The Hedgerow Project - Part 3

A miserable cold, very wet and windy birthday on the first Saturday of January, planting the hedge. A total of 170 plants in all, 6 fruit trees and 164 plants (including more trees) for the hedge. It took four hours and was extremely hard work but a very satisfying feeling knowing it's in and indeed what in a few years time it will become. You can just make out the whips against the fence. They're very small - it'll take 3-5 years before the planting resembles a hedge, but by then it'll be providing both food and habitat for the local birds, which they'll need as a large amount of local land is going to be turned into a new housing estate (some 3,500 residential properties, hotel complex, etc). Hopefuly the hedge will help mitigate the impact of this for us and the birds!

















We also planted out the fruit trees including pear, apple (russet) and bird cherry in this mini-orchard and are using our composters to nourish the soil, which should help with both tree growth and fruit production.















The work has been very tough though as we were the last house to be built on this patch in the mid-eighties, and the builders appear to have used our garden as dump for foundation concrete, bricks, glass, clay, metal fittings and anything else they no longer needed, then just added a thin layer of top soil, as you can see from this heap (which is the 2nd heap dug-up and we've covered barely 10% of the garden so far):

















Next is the vegetable patch, we're going to need to double-dig and then sieve the soil here which will mean a load more rubble and waste to come out. After that there's a pale circular patch in the middle of the lawn which looks to me like a heap more waste...