Love your garden!

This weekend was our Volunteer Day at Cordwainers Garden and what perfect weather we had for our day of hard (but enjoyable) graft. With a newly hand crafted garden sign, an abundance of bunting and a table full of delicious refreshments the Cordwainers crew along for a great army of keen volunteers set to work. There was turfing and digging, and hammering and nailing, and shoveling and wheel-barrowing leading to the creation of not 1 but 2 new large growing beds. One will be used for the college students to experiment with growing natural dye plants ("It's all about sustainable fashion these days don't you know?") and the other will be used as a training bed for the urban growing classes and workshops we will be holding over the coming months. In addition to this a great deal of maintenance work was done on the rest of the garden getting the beds ready for Spring planting. 3 cold frames were also constructed making use of recycled corrugated plastic ("re-using is where its at, recycling was so last year"). Fueled by multiple rounds of tea and cake and a magnificent lunch of gourmet soup and sandwiches the 40-strong team of helpers worked away happily throughout the day to transform the garden and blow away its winter blues!

Before, a lonely patch of grass

Work begins on bed number 1 for dye plants

Tea amd Cake time... food for the workers

Sunbathing ladybird

Energetic climbing snail

Working away

Bed 1 complete!

More turfing and digging

Bed number 2 nearly done

Bed 2 done...home time!