We have had a colourful spring and summer, having grown plenty of flowers, some from seed ourselves. We (and the young people) started sowing the seeds in the polytunnel and potted them on into the cold frame, before being planted out in the garden. The calendula, verbena, hollyhocks, statice and cosmos have all done incredibly well! Last year we harvested some of the calendula and verbena seeds and grew them this year. The same with the sunflowers, last year we (and the young people) harvested some of the seeds and this year we planted about 100, they were able to take some home to grow and we had a nice display of sunflowers on site. This is the perfect garden for wildlife, we have a pond made from an old sink too which helps to attract wildlife. In the garden alone we see all kinds of bees, hoverflies, ladybirds, shield bugs, frogs, toads, newts, birds, caterpillars, voles, moles, shrews and more! We are keeping an eye out for any baby grass snakes hatching too, around the compost bins and by the pond, as we have seen grass snakes’ multiple times now and even found a shedded skin!
We even had a little (we think pygmy) shrew nest in one of our boxes of fabrics in the art shed (we had to get rid of the fabrics when she moved out). We didn’t know she was nesting, so unearthed the nest by accident, but we saw her come back to the nest an hour or so after, and was there the next day, but it was interesting to see the tiny babies and the shrew in and out collecting food.
We had two Saturday groups back, the first planted all of our (then) small pumpkin plants, we now have about 30 pumpkins, all ripening and turning orange. We have had a good crop of tomatoes, sweetcorn, beans, peas, parsnips, potatoes, and leeks too.
Pictures from start to finish: Baby shrews, adult shrew, ladybird pupae and larvae, hoverfly, grass snake, sunflower, orange flowers, frog, caterpillars, comma butterfly, small white butterfly and a small copper butterfly.