadow land – it’s a bad thing. It will also create a thatch/mulch that might prevent spring plants from growing next year.
Ideally you’ll leave your mown grasses and flowers on the surface for a week or two in the sun. This ensures they’ve dropped all their seeds before you rake them up and take them away. If you think about it, that was always the traditional way of making hay. You can feed your hay to livestock if you have them or compost it for the veg patch. Over the years the fertility of your soil will reduce as you continually remove the season’s growth.
Enhancing your meadow
You can give your grassland a head start by sowing some seeds into it. There are plenty of garden centres and sites on the internet that’ll sell you a wild flower mix. By all means, give that a go if you like, but the flowers that survive will be largely down to soil type and the conditions where you live. One of the better ways of establishing a good species rich sward is ‘haying’.
Find a lovely species rich meadow as close to the place as you live as possible, and certainly on the same soil type. Then do a deal with the landowner to allow you to cut and remove a few bales or sacks of his crop in late autumn. You spread that species rich hay over your own meadow area and leave it for a few weeks drop its seeds. Give it a good shake with a pitch fork to release more seeds and rake off the excess. Rake it pretty thoroughly, or even better, harrow it to create some bare ground that your seeds will fall into. That should give your meadow a kick start next year.
Species to include
There is a star of the show if you can get it to establish, and that’s yellow rattle. You know how I said low fertility prevents dominant grasses taking over? Well yellow rattle is parasitic on grasses so it’ll help do the same job.
It might be worth buying some seeds and broadcast them into your meadow in June and July to replicate the wild plants seeding.
And then……patience…..
Don’t be tempted to dig your meadow over and start again. Just leave it and see what happens. I know a local common of several acres that was mown every couple of weeks like a garden lawn. It had been mown like that for decades. It looked like a sports pitch and was made up of just four or five species of grass. We suggested just mowing around the edges and leaving the rest as meadow. Ten years on and the transformation has been incredible! Every year more and more common spotted orchids grow on it and it’s alive with flowers and insects.
If someone had predicted it would be so biodiverse in just ten years I’d have scarcely believed them. I spent an hour in it last autumn and it’s that experience that motivated me to encourage everyone to create a little bit of meadow if they can.
We can help
We are always happy to help in any way we can, whether that’s advice or helping you get started. We can match your soils with those of local species rich meadows and can approach landowners for you. We can do your mowing and raking if you’d like us to. What ever you need, feel free to drop us a line and we’ll get back to you.
Drop us a line at info@conservationandaccess.co.uk
Read on if you’d like some simple, practical advice on how to plant an economical wildlife friendly hedge from native species. There’s lots of fancy-pants ornamental hedging species out there for horticulturally aesthetic gardening that I’m not covering here. Read on if you’re interested in planting an agricultural-style hedge for your cottage garden or field boundary.
What species of hedge should I plant?
Always go for native species if you want to give our wildlife a helping hand. Native plants are far more helpful to our ecosystem than imported exotics. It stands to reason that if a plant has grown in this country for the past 10,000 years, more of our natural wildlife will be adapted to make use of it. Having said that, some early and late season pollinators can be great for insects. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t plant leylandii. Yes they grow quickly and provide an evergreen cover, but you’ll be forever trimming them or they’ll bolt away to be a big green monster. Once the monster stage has been realised, getting them back to a nice manageable hedge is nigh-on impossible. They look out of place in the British countryside, not great for wildlife and are prone to ailments and wind-burn.
The choice of native species depends on what you want your hedge to do, and where you want to grow it. For example, if you need an evergreen screen consider native privet, holly or yew. Yew is a great plant, but just remember yew is toxic to livestock so don’t grow it next to grazed fields. Beech and hornbeam hang onto their autumn leaves for most of the winter and will also offer you some all-year screening.
You might be planting in a shady area, in which case you want some shade tolerant hedging plants like holly, yew hazel or blackthorn. If I’m planting a mixed hedge across a field and I need to plant under an old tree, I’ll make sure I put more of the shade tolerant species underneath it.
A single species hedge or a mix?
Unless there is a necessity to do so, (like shading or screening as mentioned above), I’d always advocate a mixed of species hedge, with the core component being hawthorn – sometimes referred to as “quick thorn” – doing what it says on the tin – growing quickly. Hawthorn grows well on most soils and its tangled woven growing style makes for a great hedge. It also grows lots of haw berries that can provide our birds with food well into the winter.
Have a look at the species composition of the hedges around you and consider replicating those. This will ensure you get the right plants on the right soil-type too. For example beech likes the alkaline chalk, gorse likes the acid sand and gravels, whereas hornbeam does exceptionally well on the clay. That being said, for a good mixed rural looking hedge, I’d advise 60% hawthorn and make up the rest of localised native species, which might include blackthorn, holly, yew, beech, hornbeam, field maple (which would also make a nice little hedgerow tree if you let it grow), hazel, dogwood, gorse, privet and native dog rose. I would also consider adding a few less-unusual hedgerow species like honeysuckle and spindle to add some interest for yourself and wildlife.
