On Easter Saturday, various members of the group went along to make sure all the trees were well watered - this weather is wonderful, but we have 40 newly planted trees to look after!Richard Clare of the Sheffield organic food initiative Ediculture came to the orchard and took a good look at each and every tree, and we were able to catch some problems at a very early stage - such as where one of the stakes was rubbing and starting to cause a wound in the bark. We also found small caterpillars nestling in rolled-up leaves, and rubbed them off. On the positive wildlife side, ladybirds were around, and spiders had taken up residence on the trees.
One of the medlars had a most impressive caterpillar on it - camouflaged like a stick. The tree is probably too small to support such an impressive creature at the moment though!
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