Summer is here in full effect! Thanks to our amazing volunteers on our monthly Saturday Site Development days and the Community Payback teams we have mown the meadow and are keeping the encroaching brambles at bay. We’ve also managed to largely keep in check the poisonous ragwort that keeps popping up all over the farm.
Our mains water, electricity and communications are nearly connected, a big “thank you!” for all your crowdfunder donations last year and to everyone who has helped with the practical work. The trenching and utilities shed are nearly finished. Having a water supply on site will mean we can irrigate properly, build flushing toilets and have a kitchen area for cooking up tasty food from our produce where we can clean our veg and even wash up! Electricity will mean we can set up our onsite office, have lights on site and use power tools to build new infrastructure. One big thing to celebrate is that we recently got our planning permission to build a toilet block with handwash, install a container office and build an outdoor kitchen/shelter. This will mean we will be able to work with more groups from schools and other organisations on site all year round.
The harvests are starting- please come along to our July 14th Site development day and take away some potatoes, garlic, cucumbers and tasty flowers and leaves. Some of the pumpkins are already enormous!
During our Volunteer Skills sessions and Community Payback days we’ve built two new picnic benches- upcycled from old futon bases donated by a neighbour and set up two new rainwater harvesters from the children’s playhouse and welcome shed rooves.
The bees have been really busy! They have been prolific in fact, and we’ve harvested two lots of honey. Jars will be available at the farm on Saturday and at the Autumn Festival. It tastes amazing!