Strawberry ripe!

I had a busy 10minutes picking a lovely crop of strawberries..let me know if you'd like some..but best be quick, they are delicious!

Weeded and generally tidied things up a bit, also took a load of photos to show how the garden's growing.

Everything seems to be doing well apart from the squash which seems a bit slow this year, perhaps the warmer weather will help. We also have a bed that despite numerous sowings of carrot/parsnip and lettuce fails to do very much at all. It's not a raised bed so not one that was filled with the lovely top soil from the nettle bed, so perhaps it's too "clayey"( is that a word?).

Broccoli & Onion bed

Broad beans, cabbage & lettuce "sand bag", kale, spinach & beetroot and mystery plant that eventually became a fox glove!

Picnic in the garden..and a bit of music too!

Despite the windy and slightly damp conditions we had a lovely few hours at the garden yesterday with new friends, Alexa, Gavin and Nathan.

We did lots of thinning, transplanting and sowing and prematurely harvested one bed of garlic.. don't ask why!

We ate lettuce straight from the wheelbarrow! (lettuce is in a tub) and Rob played guitar while we all worked..all sounds great doesn't it? and so it was!

I've updated the planting plan so check out what's in and what's out in the garden by clicking on the link to the right of this page.

We'll be there next Sunday 2pm so why not join us?

Master gardeners at Ryton

This is a bit old news now but the newly formed group of Lincolnshire
Master Gardeners jumped in their lift sharing oil powered buggies and visited Garden Organic HQ at Ryton near Coventry a week last Sunday.

It was the annual conference and so was packed with over 200 Master gardeners and Master composters. It was a well organised and very informative event, the highlight for me (apart from the chance to wander around lovely gardens dedicated to edible plants!) were the three afternoon speakers. Emma Marsh from WRAP spoke about the horrendous amount of food wasted in the UK every year, apparently reducing this food waste to zero would have the same effect on reducing CO2 emissions as removing one in four cars from our roads. Mary Clear from Todmorden spoke passionately about the incredible edible movement, it was an inspiring call to take action and show what is rather than just talk about what might be. If you ever get the chance to listen to Mary, reschedule anything else that might be happening in your life and make sure you do. Colin Tudge spoke about the future of global food production , here was another no nonsense speaker that laid bare the crazy,unsustainable and iniquitous current global food supply system. He has founded a Campaign for Real Farming (enlightened agriculture) and recently written a book entitled "Good food for everyone, forever". I bought a copy for the Transition Town Louth library , if you want to have a read let me know. The gist of it is this : it is perfectly feasible to have a low impact agricultural system that can well nourish the estimated future global population of 9 billion as long as the diet is "Plenty of plants, not much meat and maximum variety".

So all in all a great day..just one thing can anyone tell me what this plant is or might be?

"Leeks and All That" March 11th

Welcome Nathan to the garden! We planted herbs, battled through the building site to water and harvested leeks and a little rhubarb.

The squash, courgettes and runner beans we planted on Easter Sunday are growing well, so we risked leaving the lid off the cold frame. Thank you Sara for Sunflower seedlings as well they are safe in there.

Anytime anyone has time to water then the cans are back in the shed and there is water in the blue butt!

An early post! On Sunday 22nd May we are going to have a picnic and open day. Bring some food and come along with musical instruments! Nathan is bringing his guitar. We shall post or email the time soon.

The herbs in The Gatherums are looking good and James has added a smart sign on slate.

On Monday afternoon we invited local residents to plant a new herb bed in the Gatherums. Rosemary,thyme,oregano,chamomile and echinacea plants were lovingly installed in their new home.
Once established, the herb bed will offer a delightful and useful aromatic display.
Nearby residents are invited to care for and enjoy the garden at their
leisure, and make use of a few sprigs in their cooking when required.
All the plants and technical support have been kindly provided by ELDC.
This is just the beginning of the project to grow vegetables within the Gatherums. We hope to have a number of raised beds installed within the next month.
We're very grateful to the Trustees of the Gatherums for their support in making this possible.

Eggscitement in the garden!

We hid over 100 little easter eggs throughout the garden on Sunday. We placed them in every conceivable nook and cranny, we thought that some would never be found.. but we were wrong! Our little "choc" seekers tracked them all down with ruthless efficiency!


We also managed to sow seeds; carrot (bed 15),kale (bed 10),spinach (bed 19).
We transplanted the healthy looking broccoli from cold frame to bed 18.


The resident "Master gardener" (that's me btw) gave a less than proficient demonstration of how to make newspaper seed pots but despite this everyone soon got the hang of it and we potted up courgette, squash and runner beans for the cold frame. We also made a few more to be carefully home reared.



We all had a great time in the sun...picnic, people and plants! What could be better? Thanks to everyone who took part.Particularly our local Master gardener co-ordinator Rick who gave an enthusiastic demonstration of sowing the kale!

Master gardeners unleashed!

Nick and I along with 15 others completed the first Lincolnshire Master gardener course in Boston (can you spot the stump!) last weekend. Weather was great and so was the training! Philip Turvil and Rick Aron from Garden Organic did a terrific job and enthused us all to get out and spread the word.."It's easy to grow and eat your own veg!"

I would recommend anyone that has a little bit of growing experience but a lot of desire to help novice gardeners get growing, to get involved with the program. The local co-ordinator for volunteers is Rick Aron : raron@gardenorganic.org.uk

In the photos of the weekend, you'll see Philip demonstrating how to "hook" in the audience with a pile of compost! and how to assess the soil conditions before you start giving advice.

Hope to see you on Easter Sunday for egg hunt..I shall be modeling the groovy Master gardener T shirt! (I just hope I'm not contravening the Trade descriptions act!)