Far Lands

Storm Doris was last Thursday, a nasty day although the pictures don't do it quite justice. Very noisy! The roof was blown off the WBC hive and the next day I investigated to find a soaked hive and a few hundred dead bees. Dead already, I suspect. Touch wood for the national hive which has most of our bees. A few were flying about a week before so we're still hopeful. Otherwise it was a tree down and hanging from a wire, and a fallen wall. Storm Ewan followed on Sunday but was not so bad. Today we've had snow and now heavy rain. Tomorrow the chickens can be let out of their run / tunnel. I've tried to tell them.

At the back of our house on the stony path I have found some curious mounds of mainly earth but also very small twigs. About the size of a beer mat but rounded like a very small hill. When I removed this 'nest' I could see a small tunnel. About a cm wide and perhaps (but I am not sure) several cms deep. I am not sure who has built them and whether they are still there. I found three such nest-holes in a square metre and there are probably more. Our initial thoughts were a ground bee or a wasp but the 'nest' on top makes me unsure. Can anyone help?

Grafting time for top fruit is approaching but grafting time for gooseberries is right NOW! A few years back I saw a standard gooseberry in the orchard of a country hotel outside York. It was the shape of a lollypop and growing above a carpet of flowers. I struck upon a plan. Last year my friends at NFG supplied me two golden currants which are ideal to graft gooseberries onto. I planted them in the garden and this year I re-sited them into the strawberry beds. The idea is to have easy-to-pick gooseberries growing above a bed of strawbs. Should look good and make best use of space and sun. Grafting is the same as top fruit. We shall see!

Another of my Big Jobs (see previous post) are the new cordon lines. I have finished boarding the third; now I just need to dig it. I have also started transferring the new trees (one-year old, grafted last March) from the tree nursery into the first cordon. Pitmaston Pineapple, Spartan, Monarch, St Edmund's Pippin, Goram ( a pear) , Sunset, Belle de Louvain (a plum) so far. Names to get excited about!