You could also consider planting a fruit tree that will grow out of your hedge. Perhaps a damson or crab apple?
OK, so you’ve decided on the species, what to buy?
This depends on how deep your pockets are. You can buy larger container grown plants, but expect to pay decent prices for them. They’ll also be more time consuming to plant as each one will need to be pit-planted. That means digging a little hole the size of the pot to plant them into. If the roots spiral around the pot, you should tease these out so the roots grow evenly. Then back-fill you hole and firmly heel in your plant. This amounts to lots of time and effort, but if it’s a short length of hedge and you want it to be a decent height ASAP this could be your option.
By far, the most economical way to buy hedging is bare rooted plants, sometimes referred to as whips. You can buy whips of various sizes, paying a little more for the larger ones. They can be as little as 20p each – even less if you’re buying in bulk. They get delivered to your door in planting bags, (white on the outside and black on the inside to prevent the sun from heating the roots up), bundled up in quantities of up to 50.
Whether you buy bare root or container grown, take care to keep the roots moist. Many species really don’t like having their roots dry out and you can quickly kill hedging plants by leaving the roots exposed in the sun and wind whilst you have a cuppa.
When to plant your hedge
You can plant your container grown hedging whenever you like, but those roots are likely to dry out much quicker in the summer. In my experience you tend to lose more plants if they’re summer planted. I suspect it’s the shock of the active plant being interfered with, (in winter they’re dormant), the roots being dried in the air and insufficient watering whilst the soil settles around them. Even though we heel plants in, we probably never do it perfectly. Any air pockets stand a chance of being filled in during the wetter winter months, whereas gaps in the summer might mean the roots to dry and die.
Don’t plant into frozen ground or ground that has snow on it. You don’t want the bare roots of your plants to freeze or you may kill them. It’s not a good idea to plant in very dry conditions either. I’d always plant in the winter months given the choice.
Planting your hedge
We’ve covered planting container grown plants, so what about the inexpensive bare-rooted plants?
When you plants are delivered, open the bag and check the roots are moist. They should be dark in colour and wet. If they’re light coloured and dry, raise you concerns with your supplier before you plant them. Send them a photo of the dry roots as proof. They might replace them there and then.
Assuming your plants look good, but you’re not quite ready to plant them, temporarily heel them in. This means digging a little pit or trench a foot or so deep and covering the roots with wet soil. Press the soil down over their roots with your heel to remove air pockets and then water them. They’ll keep safe and sound like that throughout the winter.
You can get special planting spades, and if you’re planting lots it would be worth considering. They’re sturdy, have foot plates on them and a nice pointed profile. However, for your garden hedge a small digging spade will probably do.
Split your bundles of various species and bag them up in your chosen ratio of species, keeping those roots moist. I know I keep banging on about it, but it was drummed into me by foresters as a youth.
Planting couldn’t be easier. Push your spade into the ground, using your foot to help if necessary, and wiggle it back and forth so it makes an open slit in the ground. Then take a hedging plant out your bag and slide its roots into the slit.
Whilst holding your plant upright and at the right depth, use your heel to firm up the soil around it. Heel the slit from both direction to ensure your plant is upright and to make sure you’ve fully closed the slit up, avoiding air pockets and move on to plant the next one.
Spacing
Have a look at the suppliers recommendations for spacing your plants out, but for whips I favour two rows about 18 inches (45cm) apart. I stagger the plants so they’re not planted in pairs resulting in a fuller hedge.
Protecting your hedge
Having gone to the expense, time and effort of planting your hedge you don’t want some critter to come along and eat it all! The main culprits are rabbits, hares and deer. You can buy tubes, spirals or mesh guards. If you have rabbits or deer you’ll definitely need them. If you think you’ll get away without them, don’t use them, but just be warned a single bunny can do a lot of damage in a very short space of time.
If you do decide to guard, make sure you hammer in your supporting stake on the north side to reduce the shading effect it will have. If you buy planting tubes, buy the big ones so your hedge can grow a few side branches. Spirals are cheaper and you can allow some side branches to poke out.
As soon as you think your hedge is too big to be snipped off by rabbits and deer, remove the guards so it can benefit from natural conditions. Keep an eye on it though as those pesky rabbits sometimes ring-bark young plants. If they start eating the bark you’ll need to protect them.
You could consider rabbit netting either side of your hedge. This can be useful if you want to keep rabbits out your garden. Rabbit netting is another tutorial on its own. Get in touch if you’d like to discuss that.
Shaping and trimming your hedge
Assuming your hedge is doing well in its second and third years, don’t be afraid to trim off the wispy leaders that start reaching for the sky. Cutting them back will stimulate side grown and bush out your hedge. Even if your goal is a six foot hedge, trimming it at three foot, again at four foot, five foot and again at finished height will result in a much bushier hedge.
If you’d like any advice, or if you’d like us to plant your hedge for you, just drop me a line.