Hampton Court again - winter tasks

The winter tasks continue to be quite hard.

Last week we were not needed in the morning as we had missed Ichiho - she had earlier gone to the woods to cut hazel branches, which we use to make support structures for beans and tomatoes. In the afternoon Hilary gave us a lift in a large van to the coppice in Home Park where we grow the hazel stools. It was quite complicated to get there and I don't think I could find it again. The Palace has a store there where we keep equipment for events, like barriers. Our job was simple - to pick up hazel branches from the pile and carry them to the van, and pile them up in the back. As the pile mounted in the back of the van the job became more difficult. The wood was so long many branches stuck out at the back. We got a lift back to the Kitchen Garden and unloaded into a big pile in the area where we keep compost and stores.

Coppiced hazel after cutting

This week I started with Maxine on digging in the clover, a winter manure, which will have to be done several times. There are plenty of worms at work in the soil which should be breaking the plants down but the plants are big and tough and are not breaking up very well, in fact many plants had recommenced growing. I resorted to digging holes and burying the plants upside down. I'm not sure when my method will be discovered. It's probably the only way of stopping the clover from growing again though.

Ichiho and Chris worked on cutting the hazel stems, which were where we left them last week, and sorting them into bundles by size, and then standing them up in the cubby hole where they are kept. All the old ones have vanished. There was nothing wrong with the old ones. It is all very odd. There seems to be no point except that the coppice needed cutting.

This passed the time well until lunch. Took a portion of my soup for lunch and had it in the mess room. Afterwards we had to barrow away the cuttings from our gooseberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants, which were all pruned last week. We had no more room left for all the old stalks and we have a great many bundles of newly cut hazel brush to keep in the cubby. So we trundled our wheelbarrows to the gardeners' yard several times, and threw the sticks in the trailer. We filled the trailer completely.

Blackcurrant showing cut stems

Then Ichiho helped Maxine with digging in the clover and Chris and I did some desultory hoeing. It was a pity we couldn't learn to do the pruning but perhaps it will happen next year.

Redcurrant