Now up and running again after the recent floods, and eager to get on with so many spring jobs and new projects, here’s March’s list of volunteer tasks.
If you’d like to get involved, please visit the Volunteering page.
The first week of March saw loads of activity in the garden. Below, our volunteers are weeding and clearing the beds in our Cut Flower Garden, ready for spring planting. We were also able to finish the dead hedges in the new Wildlife Garden.
What a sight for sore eyes after the winter! Our plant sales table was groaning under the weight of glorious iris reticulata, strawberry plants and fir saplings! The iris sold out very quickly, no wonder with that eye-catching colour.
To keep the customers happy, volunteer Lea did a brilliant job of potting up ever more strawberry plants to meet demand!
Later in the month we had fun creating two new River Severn themed beds. These should create a river effect with forget-me-nots and grape hyacinths – both beloved by pollinating insects.
Due to the success of our plant and produce sales, we need a bigger sales kiosk. With great ingenuity, our construction team is repurposing an old shed to create this. Here they are relocating it to the front of the garden for maximum impact.
High winds towards the end of the month brought a minor disaster to the garden, when a large tree just outside the gates came down, taking part of the perimeter fence with it, as well as destroying a number of our large raised beds. Thankfully it happened during the night when no-one was around!
The team leapt into action as soon as we knew about it, and within a couple of days the council’s tree team had removed the tree and repaired the fence. However, the raised beds are a different matter. Four of them are damaged beyond repair, and we have decided to replace them with new beds made from recycled plastic, which should be more robust, not to mention flood-resistant.
As this is an unexpected expense, we need to raise some money to help pay for these. We have launched a Crowdfunder appeal in a bid to do so – further details can be found below.
Finishing the month on a more positive note, our volunteers were planting seed potatoes. Varieties included ‘Sharpes Express’ and salad potato ‘Charlotte’.