What a glorious spring day !

No rest on a Sunday, despite S & J not rising from their slumbers due to the clocks going forward, work eventually got under way. More planting and more pricking out. It was a tad warm in that polytunnel! Today Jacqui pricked out Borage, Calendula and Plantago and had some little helpers in the form of some very nice kids! A big shout out to Zac for filling up my watering can and helping with some pricking out. Good fun had by all, a very sociable day with lots of visitors. Mark & Steve set up a watering tank in the polytunnel, which sure makes watering easier! Day ended with a fantastic sunset..Bliss!!

A lovely suprise

Arrived at the farm today and it was a little overcast. Steve & Jacqui had managed to propagate 38 raspberry canes from their home stock, for our raspberry leaf tincture. But then a lovely suprise came in the form of lots of white willow and wild cherry plants that had been donated to Dawn and Mark. They were delighted to know that these were of medicinal value and so Steve and Mark set too planting all these wonderful free plants. They planted a 100ft bed! Meanwhile in the polytunnel...pricking out seedlings commenced.

Nettles and Comfrey and waterlogging.

Today was planting up a very large bed with nettles that we had dug up from elsewhere on the farm and comfrey. We are trying to fill a large 100ft bed and have thus far managed about a third of it. Still its good to see the plants in at last, since we made a vow not to let that bed go over to weeds like we did last year (it was all a bit too much ) and we forgot to mulch it, but hey...you live and learn!

We raised the level of some of our beds due to waterlogging and when I say waterlogging I mean sump like and squishy like a big old sponge !! We were amazed that the plants survived, but they are a hardy lot. Still , it gave us a chance to divide up our balsamita plants and planted up most of another bed from the divisions. Then it was back to the homestead for hearty grog !

Extreme Rotavating !!!

We've invented a new olympic sport.... Extreme Rotavating !!

Basically this requires, 1 man and 1 rotavator and some ploughed up land from last autumn.

Put said man and rotavator on land , fire up the beast of a rotavator and off they go.... lumps and bumps and everything flying everywhere. We were amazed at how many passes it took to level ploughed up lumpy land into something you could actually stick plants in. Kudos to Mark & Steve , who performed this amazing feat (Jacqui & Dawn being a bit too much like girlies and unable to master this brute of a task)!

Raising beds and mulching

Dawn, Steve & Mark did some raising of bed levels due to extreme waterlogging and quite a bit of mulching. Thats all folks, no really ... not much to report !!!