First day of rain today. Though I guess that’s really an overstatement. It actually felt as though the skies were easing me into the idea of rainy days at Allens Gardens – drops of rain, followed by sunshine, warmth, then a cold breeze. Sweater on then off, then on again, sunglasses following suit. It was only at lunch time, when we were legitimately allowed to go indoors that the rain really came down. By the time lunch was done, the sun had come out again. April’s temperamental weather in May? But stop me, I’m jumping ahead a few hours…
Again I arrived on time, to find Ru and Ann-Marie already hard at work. Ann-Marie was digging compost into the bed that I had covered over with Precious a couple of weeks ago and then got onto planting red orache (don’t ask! I’ll explain what that is soon) into half of it – a very long bed, the other half still covered ( = really allowing all the plant matter that we had dug into it, to rot and bulk up the soil’s nutrients). Ru and I walked around the site, looking at the various jobs for the day. Not too much rain since last week so top priority was to give most of the beds a good soaking. That’s a job that ran alongside other chores throughout the day, changing the watering system from bed to bed, half an hour on each.
Next priority is planting. My job is to do half a bed of chard. Planting them out in rows a plank’s width apart ( = about the span of my hand, a very helpful measurement for you! Will measure the plank next time!) so each plant has enough room to grow. First of all you dig a small hole, fill it with water ( = we use water mixed with liquid fertilizer, which we have made by ‘drowning’ weeds pulled up from the plot in a big tank and letting them stew for weeks on end) and then plant the seedlings, which Ru brought over from the Springfield greenhouses. I then covered each one with a cut off plastic bottle – a homemade cloche – with a piece of copper wire wrapped around it to deter the nasty slugs. I planted up 6 viola on the very end of the bed – a sweet little pansy-like edible flower, that attracts ‘good’ bugs and livens up any green salad.
Yaensuk arrived then with Anthony, her husband, in tow. She’s a general support worker at Growing Communities and helps with packing the vegetables for the box scheme. Her husband was volunteering for the day. They got going with the harvesting. 20kgs to be collected.
Yaensuk harvests salad greens while Ru explains to volunteer Ann-Marie how far apart seedlings should be planted.
Other jobs: helped Ru with putting netting up for the soft fruit; weeded out the ground elder on the pathways between the raised beds; watered the patch where the rhubarb had been and covered it with compost ( = acts as a mulch to keep the moisture in, though nothing has been planted there yet). Ru left at 3 to get to Springfield for harvesting taking Yaensuk and Anthony with him.
We had a few more things to finish up in our final hour at Allens – Precious on mint-picking duty, Bruce harvesting spinach leaves as well as sweet flowers for the salad bags…
… and me to complete the watering and pack up all the tools. Then I locked up the classroom and the shed and Bruce and I cycle over to Springfield. Lots of work to do over there, but, though I promised last time to tell you what goes down at Springfield, I think I’ve come to the end of this week’s word quota – you’ll definitely have to come back to find out next week!
Weekly stats…
Grower: 1 | Apprentices: 2 | Volunteers: 4 | Support worker: 1 | Husband: 1 | Dogs: 2
Harvested from the site…
Salad greens & edible flowers: 20kg | Rhubarb: 2.8kg | Asparagus: 630g | Spring garlic: 100 bunches | Mint: 60g
