May Activity of the Month: Cultivating Apples

Women’s Land Army May Collage

From left to right, top to bottom:

• Land Girl, Miss Winnie Kent, pictured collecting apples. Source: IWM D 10761
• Spraying apple orchards at Cockayne Hatley. Source: Stuart Antrobus
• Land owner Mr. Whitehead shows a land army girl what to do in his Cockayne Hatley apple orchard. Source: Stuart Antrobus
• Members of the Women’s Land Army prune apple trees in an orchard during a pruning test in the First World War. Source: IWM Q 54599

Other activities included:

• Clean out all livestock buildings
• Fencing and walling repairs
• All lambs tailed, castrated, ear-notched and ear-tagged
• Fertiliser and muck spreading
• Stock removed from silage fields and fertiliser is spread to allow six weeks growth before cutting
• Shear the long tails of the sheep to prevent fly strike
• Spray potatoes, cereals, sugar beet and peas

Source: Farm Direct.co.uk