Considering our current situation it has been a busy week. Many thanks to those of you that came along to the garden to get some tomato plants and apologies for those that made the trip in vain, as the plants got snapped up as if they were hot cakes. We were donated an astonishing £72.20 which will go towards our immediate wish list of extra fine mesh to keep insects at bay, more compost or soil improver, and of course seeds. The next spare plants will be cucumbers, courgettes and autumn/winter squashes, but not for at least two weeks.
We have been busy weeding, and planting more lettuces, a tray of Florence fennel and oca (the South American tuber, or New Zealand yam). We also had a packet of butterfly, bee and bird attracting flower seeds to throw about, so we did just that!
Our pond is currently looking a little sad, the plan was to get plenty of oxygenating pond weed and pond plants from a garden centre to help encourage the wildlife into moving to their des res. Well, we have various pigeons and magpies dropping in for a bath, and a big fat water beetle has been seen in the murky depths, but that is about it. If you have a thriving pond and can spare us some water weed or non-invasive pond plants, please get in touch as we would love to be able to get the pond to a healthy state.
Bee news
Ray and Chris have been checking on the bees and it has been really interesting to get updates and information about hive life. Below is a pollen colour chart for the month of April, and a photo of one of the bees with some pollen in its ‘pollen basket’ on one of its legs. There is also a picture showing the components of a bee hive. We are learning something new about bees all the time!
What’s next?
- Grrrrrr…… The asparagus ordered in the winter has still not turned up and is now very late!
- More picking,
- More watering
- More weeding!
- More potting on of seedlings.
Pollen colour chart 
Church garden notice 
Construction of a bee hive Wildlife attracting seeds Our bees?
