Edible hedge here we come - stage 1

Well I have had a brilliant day today because I spent the majority of it in the garden doing some major renovating whilst the children had fun with their friends.  As part of my master plan for a big portion of the garden to become a forest garden, Dave bought a large selection of new hedge plants.  The hedge that is at the end of our garden and all the way down the LHS as you look down the garden is horrible.  It is overgrown, ugly, and too thick, doesn’t encourage wildlife and doesn’t produce fruits or anything else edible.  Also no one has any idea what it is!!!!  Luckily for us our neighbours who share the hedge hate it too and so they are happy for us to pull it up and replace it with edible hedge plants.  So today we began!!  And this picture shows how much hedge Dave removed and the newly planted (very small) hazel, june berries and blackthorn plants.

Whilst Dave was busy digging and planting I was chopping up the old hedge for kindling and logs or disposal.  The kids got involved, our neighbours got involved and we even had a visit from the neighbours at the bottom of the garden to investigate what we were doing.  They unfortunately didn’t want us to take down the hedge at the bottom of the garden so we have had to slightly change our plans.

We had some box hedge which we decided to keep but having planted over the kids hedge hole to get from our garden to next door we had to make them another way in so they weren't tempted to trample Dave's newly planted hedge.  Here is the new way in wonderfully modelled by my next door neighbour and cunningly positioned to match the climbing frame!!!  Obviously that was totally planned that way and not just lucky.

We have loads more to do but I am very happy with the start.  I now have one of the huge cardboard boxes that the hedge plants came in full of kindling ready for the winter and some great bigger firewood.  Even more fantastic was the fact that all the kids who dropped in during the day were asking about what we were doing so we could tell them that hedges can grow food,  be productive and encourage wildlife.  Hopefully in the coming years they will be able to see that for themselves and enjoy some of the harvest.  

Here's hoping that these little plants grow to be productive, attractive hedges and make a wonderful border to our ever growing forest garden.  And that we can pay the neighbours back for their help with fruits and nuts on their side too!!!
It was good fun and a brilliantly productive day.