Today the sun shone; Willow is on holiday so great to have her on the plot and we also welcomed back Alex, Claire and Laura - with new member Osi and of course Justin, all from ECL (The ARC). They arrived at 10am on the minibus just in time to see Amanda show them how well she can navigate the newly laid path in her electric wheelchair. We all really appreciate the difference it has made - Steve Lee has worked tirelessly on this project from design to completion of the first phase. We are grateful too to the volunteers from the Manchester Airport Group, who made such a difference during their visit- both to the path and the summerhouse floor, and of course Laura from Dig-It who has supported everything we do or need for our members there.
We started with a tour of the plot - with our lovely leader Bolette pointing out all of the things which had changed since the last visit, talking through plans for this year and making sure everyone settled in before the hard work began.
Jacquie had brought 50 rather sorry looking strawberry plants dug up from her allotment that needed some TLC and potting up while they wait for a raised bed in their new home at Dig-It. Amanda, Willow and Julie worked with her filling pots, making planting holes, trimming off the old bits of plant and bedding them in. It was fabulous to see our members working independently to do this, they’ve learned so much and the plants look great now!
Bolette, Marion and Justin worked with the others to prepare, feed and plant raspberries in a new fruit area for which Steve is making a new cage to keep the birds off our fruit. They did a fantastic job - using lots of tools and finishing the area beautifully.
Watering came next and you’ll see from the photos that everyone got involved- the cornflowers we’ve grown from seed and nurtured were ready to move outside and the strawberries moved to the greenhouse in their place.
We harvested a huge box of our lovely land-cress which Amanda took to Café Cornell as our plot-to-plate vegetable today.
Last, but not least, was some time to relax, picnic, chat and have a drink together before the minibus came back. It really was a lovely day and so nice to have our group together again. We hope you like the photos!
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