Families Go Wild in the Garden!

We spent today’s session in the garden. Families Go Wild has a new space for growing this season, which was previously growing flowers and mustard. Since these plants have been removed from the space, we had to add some organic matter to the soil to maintain nutrition for the plants we want to grow there.

We collected a wheelbarrow full of manure from the manure bays, and dug it into our new vegetable bed. This was quite hard work, as we were in the sun, so we harvested some nearby mint and made some refreshing minty water to hydrate ourselves!

Once we had dug in the manure, we raked the soil to make it level and ready for planting.

To start with, we sowed peas. We planted two varieties - ‘Kelvedon Wonder’ and ‘Oregon Sugar Pod’. We made a flat drill in the soil, and planted one pea on each side. Later on, we can make a structure for the peas to climb!

We covered the peas with soil, and made sure to label them with their variety name and the date.

Next, we planted onion sets. These are immature onion bulbs, which when planted will grow into mature onions. We planted two rows of these onions, which were of the variety ‘Centurion’. We used our hands as spacers to ensure they have enough room between them to grow.

We labelled the onions we had planted, putting the label at the end of the row, and covered them over with soil. Then, it was time to water everything in.

As well as watering the onions and peas, we watered the potatoes, as they looked a little dry. We also watered some of our seedlings that are in pots, that we will plant out soon. The sunflowers and calendula that we sowed two weeks ago have already started growing well!

While we were getting tools from the tool shed, we found some litter pickers, and some of our volunteers were inspired to go litter picking around the farm!

They found a fair amount of litter, some of which we could re-use, like the baling twine. Other bits of rubbish went in the bin. It was great that the young volunteers had the idea to litter pick, as it always helps to keep the farm clean and safe for our animals and visitors.