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.

All quiet on the plat

June and July are quiet times on the plat; not a lot happens other than the grass grows and the nuts begin to swell.

Soon it will be time for mowing between the rows

Meanwhile, down at Ightham Mote the new brush-cutter has arrived - paid for by the funds raised at Waitrose and generously matched by the National Trust, at Ightham Mote.

'Have we got all the parts?'

 It comes flat-packed (sort of) in a box.

'Where does this bit go?'

photo-opportunity on the East Lawn

It did not take long to put it together and, once the mowing has been done at the end of July, the brush-cutter will be in action to deal with the brambles.

Although they may be hard to distinguish among the greenery of the leaves there seems to be a good crop of nuts coming along.  Will the harvest be early this year?  Possibly, after the mild and early spring.  Volunteers to help with the picking will be more than welcome.  Watch this space and bring a picnic.

Look carefully and you can see the nuts.

St Lawrence School visit - Part 2

After lunch there were more activities to get around:-

A time-line of the local heritage

When were the nut trees planted?

Ightham Mote started way back down the line

Identifying wild flowers

This one's called 'bugle'/

                                                                                 Examining another specimen

                                                     Building a hedge for bugs and beatles

Weaving skills

Getting it right

Storytime in the Secret Dell

Time to explore!

More stories

Looking at life on the forest floor

 The children were asked which activities they liked most; answers were varied but the Secret Dell got a lot of votes.

A big cheer for a great day

Time to leave the wildlife in peace.

St Lawrence School visit - Part 1

The weather was more than kind for the visit of all 86 children of St Lawrence School, Stone Street

A perfect day on the plat

Not a cloud in the sky

                                                                                                                                        

The older children walked the mile or more through footpaths and up the steep hill of
 Mote Road.... ....arriving in great time for the visit, whilst the younger ones were brought by parents' cars.





A programme of eight different activities had been planned at different points around the plat, with volunteers guiding each one.

With the children sorted into eight groups they set off to tackle as many as they could in rotation.

If the rotation was sometimes a bit confusing and out of
sinc, no-one got too fussed and in the end each group
covered at least three of the activities before it was
time to stop for packed lunches on the open ground.












The volunteers too were glad to take a break.

Then it was time for more discoveries and creative work getting around another three or four of the stopping points.  What follows is a photo gallery of the different activities on offer:-

Learning about bumblebees and the wild flowers that
they like  

A bowlful of seeds to sow

Building a stack for wildlife

Learning about cobnuts

More activities and more photos in Part 2 (next post!)

Spring on the cobnut plat

Just a quick post about spring flowers. They have been magnificent this year.  Was it the over-supply of rain and the mild winter temperatures that have brought forth such an abundance this year and with such wonderful colours?    Here are a few of them:-

Violets in profusion

Primroses

Can you tell the difference between 'thrum-eye' and 'pin-eye'?

Bluebells in the wood margins...,

....and beneath the cobnut trees

Pink Campion

Bugle

This year we advertised pea-sticks and plant-supports for sale, with notices in local shops and allotment sites.  The response was encouraging and customers arrived to take their pick of what was on offer.

The supply far outstripped demand however and, as in past years, there was plenty of work gathering up and making bonfires.  These three seem to be relaxing with most of the work done.

 The embers of the bonfire will soon die away

Now the alleys between the trees are clear of prunings and wands,

And the trees are coming into leaf:




 At 'bud burst' this was the scene with the alleys between the rows of nut trees cleared of debris.

Soon there will be a spurt of growth under the trees and in May and June the common spotted orchids will add colour to the scene.  After that it will be time for mowing between the rows - work that takes place several times during the summer months.  Meanwhile on the trees it will seem as if nothing is happening until suddenly, if you take a look in late July, the tiny nuts will be visible; at least we hope so:  weather conditions have been so unusual over the winter that it remains to be seen whether we get a good crop of nuts in September:  or just enough to keep the squirrel population from extinction (small hope!).