More graft

There were a couple of tasks for the regular Orchard work party with the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. It’s the time of year to be grafting the varieties we want onto root stock, and there was also a bit of scrub clearance in the grassland.

It’s been a while since I have done grafting so we had a refresher from Tim and then took some scions he had gathered from other orchards and grafted them onto two types of root stock.

The technique looks simple when he does it, but wielding a sharp knife on delicate stems makes it a bit hazardous. Sarah cut her finger quite badly, a common occurrence. I managed to graft three trees, and took one home for my garden. I’ll know in a couple of months or so whether the graft worked.

After tea break, I took over from Mike on brush cutting the bottom part of the orchard. We have been slowly pushing back scrub in the past few years, but it was starting to shoot up again. By razing it to the ground again, we’re hoping that grass will overtake those patches.

Sadly Anna from the Trust is moving to another job. She has been instrumental in setting up the land management plans for the whole reserve and will be sorely missed. Hopefully she’ll return in the future to check on progress .