Orchard Grass Management
Here is another little orchard management story, this time about grass. I'm only one person and Plymouth City Council only lets volunteers use hand tools in their community orchards. For health and safety reasons, I don't blame the council. This rule makes complete sense in my mind, but it means I must think very carefully about how best to utilise my limited time. Last year, I bought myself a little hedge clipper (see below), which I used to clip back the grass in little circles just around the trees. Even this conservative approach was a struggle though around all 26 trees. By the time I reached the last tree, the grass around the first one was already tall enough to clip again. This cycle looped around all summer. Not fun... I noticed something interesting along the way though, something which I initially could not explain. The grass I clipped grew greener and more vigorously than the grass I left unclipped. This occurred consistently around every tree. Over the winter, t