Woodland and Wildlife
Latest news: planting day and permaculture afternoon.
Next planting day will be on Wednesday February 15th. Please contact Rupert on 01258 817980 or rupertemerson@hotmail.com if you can help. It will be a morning session only, starting at 9 am and then organic lunch in the farmhouse at 1 pm (no charge for lunch). We will be planting trees and hedging plants from the Woodland Trust for our forest garden and native woodland projects. Bring a spade if you can.
On Monday 20th February at 3 pm we are having a meeting of our little permaculture group. We are pleased to welcome Louise Cartwright from the Permaculture Association who will discuss the design that John Hillman is helping us with. If you are interested in permaculture do come along. It helps if you can let us know you are coming. Contact Rupert or Sarah on 01258 817201.
The new orchard is dormant now, the wildlife meadow has been extended and there are hopeful signs for the spring, the hedge of the forest garden needs more work and the native woodland copse is coping well with the gales.
Orchard Farmhouse has an exciting project to encourage bio-diversity on the land, encourage birds in the garden and reduce our environmental impact.
Within the house we are working to reduce our electricity consumption while keeping things comfortable. We have an excellent woodburner to reduce our use of oil. We have installed photovoltaic solar panels on the garage roof. Jon Colman has built a woodstore and we have put more PVs on the roof so we are up to 3.7 kwh max power.
In the garden we encourage wildlife with bird seed, boxes and a dovecote. In the fields we are creating a copse of english broadleaved trees, a woodland and community garden. We are also looking at encouraging friendly bees through a biodynamic approach to flora in the fields. We are even looking at going one better with natural beekeeping.
The new orchard is by a footpath (part of Hardy's Way) and we have begun a forest garden.
We already have a small orchard in our garden but the additional apple and cherry trees in the field are for people to share. The forest garden will be a mix of trees and shrubs, most bearing fruit, nuts or producing a product that is useful.
Volunteers from far and wide, including members of the charity Trees for Dorset have been kind enough to help. Here are some of the volunteers working away. We usually do soup or baked potato and sometimes Sarah does her home made organic cakes.
Carbon offsetting
You can now click on buttons when you book a holiday to do your bit for the environment. How much nicer to be able to ask for trees to be planted for you then go and see them and enjoy them. And one day be picking something from them perhaps! Ask us how to take part. You do not even need to stay with us. The trees will be accessible from the public footpath (The Hardy Way).
If you would like to help with our woodland, wildlife and renewable energy initiatives, please get in touch by emailing rupertemerson@hotmail.com.
Trees for special occasions
We welcome applications from people to plant a tree in our fields. This could be in memory of a loved one, to celebrate a wedding or as part of a christening or child naming ceremony.
