Now you see it – the pond that is

What a difference 2 hours and a load of elbow grease makes

Okay, let’s be honest, up to a week or so ago, as Summers go, the weather we’ve had so far this year has been…. well….. less than ideal. In fact if I’m totally honest, with the exception of most of the second week of Wimbledon, the lack of sunshine and warmth has been immensely depressing, frustrating and off-putting. Poor old Mud has been thoroughly cheesed off because since leaving his job three weeks ago, he hasn’t been able to get on with any of the jobs on Ciggy, Annie or the workshop that he had planned to do and has spent much of the last few weeks muttering about how he shouldn’t be at all surprised because this has been typical of his luck in recent years, in respect of the weather on his days off!

Gardening Club: Fruit trees and a mobile garden

A small tree with a good number of apples on it

As I wondered down to the polytunnel yesterday, I actually remembered to stop and take a picture of the schools fruit trees … well two of them, the apple and pear trees have fruit on them but the plum should come into its’ own later this year. I guess you could say that I inherited the trees, along with the rest of the garden when I agreed to take over Gardening Club but, to be honest, I haven’t a clue what I’m supposed to do with them and have kind of left them to their own devices.

Last year, the dreadful weather impacted badly on them all, with only about 7 fruit setting between the three and the wasps dealt with them, so it’s quite nice to see the apple and pear with a combined potential harvest of around 20-25 fruit.

Gardening Club: Container Garden Project

Container Garden Project, using recycled wooden vegetable crates.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to one of the villagers about the gardening club and how it would be nice to get some more growing space, maybe through the use of planters, strategically placed around the school. Not only would this serve to increase the growing capacity of the school, albeit by a relatively small amount but it would also demonstrate that you don’t actually need acres of space to be able to grow at least a small amount of food. Unfortunately lack of available funds meant that this was a distant dream, unless I could find and apply for grants and awards which would be interested in this type of project.

“What about wooden vegetable crates?” the villager asked, “Would you be able to use those as containers because I can get you some, free of charge if you want.”