trees
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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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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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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
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First Trip of Spring
On the wall of what I call my office, but is really just a spare bedroom with ideas above its station, I have a map of the local area. It’s actually two 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey Explorer maps blue tacked together so that they nearly match up. I add a coloured pin any time I find… Continue reading
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A Bird Both Mundane and Mystical
Last weekend I was due to attend a pruning workshop held by the National Trust over in Styal, Cheshire. The trip would have involved getting up at 5am, taking a taxi to Grimsby in time for the first train heading west and then a two mile forced march to make the start time. And then… Continue reading
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Crab Apple Elegy
Quit your griping. I know my placeNeglected rosy stepchildToo generous for respectToo tart for loveBut come back when your horny trees are yearningWhen blossom proper’s long since goneAye, that’s me. I’ll still be here.Don’t forget to tip your waiter. Ok, fair enough; I’m not much of a poet but someone should write poetry about crab… Continue reading
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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.
The Appeal of Mrs Toogood 