Ightham Mote Cobnuts Project: Winter 2013 Continues

Despite what the weather threw at us much work was completed on the plat between the end of January and the end of March. The main task of cutting out and clearing willow, birch and ash saplings had been completed but the back-aching job of 'wanding' i.e. cutting out the young wands, remained. New wands grow each year but they had done so with renewed vigour following the hard cutting back last year. The Ightham Mote Garden Team and their volunteers joined with us on the task but it takes a long time to clear just a few rows by hand:

'White-out'

Snow arrived and stopped work,

.... turning the site into a white wilderness.

In February the professional pruners were at work again top-pruning those trees which had not been done last year.

With pruning saw ....

.... and secateurs

The catkin is out and a good showing of the tiny red stars, the female flowers which produce the nuts. It was good to have a few fine dry and sunny days when the pollen from the catkins could drift and pollinate.

The tiny, star-like red flowers will produce nuts

In fact the great show of catkin on the plat is less important than the pollen that comes from the wild hazel in the hedgerows and from those pollinators growing among the cobnuts, because the variety we grow here, the 'Kent Cob' - also known as 'Lambert's Filbert' - is not self-fertile and needs the pollen from other varieties or from wild hazels, to produce a crop of nuts.

Variety 'Kent Cob (or 'Lambert's Filbert) is not self-fertile;

....it relies on pollen from hedgerow hazels or pollinators

A great show of catkin

A wild hazel pollinator on the plat

With plenty of female flowers this season we can only hope that conditions were right and for long enough, to produce a crop in August/September. That will also depend on conditions in forthcoming months as well.

Bean poles ready for the garden

A quantity of strong, straight wands have been rescued from burning. They will be made up into bundles to be sold as poles for runner beans to grow up, at gardening and allotment societies and to keen gardeners - raising funds for the summer work of mowing.

Will it light?

Burning up the debris of birch and willow was carried out in February and into March.

Although snow again intervened it did not hold up the work unduly.

The bonfire takes off despite snowy conditions

Most of the wanding still remains to be done and in the third week of March help is on hand again from the National Trust. The Trust runs Working Holidays - formerly known as 'Acorn Camps',when volunteers

spend a week working on projects. This time they offered us a day out of their week and turned up in good time.

Team leader and volunteers on their 'working holiday'

Wanding is not the most exciting task but they took to it cheerfully and got through a good number of rows whilst taking a keen interest in the history of the plat and the cultivation of cobnuts in Kent. They made a terrific contribution and hopefully will have taken away some new knowledge and interest from their day.

Most of the trees which were top-pruned last year have not had the treatment again this year with the exception of the lower bloc of young trees which I've taken on as a pet project to try to re-shape them into the traditional 'open goblet' structured style.

Pruning with secateurs

.... and with pruning saw

Blue flag shows the next tree to be done

At the top of the plat the estate's Ranger and his team have provided a new fence to replace the old and, in some places, non-existent one alongside High Cross Road.

There will soon also be a new gate to replace the old one.

At the end of March we are still - despite the date - enduring bitterly cold winter weather. Some primroses have bravely started to show their flowers....