Weekly Reports for February 2020

26 February 2020

Sunday’s hardy volunteers braved the storm, installed some more mouse deterrents, and were impressed by the depth of the river before calling it a day. Wednesday’s first workshop on ‘The Principles of Organic Gardening’  went well and the “true/false” and “traffic light” exercises generated some useful debate and discussion but also revealed a good understanding of the basic principles. Already some things are emerging that we could do differently and understand better and we are looking forward to next month’s session with its emphasis on Building and Maintaining Soil Fertility. The robin hasn’t been around recently but was back again today exploring the polytunnel.

PS Well done to John for running the workshop. He promised it would happen ‘whatever the weather’, so the weather served up some snow just to add a challenge   

13 February 2020

After assessing the strong winds on Sunday, we decided not to open. A large beech tree was toppled just a little further upstream in the Serpentine Gardens, so it was a wise decision. However, on Wednesday, the tree provided us with some very attractive, and large “rounds” of timber which we will enjoy putting to use on the site. Virtually all the raised beds have now been topped up with various sorts of compost and topsoil and the last of the pile of autumn leaves has been used as mulch or put into storage to molder quietly for a few months. The first picking of salad was made and enjoyed to everyone’s satisfaction. A first monthly bulletin was posted up so that everyone is up to the same speed on progress and issues. And a very handsome cock pheasant now seems to regard the site as home and struts possessively around the polytunnel.