Far Lands

As many of you will know (and read on my blog) we planted over 100 trees in our foraging hedge in March. The photo below shows its current progress. I wrote an article all about it, 'The Foraging Hedge Rulebook', which is being published in the September / October issue of Living Woods magazine. http://www.living-woods.com/ It starts... The Foraging Hedge Rulebook Following his recent experience of planting a 40-metre, 106-tree foraging hedge, James Ellson explains The Foraging Hedge Rulebook , 10 Rules to follow when planting such a hedge. The increasing interest in foraging has resulted in what many people think is a resurgence in planting foraging hedges. However, a foraging hedge is a modern adaptation of ancient traditions. This article will begin by exploring a little of the history of the hedge and of foraging, and suggest how the foraging hedge came about. Everyone has heard of the Great Wall of China but very people know about the Great Hedge of Indi...

So I thought a picture of our filbert tree would be appropriate. The first was taken when it was planted in January last year and the second was today. Filberts are a type of hazelnut. Bigger, and supposedly tastier than nuts from the common hazel tree, the type found in many hedges. Mid to late August is when filberts reach maturity and can be picked (or get stolen by squirrels). No nuts for us this year, but the trees in the Kent platts (hazelnut term for an orchard) yield tonnes of them. Filberts, originally philberts, are believed to be named after Saint Philbert who died in 864 as it is this time of year when filberts are picked.

Grow Your Own magazine are running a feature on foraging in their September issue. They asked me for a contribution, and here it is:- Apples  that grow wild in hedgerows and fields are known as  wildings . They are uncultivated, and may have grown from a discarded apple core. The resulting apples can be quite acidic, even unpleasant or just insipid. However, the occasional one can be delicious, and the tree should be noted for future seasons. My favourite tree is on common land in a suburban cul-de-sac in Reading – the apples are large purplish-red globes. An acquired taste certainly, but I love them! My current project is to graft some scions from the tree and grow one in my own garden. I am in fact just back from Reading with my scions, and I have been busy grafting them onto our hawthorn hedge (see also my last blog entry) and also onto a crab apple rootstock that I had left over from planting the foraging hedge. Won't know the results until the Spring. Will keep...

The Frankenpear story is almost worth its own blog. Parts I and II were back in May (blogs 116 and 117 if you want to read the background; briefly the story is about grafting pears onto our hawthorn hedge). So, the last pics on the blog showed an emerging pear shoot about 5mm in length growing from a hawthorn bush. The graft had worked and Sarah, as she had promised, had to eat her hat. Now look at it! Yes, the pictures show a hawthorn hedge with a grafted pear scion growing out of the top (camera case for scale). I just wonder if in the next year or 2 it might produce a pear. I wonder what Sarah would eat then - maybe a whole suit?