From Winter to Spring

My last post, in January, showed that pruning was well under way on the plat
with cut branches lying between the rows. It was a cold and wintry scene.  And now,
at the beginning of March, it was time to collect the debris up into piles for bonfires, setting aside anything which could be sold for pea-sticks and plant supports.

ideal for sweet peas

West Kent College came back to us offering four Mondays in the month when students would like to come and help with the task and the offer was very welcome.  

This troupe mean business

A rota of willing volunteers was set up and we were able to muster a good turn-out of helpers.

Someone had to get the bonfire going and look after it while others led students in teams of three or four to pile the twigs and sticks onto tarpaulins and drag them down to the fire.

The weather was kind, giving us four dry Mondays in a row - quite something for March! 

Each session with the students ended with the now traditional spuds baked in the ashes of the bonfire - much appreciated by all, students and helpers, who had worked so hard.




























As April arrived however there were still rows which had not been cleared and more dragging, sorting and burning were needed.  Family and friends rallied to the cause.

It's warming up!

....of this

This is the result of....

By now the plat was taking on a very different
appearance: the usual but ever-amazing transformation
that spring brings. Primroses were in bloom and this
year they have spread further

into the top end of the plat and at the lower end they carpet the slopes.

'bud-burst' gives a haze of green leaves

Violets too, along with milkmaids/ladies' smock and bluebells which are coming into flower.

 The last week of April brought more friends out to help with the final push....

....the flowers adding to the enjoyment of warm sunshine....

For several weeks I had been calling on volunteers to help with 'one last bonfire' and this one....

....this one really was the last, last bonfire.  Thank you, everyone!

Winter Activity

shades of grey - and shades of bonfires to come....

The colours are muted but there are signs of activity nonetheless.  Prunings and cut wands lying between the rows show that work has been under way for some time.

catkins are beginning to open up

On the lower bloc the wands have been stripped away from the base of the trees and top-pruning has just started.  That  blue flag on the third row shows where work begins next time.

just planted

Since nearly all the trees on the plat are of the one variety, namely 'Kent Cob' (or 'Lambert's Filbert, as it is also known),  I recently decided to introduce something different. This young tree is of the variety 'Cosford'. Because Kent Cob is not - according to the scientists - self-fertile, the plat relies mainly on the wild hazels in the hedgerows and others which are planted here and there on the plat. An additional pollinator can do no harm and will add interest. These two were supplied by the nursery Frank P Matthews Ltd of Worcestershire and Nick Dunn, Managing Director of the company, brought them along when he came to give a talk at the KCA Nutters' Supper in November.

Today the morning started out windy but dry but then the rain came on. No, that's not the sun or the moon in the picture below: just drops of rain on the camera lens.

sheets of rain!

Now it was too uncomfortable to dig another hole in the stony ground.  The second little tree must stay in its pot waiting for a finer day.  Meanwhile the first one is bedded in and fluttering its flag in the face of the weather.  

All is quiet on the plat; but will it snow tomorrow?  The forecasters say it might.

All quiet for now.

Autumn into winter

Saturday was a rare sunny day amongst the misty, murky days of recent weeks. The bright tints of late autumn were so attractive that I am posting a small photo gallery, just for the pleasure of it.

The few remaining leaves show up brightly against the nearly-bare branches.




In the hedgerows there are still a few beech leaves also providing colour.

On some branches the yellow and orange of lichen gives another bright note.

Lichen and late leaves

Turn and look the other way and winter seems well-established....

Not a leaf to be seen!

....although a gentle haze on the nut trees show where the catkins have been in place for some time.


At the back of the shed the 'bug hotel' is standing up well to wind and weather.

Has anyone told the bugs they can move in?

Two young trees are ready to be planted and will go in partly as pollinators for the Kent Cobs (which as we know are not self-fertile), and to add to the pollination provided by wild hazels around the plat.

These young trees are a variety called Cosford filberts

Wanding in the top bloc is well underway and, as tomorrow is the first of December I shall spend a hour or two on the young bloc - weather permitting!

Visit to Hurstwood Farm

In Mid November a group of us met at Hurstwood Farm for a visit to see how Kentish Cobnut Oil is made.

