Work session 21 July 2014

We were 6 yesterday for the work session.  It was a glorious warm sunny evening to be outside. We had a fair bit of weeding to do due to the OTAGS strimmer being out of action. Damien and Nicklaus (visiting WOOFer from Austria) got stuck on at the back of the orchard pulling bind weed out and tackling the weed growth.

Abi noticed that the raspberry plants which were only planted in March had some fruit on them, so we picked those and shared them at the end of the session.  Debbie also picked some blueberries, these plants are still in pots until we build a raised bed for them where we can use ericaceous compost.  These were also very tasty!

Lots of work done and a group photo taken at the end of the session.  Thanks again to all: Abi, Damien, Debbie, Gemma, Lorna and Nicklaus.

Left to right: Abi, Gemma, Debbie, Damien, Lorna, Nicklaus

Lovely raspberries - some of them!

 Postscript

Last week's session included making a pond - which was great. Trouble was the plant transplanted from a nearby allotment turned out to be poisonous and mistakenly Debbie injested some and was quite poorly as a result... Lesson is, wear gloves when handling plants like Bog Arum. It is high in oxalic acid and even small amounts entering your bloodstream (don't know how it got in my system) will make you very sick.  4 hours in A&E to get checked out isn't a nice way to spend a Friday afternoon!  Here is a picture of the pond and the plant!

Pond and Bog Arum

Yes its small - the Orchard is all about what can be done in small spaces, so its a small pond. Lets see how long it takes for frogs to find it. We also sowed some phacelia and red clover in the area that had been dug.