Ightham Mote Cobnuts Project

The work carries on in the usual seasonal routine. We take care of the cobnut plat and the plat takes care of us. In so many ways the work that goes into the cobnut plat repays us in good measure, providing the benefits of fresh air, exercise and friendship in a share endeavour.

The seasons go around as usual - more or less, given the variability of the climate these days.

At the end of December 2021 and just before the New Year, the hedge that had been laid was looking good.

The cobnut trees are bare and only the dried-up stems of twining bryony are a reminder of the previous summer’s growth and colour.

By early February male catkins and small red female flowers are on show.

Pruning has been completed. The cut twigs and branches lie between the rows. On a murky day in early March a band of heroes, on a day off from HSBC, drag them down to stack in piles.

Thank you HSBC - great work in less than great conditions

Tony takes the challenge to make a 'stool bed', hopefully to propagate new young trees.

In late March daffs are blooming:

A group from the National Trust volunteer group arrive to carry on the work. They are regular yearly helpers on the plat and it is always great to welcome them back and appreciate their hard work and enthusiasm.

This time we had Steve from the Ightham Mote Ranger team who brought his chipper. In go the twigs and branches and out come the wood chips.

enthusiasm.

The huge pyramids of chips are all that is left at the end of the day. Thank you everyone!

April: spring flowers are at their best and leaf-buds are bursting giving a haze of green.

It is May. Now the leaves are fully out. A group of cobnut growers have been taking a course in the management of grey squirrels (yes, that scourge of cobnut-growers). They visit the plat to learn about trapping: humanely and legally.

They also get to see the damage done to trees. Stripping the bark can cause the tree to die back and eventually die. This is a major threat to the nation's attempts to re-forest the land and absorb CO2.

Fast forward to July and we have to deal with those pyramids of chippings. Call in the boy (and girl-) scouts!

with unbelievable energy they pile chippings into buckets, pour them all around the nut trees, providing a good mulch and a feed of nutrients for their roots.

In no time at all they reduce three giant pyramids of mouldering chippings to a level floor - their leaders, the adults, as you can see, standing by and looking on.

After that there is time for a game; a game with complicated rules, involving a lot of rushing about. Finally a photo-call and head-count and off home as darkness falls. Thank you scouts!

Onwards to late August. It is nearly time to harvest the nut crop but: what's this? A colony of wasps have made their nest on the underside of a chair... inside the shed! Help! how are we going to deal with this? We need the shed at harvest time and we certainly cannot share it with a colony of potentially hostile, angry wasps (they would certainly get angry if disturbed by a crowd of nut-pickers having a picnic!).

Ranger Steve comes to the rescue again. In the process he reveals the fascinating architecture of the nest and the engineering and construction skills of wasps, cantilevering layers of chewed up wood-pulp into several levels of nest.

Wasps have been doing this, probably for millennia, before humans came along and imitated their designs.

Now harvesting can begin, starting with the young bloc. Another energetic group from HSBC came along on the first of September. A day out from the office and the weather is perfect. They picked and picked and completed several rows.

Next day another group arrived, equally eager to learn the new skill of nut-picking and to outdo their colleagues of the previous day with the quantity of nuts picked. crates filled and the rows they completed.

Thank you to everyone for two enjoyable days and a large quantity of nuts, stacked away.

September 3rd is the Big Day on the main bloc. The third - or is it fourth? - annual big Pick 'n Picnic. Friends and families arrive from far and wide and set to work.

Charlie has prepared the best picnic ever.

The paella is amazing and plentiful and comes along with the best of Borough Market produce: olives, nuts, cheeses of all description, coffee, red wine: a sit-down feast.

It's a gathering of friends and families, some old-hands and others new. The weather is fine; it's a great day and a lot of nuts are picked.

The last of the nuts? or the ones that got away

It's October and the nuts are packed in nets, ready for sale.

A supply of Kentish cobnuts is collected for the red squirrels of Northern Ireland by Toby who happens to be passing with his family and his camper van as they return from their Scandinavian holiday. He gets them loaded up and drives off to get the ferry back to Belfast.