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Friday, August 16, 2013
There was masses of hay lying around in gently rotting piles in the Poundbury orchard – something needed to be done! On perhaps the hottest farm workday ever, technologically inclined minds came up with a cunning method of moving more hay than one person with a fork can. The TTD Patent Hay Wain! And this …
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Lots going on in the pond world. Originally we were going to put in a pond at the farm, but after we heard the news that the land was needed for development and we would have to move, we put our plans on hold. We have now decided that a pond would be nice in …
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One of the bee hives, which was formerly at the NHS Whitfield Farm and which has kindly been donated to us, has now been set up in the Poundbury orchard. That brings our total to three! Because of this, we have decided we should form a bee group at the farm, so that we can learn ourselves how to …
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We have offered to look after the Poundbury orchard. This orchard is almost next to the farm, and contains 60 heritage apple trees, planted by local school children to commemorate Prince Charles’ 60th birthday. It fits in well with what we do, and it also has a lot of long grass in it…. We held a haymaking …
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Judy spotted that there seemed to be a lot more bees in the hive than there had been previously, so we checked them in case they were about to swarm. Steve came to help us out. He told us that they would have swarmed within days, and we would probably have lost them. Lucky someone was paying attention… We …
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A set of seven goslings hatched in the incubator and were reunited with their flock. This is the last lot of goslings for this year (phew!) and brings the total number of geese at the farm to 35. They will be invaluble for keeping the grass grazed (and fertilised) on the farm and also at Poundbury orchard …
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Nineteen people were present on a nice sunny day for Transition Town Dorchester’s AGM. We heard about various activities connected with the farm: A Big Lottery grant has been received which will fund a cabin, a stove to warm it in the winter, a composting toilet (at last!), tools and educational materials. Communities Living Sustainably …
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Thursday, April 14, 2011
We walked into the orchard and pessimistically surveyed the endless piles of dead brambles. The plan for today was to move all the piles to the end where it could all rot and leave us space to get on with planting. But the task before us seemed daunting, Olympian, even. Various methods were used to …
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Sunday, March 13, 2011
Jenny managed to get her hands on a smart orange shredder, which was wheeled with huge amounts of huffing and puffing into the orchard, and set to work. We had quite a crowd this time, including four girls from the IB course at Thomas Hardye’s. Ian began feeding branches and brambles into the shredder, setting …
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Having got rid of most of the rubbish during the previous workday, we went back to the brambles and various other tasks. An old gentleman living in one of the Monmouth Rd houses backing onto the orchard had contacted Jenny and offered to donate £20 towards buying fruit trees. He also mentioned that he was …
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Monday, January 3, 2011
The Orchard is coming on apace! We have just had our third work day and most of the seven foot brambles are now chopped down and we can begin to get a feel for the size of the land. Lots of rubbish discovered in the process- some where old allotment sheds and cold frames have …
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