Hooray it's spring! Isnt it?
We certainly hope so. We're very happy to be getting back outside, but here's a glimpse of some of what we did over winter. We're very fortunate to have Peter, an ex chef, in our team of volunteers who's now stepped up to lead cooking sessions. He's shown some of the group how to make a number of delicious and nutritious meals, from lasagne to frittata and chilli bean stew to leek and potato soup. Everyone pitched in to prepare the food and got to take seconds home. Deliciousness!
Meanwhile, weather-wise we've gone from this...
to this...
...and back again. Perhaps our friends the collared doves are wondering what's going on too.
But now we're back to enjoying these primroses we recently planted. They were a gift from new friends at the gardens in Port Sunlight. Three of the volunteers travelled over there to get them - and just about fit in the car with them, there were so many. They've really cheered up the whole site.
And of course we've started growing again. Two of our volunteers are starting off tomoatoes and peppers in their homes as they need more warmth than we have in the polytunnel. This year we're tying three different types of tomatoes, one of them called yellow submarine - should be interesting.
And we're not the only ones who've been busy...
We're happy to report a huge lot of frog spawn has ben laid! Last year we had to bring it in from other ponds to our new pond, but we hoped some of those frogs would return to spawn and they have! We'll do our best to chart their progress through the coming couple of months. And thanks to one of our volunteers who doesn't mind bags of manure in her car and the partner of another volunteer, Ian, who has a nifty way with a fork as well as a nifty van, we now have bags and bags...and bags of manure. There's enough well rotted for now and enough to replenish the beds in the autumn. Hooray!
Ian also brought us loads of willow from their garden so we can start a willow patch and make baskets, structures and all sorts of things. and it came just in time for planting. Willow has to be planted when it's dormant, in between leaf fall and budding. Thank you Ian! We're very grateful.
As you can see, we have great teamwork going on at our Dutch Barn and we'll be back next month with another update on progress.