Saturday 7 January 2017

Happy New Year Working Bee January 8th 2017

Happy New Year everyone - 2017, here we come!
Conditions for our first working bee of the year were excellent.

The seedlings ready to be planted out - lettuces; Canasta (speckled), green salad bowl and butterhead. Delicious!

The corn seedlings - this year are going to be grown with beans only and not as the 'three sisters' - as the pumpkins can overwhelm the others.

 A great turn out - weeding the pumpkins and mulching around them with the weeds.

Marita and John planting out the corn - added compost to boost the crop.

Marita at work.

Peter loads up another barrow of compost for the corn rows.

Trevor sorts out the wooden sticks and branches from the compost. They are re-used as the bottom layer in the new compost pile to assist with the aeration by increasing the airflow. This creates an aerobic environment and stops the compost from becoming smelly.

And here it is forming the bottom layer for the new compost pile.

The ubiquitous plastic is also sorted out.

VJ helps set up additional security to try to reduce the plundering of plots and communal areas.

 Sarah and Ann weed the Zinnia bed. Zinnia's are an American plant of the daisy family, widely cultivated for their bright showy flowers that both humans and bees enjoy! 


Timothe collects Oxalis - great work!

And with Carla who is weeding the Zuchini path.

Sinead in the background, Anabelle and Caleb with Benedicte at work.

The gardens looking wonderful with so much energy going in.

Caitlin, Louise, Tegan and Benjamin.

Empty seed trays after the planting.

Sarah and Sinead watering - working with Judy. Only 7mm of rain have so far fallen in January. In December there was 28mm which is less than 1/3rd of the usual average. The past 6 weeks have been particularly hot and windy and the soil is dry.

Elli and Ann and Sinead.

Sarah weeding.

Patricia too.

Marita and Kathryn 'do the dishes', cleaning the pots after the seedlings have been planted out.

Our somewhat disappointing garlic harvest.


Gabriel heads into the gardens after working out by the front shed.

Rose weeds around the greenhouse.

Our beehives are getting taller!

Judy, Sinead, Sarah and Ann planting out lettuces.

Bev almost manages to avoid the Paparazzi....

The Figs beginning to ripen.

Our nettle bed - great for tea or blanched as a salad vegetable.

Helen, our Hugelkulter, growing well.


 Sadly a number of thefts have occurred throughout the gardens with some 'commercial scale' takings from the herb garden. This section of Rosemary has been taken,
 Along with a big chunk out of the Bay tree...
 With the perpetrators carelessly crushing the wild strawberries....

 And regularly taking entire rows of the garlic chives! What a selfish and destructive thing to do in our beautiful gardens.

Liz has been quite upset by the regular raids. Hopefully, our new surveillance may put a stop to this undesireable behaviour

On a lighter note, Marita has perfected her handstands - hoorah!

A perfect virtical line.
 Marita was also crowned Queen when she discovered the 'coin' in her slice of the Galette des rois. All hail Queen Marita!


We will have another working bee in a couple of weeks time as there are plums to be had and maintenance to be done. Generally, the regular working bees are on the second Sunday of each month. An email will be sent out as a reminder.

Happy gardening!