What a day! No hiding in greenhouses today as the glorious sunshine bathed the acre in its warm rays, highlighting the beautiful colours that are beginning to emerge all around us. And what cakes! Both Marianne and Nicola had brought along sumptuous offerings.
Lilly, Nicola and Paula set up a pricking out station by the greenhouses and by lunchtime we had a good supply of Zinnia, Cornflower and tomato's beginning the next step of their journey from the greenhouse nursery to the big school of the flower beds outside.
Elsewhere John and Brendan were making a new strawberry bed, behind the large fruit bed, which they were initially going to put a plasic cloche over. However it was discovered that our fruit cage would cover all the fruit so they set about the task of erecting it and now that area of the acre has a real feeling of purpose about it. The fruit bushes are doing really well and little buds are popping out all over them. Fruit pies and jam are going to be a wonderful treat later this year!
Gerrard was, as always, all over the vegetable plots and has now created a unique carrot bed out of the articulated lorry tyres. Isobel was to be seen busily weeding the vegetable strips and Gerrard has put in more vegetables and dug over and prepared more space so we can soon put in some corn. If only Aniello didn't have so many tomato plants....
Nick worked tirelessly to tidy up our shed and create some order of our tools and the inside of the building is suddenly very large! We all need to learn to become " shed disciplined ", putting back tools where we found them would be a good start. Now we have a good idea of the tools we need we can go to Forest Lodge with our shopping list as they have kindly sponsored us in this department. Thank you Nick for doing a job that many of us knew needed doing but hadn't showed the enthusiasm to do it - myself very much included.
But the day still hadn't finished as a troupe of Girl Guides and the Rainbows came along in two separate groups to have a nature lesson given by Pete and to help out with the pond. A good number of hessian sacks were filled with soil and pinned to the edge of the pond at the far end. These will soon be planted with species that will encourage all the kinds of nature we want to attract to the pond. It's really taking shape under Pete's guidance and I know from speaking to the guides that they thoroughly enjoyed their first experience of the acre and are looking forward to their next visit. A big thank you Pete for giving up so much of his free time to educate the next generation in such an engaging way that saw them asking many questions which he was able to answer.