Big progress in the orchard this year

This year we put a lot of effort into the orchard, trying to get it looking better. As well as planting hundreds of bulbs and pruning the fruit trees, we decided to plant the perimeter of the orchard with a beech hedge. This was mainly to give some shelter to the trees as well as creating sort of a screen, so you don't see everything all at once and have to venture in to take a look. I also got 6 Boston Ivy for the wall at the top but that's another story.Myself, Chris and Paul Vulin (our woofer back in March/April) dug out the grass along the fence and got the beech planted. There were 100 plants in total, but I'm thinking I will need another 150 to do the rest of it. Pruning the apple trees back in March...Before...After...In July I decided to widen the bed for the beech hedge, the grass was creeping in too much. We had plenty of help with Wesley, Gregoire from France and Ryan & James from the US.Gregoire lifting a big roll of grass into the wheel barrow, we used some of this to patch other areas that were missing grass.Next was time to widen the space around the fruit trees. As well as the tractor mower having bumped into a couple of trees, the shallow roots on the young trees were competing with the grass for food and water.The new wider circles around the tree look better too.Although it does make it a little harder to mow with the mower.Some of the apples ready for picking at the weekend... And these ones taste great...