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Thinning the Herd
The official Royal Horticultural Society advice is to do your fruit thinning before mid-July but I’ve never been one to follow advice. Instead of listening to the experts, I spend the first half of July sat at home watching the World Cup at ungodly hours of the morning and neglect the straining branches of my… Continue reading
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Following the River Until it Joins Hands with the Sea
Chalk streams, according to my big-brain sister, are one of the rarest habitats on Earth and most of them are in England. What’s more, one of them, the River Lud, flows right past my orchard and probably accounts for how completely awesome the trees and apples are. It’s certainly nothing to do with my skills… Continue reading
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The First Official Necking of Ticklepenny Cider
It is early morning on Father’s Day. Early morning for a newly unemployed but long time unemployable waster like me means about half eight. You might disagree but you can’t have that much to do if you’re reading this. Stars have aligned and the time has come to gently unwind the caps of my plastic… Continue reading
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Bee Day Smackdown
Wednesday, 20th May was World Bee Day, a time for everyone to come together to sing songs, wave flags and celebrate the stripy guarantors of all life on Earth. Well, maybe not the first two things. I only knew about the festival because I saw a sign in the local library when I got caught… Continue reading
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How Puddles Ruin Marriages
Some weeks ago, I received a text message from a friend who has been reading this blog since its inception. He said that he had been hiking with his brother and found an apple tree deep in the countryside near Wold Top, the highest point in Lincolnshire. In case I doubted him, there were three… Continue reading
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Next Stop, Kazakhstan
I’m a late convert to Race Across the World, the BBC show in which contestants attempt to make their way to distant parts of the globe without using air travel. I’ve watched the first series and the most recent one and I’ve enjoyed both, even though I’ll admit that I got impatient in the final… Continue reading
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Tour of Duty
Inspired by my recent trip to the Gatherums, I decided to spend last Saturday afternoon plodding around Louth visiting the other community orchards that were laid down in 2021 and 2022. Including the Gatherums, although that unfortunately no longer qualifies as an orchard on account of only being one tree, there are four, spread around… Continue reading
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Bring Me your Lost and Lonely
A couple of years after I started work on my amateur orchard, East Lindsey District Council decided to copy me but to do it bigger and, in all fairness, better. In the summer of 2021, they announced a series of community orchards to be planted across the district. The initial tranche of ten included three… Continue reading
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This Time we Have a Map
The next tree on my hit list is one my dad told me about last year but which I hitherto considered too far to bother with on account of it being nowhere near a bus stop. I should perhaps have tested the fruit before deciding to grow another version of it but it’s too late… Continue reading
Years gone by
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About Me
I’ve been writing about orchards and Lincolnshire heritage apples for over five years and still don’t know my arse from my elbow. This blog is supposed to be an almost humorous record of my attempts to raise apple trees in a field just outside Louth. Mrs Toogood is just one of the lost varieties I probably won’t find.
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