Planting starts - and tadpole update

Despite the threat of more cold weather, we decided to be cautiously optimistic and start to plant some seeds in our newly topped-up raised beds.

Our new terraced beds with some chives, red onion sets and various veg and herb seeds.

As well as 'loose seeds', we are trying out some seed tapes, which have come all the way from Hungary. These have some herb seeds embedded in them. 

When we have a garden session, and if there are children around, we like to scoop up a little of our frogspawn for closer inspection. The eggs are starting to develop from just dots into commas. And we were delighted to find a tiny tadpole with gills, which swam vigorously around the yogurt pot. We put them back carefully after an hour or so. We are hoping the cold weather this week doesn't damage the spawn. Maybe our visiting frogs will return too for some more egg laying...

The pair of mallard ducks also had a pleasant afternoon on and next to the pond, until another drake came to visit - but he was quickly seen off.

Busy day in the garden

We had a very productive day in the garden on Thursday. We had a big team from Community Payback, plus several Streets and Open Spaces staff, people dropping by and helping out. We planned to:

• Get some old paving slabs, found in the garden, laid perfectly by the club hut door so we can make a ramp for easier access;
• Start to prepare a base for a new storage shed, with the spare soil being used to top up the raised beds;
• Clean and re-varnish the benches and the picnic table;
• Start to prepare a meadow bed by the bare fence in the park.

We didn't plan to witness a massive fight in the pond from two drakes... or have sun so strong at least one person applied sunscreen. Quite a day.

Three ducks looking very peaceful after their earlier scrapping... 

The ugly bed by the fence - a first step in making a mini meadow

School visit

This might be the first time we have had a visit from a local school - lovely to meet you Queen Emma's reception class, despite the light drizzle, and great to show you some of the garden for your 'Spring project'.

Returning to breed?

The ducks are back... five of them this afternoon - so we wondered if they were the ducklings that hatched in the garden last year. One female was extremely noisy in the session so we were relieved they flew off, eventually.

The Purple for Polio crocuses are also back - we haven't counted them to see if there are more or less than the 5,000 planted in November 2016. Apparently the ones planted in Queens Green are very good too.

And really, excitingly, just as we were leaving this evening we spotted some large clumps of frogspawn - maybe from the tadpoles that hatched last year. It is at the back of the pond, so please watch it from the tarmac path - or you might fall in. Hopefully we will get come more closer to the dipping platform. We want it to do well so we have lots of tadpoles.

And looking at the photo I took at the start of the afternoon, the ducks hadn't eaten it either. We will keep you posted...

New garden plan

Tuscan Hills perennial meadow - from Pictorial Meadows. It has several plants that do well in our thin free draining soil.

Finally got around to updating the garden plan diagram - on version 25 now.

It made me realise how much we have done since the last one in September: new oak bench, new redcurrant bed, cordon and standard apple trees planted, new painted terraced raised bed, willow throne (almost done). And the usual maintenance of existing beds, plants and structures.

The meadow seeds will be ordered by Guy this week. We will try out a new perennial Pictorial meadow seed mix (Tuscan Hills) and re-sow three beds with another Pictorial Meadows annual mix. One of the beds we will convert into plants - and we have started digging that one over already.

Fingers crossed we get some reasonable gardening weather soon...

Half term in the garden

One of our favourite young gardeners - with watering can

We like half term gardening... lots of families dropping by and challenging us to be less focussed on gardening and think a bit more about having fun. Today, the sun was out and it was dry so we caught up with some jobs too.

Small children really like our stepping stones in the beds, which have become a bit covered up with mud - so our new volunteer Jane has started to give them a brush and levelling. Immediately tried out by Reggie.

We are making progress with our turf and oak throne. Just needs some more hoops and willow.

We put a first coat of paint on the new terraced raised bed and the new surround for the worm digging bed, which also has some mint growing in it. We hope this will be a good spot for some crop growing by our younger visitors.

Our bedding plants are starting to flower and our garlic and artichokes are looking good.

Lots of rescued bulbs, from council roundabouts, are coming up all over the garden. Very exciting!

Our raised beds have sunk in height so we are re-using some of the straw bales and will top them up with compost and soil conditioner soon. Looking forward to planting them up again.

Some attractive fungus growing on one of our log circle logs. Not sure it will survive half term stompings though...

Happy new year!

Spotted one Sunday afternoon in January

I haven't put anything on the web for some time. Not that we haven't been busy, more that the weather hasn't been very photo-friendly.

We have six cordon apple trees now by the path, and another one in the main bowls area. With some bulbs between.

We planted some basketry willow - three or so colours in our living willow circle... looking forward to it sprouting in the Spring.

We moved some wood, making a turf seat, and disturbed this hibernating peacock butterfly. It slowly flapped its wings for several minutes, making a strange noise, so we put it back under the woodpile to have a longer 'sleep'.

Adele the hedgehog, who was rescued from the garden a few months ago at 300g. Now at 1600g, she is the largest hedgehog in the hedgehog hospital. She will be re-homed somewhere safe in the Spring. We are so happy!

Willow circle and other things

It has been a busy time in the garden since the Funpalace:

We have been focusing on making a new living willow circle structure - now almost complete, apart from the living willow. So far, we have made three hazel-pole arches with hazel poles between.

Update 19 December: we harvested willow from the allotment and planted it on 18 December. Looking forward to seeing it sprout in the Spring!

Making the willow circle. The decorative hoops are from park dogwood and allotment willow. The straw bales inside it are very popular with children. One of them said yesterday that 'the tent was too hot', so maybe we need to add air conditioning.

We have been doing a lot of bulb planting recently, with bulbs rescued from council roundabouts - thanks to Grant and Tony for bringing them to us! Look out for hyacinths, daffodils, narcissus and tulips.

We have also planned for some fruit trees, which we will order soon and plant from December.

We have planted up two new beds by the water tower - one for clematis and a shadier one.

And the leaves are falling fast, which meant lots of moving of two-year old leaf mould to make way for the new season's harvest.

One of our unplanned activities - rescuing thin hedgehogs. She is being cared for by Shepreth hedgehog hospital volunteers now. 28 October update: she is recovering in the hospital from just about every kind of parasitic infection going (about the hospital, including how to support them).

It is also a time of year for 'taking down'... including climbing beans, courgettes and rhubarb. But this makes space for mulching and moving and re-thinking.

We found a burrow, which we think might be from a visiting rabbit. We really don't want rabbits in the garden or we won't have many flowers. We hope they can read. I confused a child with my spelling - he couldn't work out what a 'wabbit' was. His father said they had long ears, so now he thinks we have hares in the garden.

Portrait of the garden

On Sunday, we hosted some urban sketchers and Alan Jarvis drew this lovely picture of the garden. Thanks Alan for letting us borrow it here.

FUN in the garden

Just getting going... it was even busier later.

Wow, what a Sunday. We think we had about 500 people of all ages visiting us, having FUN.

We are still working our way through the various photos but here are a few to start us off.

Massive thanks to everyone who planned, donated, lent, led, helped, performed and rescued us. We couldn't have done this for our community without our amazing community. You rock. And we even painted rocks.

Genetics graffiti

The chill out area - with flags, which is on its way to becoming a living willow hidey place. magic carpet making in the background. 

Yoga in the double spiral 

Siva and Keith at her Indian cookery demo - under the trees