Dec. 21, 2024
Faber Forest - 21 December 2024
It's been two months since my last update and the main thing that's happened is the hedge plants have been delivered and gone in the ground. I was away for a few weeks, so some things were on hold and I had to delay the hedge delivery to give myself time to prepare.
I decided to hire a digger to help me dig out the trench where the hedges would go. This took about 1.5 hours and saved me SO much time digging out. I'm not sure if it was indeed the most efficient way, but it was the best I could come up with. So I spent a day at the field supervising the digger, which was a really lovely sunny day.
A few days later, I had my hedges arrive and started digging in. I was relatively efficient at it, I averaged about 25 plants every 40 minutes. Totalling 12ish hours of work for 350 plants. A lot of the time was spent actually filling back in the trench, which was 60cm wide. The plants are about a finger width or less thick so very small compared to the trench size. There is definietely something to be improved there about the system... I don't need such a big hole, espeically for hardy plants like hawthorn and dogwood. A small hole in the ground would probably have sufficed since I wasn't adding in any compost or other soil. However, make that hole is a thing in itself, and I didn't know how else to achieve it without a lot of effort.
I'm very happy with how it turned out so far. I hope the plants will thrive and nothing comes to knock them over... I still need to clean up the trench a bit. There is still extra soil on the side I haven't put back in yet. It is difficult to get everything and probably not worth it. I've decided on the side channel where I have a small layer of extra soil I'm going plant some garlic and onions. I figured since its exposed loose soil I might as well plant into it.
For my next round of work I've ordered
- A box of garlic
- A box of onions
- 20 rose bushes
- 30 fruit trees - the motherload order
That should be coming in next week so I'll do still in 2024 as my last bit of work!
I've also ordered two new tools, which could function as alternative methods to trenching with the digger. Once I start planting the inner shrubs like raspberry bushes around the fruit trees, I won't be able to get a tractor in there, the spaces will become less accessible. So I do need to find a manual / one person method to quickly dig a shrub hole.
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Charlotte Leysen
Hi there I'm Charlotte from London and I am a Millennial hobbiest. By that I mean I love making things, for both the process and the outcomes. On this blog I talk about all the things I'm working on and learning each week. On some projects I will go into a bit more detail on what I did and my experience through it.
Some facts about me:
- I am not a perfectionist, preferring to complete something than to attempt to make something flawless.
- I am in a constant cycle of building up inspiration, executing the ideas, then winding down to reflect and regenerate.
- I am interested in almost anything that can be made from scratch using nature / natural materials.
