June

Nina and Ellie have been with us for 6 weeks, pretty much the whole of spring.

We have done many things, including the installation of a 500m electric fence to exclude the sheep from an area of parkland that we hope to grow as meadow this summer before cutting and grazing it heavily and sowing wildflower seed into it in the Autumn.

Ellie and Nina have also been removing hawthorn seedlings from beneath the tulip tree in the orchard, these will be added to the growing tree nursery and one day be planted back out on the land.

Hawthorns seeds germinate best once they have passed through an animals gut, in this case probably a bird sat in the tulip tree.

The flower seed put in the woodland 4 years ago is becoming more established, bulking out each year.

We have also nearly finished the mulching of trees, we created the mulch by thinning out the Sycamore saplings in one wood, chipping them and using the chip to mulch the 3000 whips planted over the last 3 years.

During the work we often come across grass snakes, recognizable by the yellow collar.