Wednesday 24 April 2013

Round up of news!


Golly! Where did the last two months go?
It had begun to feel spring was never going to turn up when bang!, it was here and the season kangerooed into life.

We have been planting the first phase of the new orchard, putting in some hard standing for machinery that also doubles as somewhere for vehicles to park, putting up and covering the second polytunnel, designing with members an area of the farm dedicated to social/educational activities and getting ready to expand the scheme in July.

(Amongst all this have been the plans for me to take some maternity leave as of June before the fruition of a very special project, ie ~ our baby)

So, lets start with the orchard.

In November we contacted members asking if they would be interested in sponsoring a tree for the new orchard. The new orchard project is called 'Tree's for Tomorrow' and there is more detailed info on this blog from last year. The trees are a mix of  Plum, Apple and Pear with a variety of varieties!

It has been a new venture for both Danny and I as neither of us knew a huge amount about planting an orchard before we started this one.
Many thanks to all the members who have got involved and we all look forward to the first crop.

 First tree goes in
 Me, selflessly taking on the real hard work :)
 Checking the list
 Happy tree planter
 Marvelous digging
 Hand eye co-ordination exercises
 Child labor
 More child labor
 Hand eye co-ordination exercises and child labor
 More great digging, look how fun hard work in the cold can be!!


Then we move onto the second polytunnel frame. This tunnel has been a bit of pain to put up as the ground has been frozen and then the land was too wet to get help on to cover it but it all turned out in the end. And see, on the day when the frame went up the sun was shining, surely a beneficent sign.
 Members working hard, Danny must have been behind the camera an equally exhaustive task.

And then Whoop, whoop we get to cover the blasted thing! This was one of those jobs where you need many hands and thankfully or rather thank the members, we had a really good turn out. The morning started with sunshine but the wind was also keen to get involved, which as you can possibly imagine, wind is not always helpful when trying to cover a 22 x 90 ft structure with a giant plastic sheet.

 Big plastic sheet awaiting to be fitted
 Unrolling plastic cover
Action shot!

I forgot to get a group photo at the start of the day but here is some of our super work party :)




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