Cobnut trees make the backdrop as the group assembles

Our host, nut farmer (and piano-maker), Richard Dain received us warmly with tea and biscuits and he and his assistant, Catherine, gave a talk explaining how it all came about.

Cathrine, right, explains 

When his extensive apple orchards suffered irreparable damage during the Great Storm of October 1987 Mr Dain decided a wiser move would be to replant with cobnuts rather than with apples.  The idea for an oil press came later and, being an engineer by profession, he assembled the various parts, sourcing from Italy, Germany and using his own invention.

The barn where we sat doubles as a concert hall in summer

The resulting cobnut oil was entered for the Great Taste Awards of the Guild of Fine Food and at its first appearance won not just best in its category but overall winner. It was a great start and Kentish Cobnut Oil has gone from strength to strength since then.

Making oil from cobnuts is not simply a question of feeding the nuts into a machine and bottling the oil that comes out.  The process has many stages and we visited each in turn. First we saw the machine which makes boxes into which the bottles are packed for dispatch: different sizes for different numbers of bottles.

The machine will print boxes to suit your specifications

But before any of that what about the actual process of making the oil? First the nuts must be dried and the moisture reduced to a particular degree. Then the nuts are cracked and the shells separated from the kernels.  The kernels are fed into a hopper and thence into the pressing mechanism.

Nut kernals are drawn up the conveyor (right) into the hopper

Richard Dain controls the pressing mechanism

The resulting oil goes into containers and thence to the bottling plant.

Three bottles are filled before you can say 'nuts'!

There is another element of this machine which secures the bottles with sealed caps.

Securing the familiar and distinctive labels

 Finally the bottles are labelled and are ready to be packed into their boxes.










Hurstwood farm has thirty acres of cobnuts and another seven acres of walnut trees which will be made into walnut oil once the necessary machinery has been installed.  I think we would be willing guinea-pigs when it comes to  trialling it!


You can buy Kentish cobnut Oil from Hurstwood Farm at the Shipbourne Farmers Market
(Thursdays from 9 to 11 am).

I too have supplies and will be happy to take your orders: 

just phone 01732 761466

Harvest time

I finished my last post, by speculating that the harvest might be early and so it turned out.  We began on August 24th - a day later than planned owing to the writer being  caught out 'up a creek' (actually the river Roach on the East coast of Essex), not without a paddle but with wind and tide against us. But that is another story.

Some growers had begun picking their cobnuts ten days earlier but late August suited us fine.  I decided, with the help of willing volunteers to take care of the young bloc - some 200 trees roughly ten years old, with the main bloc going to Hurstwood Farm, the makers of Kentish Cobnut Oil ( www.cobnutoil.co.uk ).

cobnuts crated up

On 9th September 32 sharp-eyed pickers and the farm manager descended on the plat and stripped the golden clusters from the trees, leaving them bare in two and a half days.

two pickers to each row of nut trees

ready for loading

In fact the nuts were so advanced this year that a good shake of the trees brought most of them to the ground where they were quickly collected up.

ground hog?

The nuts were of good quality

passing inspection

The crates were loaded onto a trailer to be trundled back to the farm.

ready to roll

The main bloc had been taken care of but there remained plenty to do to harvest and market the young bloc. The plan was for these to be  sold 'by donation' to visitors at Ightham Mote where garden staff had set up a stall by the entrance to the property. So picking continued.

a dedicated nutter

Then the nuts were bagged up and weighed.

to be sold by the bag

calibrating the scales

A final effort was needed and, as the month progressed, the weather stayed dry and the nuts were falling off the trees it was a question of scrabbling around in the grass to retrieve them before the squirrels did.

'Got to get them all!'

The Apple and Orchard Day fairs took place in the garden of Ightham Mote on the last weekend of September and we were able to provide plenty of nuts for the cobnut stand..

Supermarket trays put to use

'Will we get any customers?'

The punters arrive

If any trees remained unpicked at the end of the month the will to carry on had evaporated and the squirrels were welcome to help themselves.  So ended the harvest season, in good time as October brought wind, rain and the arrival of autumn.