We were called in to look at one of the chickens as it wasn't walking properly. We found poor Honey hobberling around with her foot bent in the wrong direction! On further inspection, her middle toe was swollen and bent. She was shattered from just trying to stand up. We gave her some food and water and she happily ate and drank giving us a good sign that it wasn't time to put her down. Instead we strapped up her toe and made her a small pen of her own so that she did not need to fight with the other chickens for food and water.
Hopefully a week or so's rest will help it heal and she'll be back with the others.

Hot hot hot!!!! SO hot!

The kids started the day by making bug hotels to sell later on this month. They used old pallet wood and collected twigs and bamboo to make hidey holes for insects.

We then moved on to picking beetroot, spring onions, runner beans, tomatoes and carrots. The carrots were the best we have ever had! Long straight carrots!!!!! (Look at the photos)

Then the paint brushes came out, and both the coffee shed and the new pallet doors for the kitchen were carefully painted.

We then took the kids into Teazle Wood for a short geocaching hunt! Came back a little muddy! Meanwhile everyone else carried on pottering around, cutting off strawberry runners and general tidying whilst Phil carried on with the kitchen.

We then all sat around and enjoyed the Garden and discussed the AGM next month and started making plans for Halloween!!! It is gonna be great this year!

Everyone mucked in today to help harvest all our hard work. Rhubarb, onions, cauliflowers, beetroot, carrots, peas, dwarf beans, runner beans plus four tomatoes! We also  picked some sweet peas to encourage more growth. They made a lovely flowery display in the coffee shed :D
Already planned to make piccalilli with the left over cauliflower, and loads of beetroot chutney (and beetroot and chocolate cake!).

Also got on and started covering the fruit cage floor with weed control matting to make our lives easier. AND the new kitchen is being fitted in the coffee shed! All go!

We had a very exciting day at the Garden this weekend. Weather started great but then the heavens opened and we all got drenched! It rained so much the water butts overfilled and started flooding the polytunnel!
Then the food arrived. Chard and onion quiche, pea and tomato bread, pea and beef patties, spiced rhubarb chutney, rhubarb and custard cake, beetroot and chocolate cake and a little homemade mayo! And it was all gone by lunchtime! The great thing was that the kids didn't even notice the beetroot in the chocolate cake and came back for more!
This got us thinking about what else we could make to sell at the stalls we have this August. A brainstorming session was participated by all!
We then did some harvesting of beetroot, chard, rhubarb and potatoes. When Jen and Chris were emptying the potato tyres of soil, we heard a small scream and everyone rushed over to find 4 baby rodents, with their eyes not even open yet! We took a picture and then covered them up and repositioned the tyre to allow mum to come back.
We also received two wonderful donations. The first from Alison. She brought along a car load of unwanted plants for us to use in the Garden. And then Jen donated her grass clippings and chicken bedding/manure from home to the compost heap :D

A fantastic weekend!

First Saturday of July and things have sprung up again. Loads of peas and mange tout to pick and share around. We really did crack on with the weeding especially in the fruit cage which is looking fab again.
We also planted some carrots in tubs and some dwarf beans outside. The parsnips got thinned out and as we were doing so we were sniffing the roots! They had such a strong parsnip smell that it reminded me of Christmas!
It was great to see all the berry plants fruiting nicely. Our first red raspberry was spotted today and well as what looks like a bumper crop of blackberries growing!
All spotted a fantastic looking caterpillar which we think is a Knot Grass Moth. Check it out in the picture gallery and tell us if we are correct!

Great weather to hunt down the minibeasts today! It was not too hot and not too cold.
We started off with sweep nets to see what flying insects we could catch in the long grass. We had a mixture of flying ants, beetles, moths and butterflies.
We then moved on to tapping tree branches and catching the falling insects in a big sheet. Here we caught a lot of crawling insects including spiders, ants and click beetles.
After searching in trees, we looked through some pond water to see what things were living in the water. We caught the animals in jars and had a look at them through magnifying glasses. Here we found pond snails, leeches, dragonfly nymphs, water boatmen, water fleas and water louse.
To top off the day we had a lovely stroll through Teazle Wood (which backs onto the Garden) and dig some digging in the leaf litter and rolled over some logs to see what lived under them. Woodlouse, centipedes, caterpillars and worms were found in Teazle Wood.

It is a fantastic space to use and we are so glad to hear this good news that it will stay in the hands of the people of Leatherhead to use as common land after its purchase by the Friends of Teazle Wood. Congratulations to Lucy Quinnel and her team.

All in all a great day, and we will definately do it again in the summer!

Another great weekend was had by all again and some more new faces came to visit too. Today was all about getting paint everywhere... Our aim was to paint all of our new and old pallets which will hold some troughs. In the end we also painted our tool shed. It looks like new again!

On top of this a flower bed was planted out, more potatoes were harvested, more woodchip added to the strawberries to keep the slugs away, tomato plants were given a helping hand from Pat, Jacque rescued some radishes, Tom did some weeding, Sarah made a lovely cup of tea and Gary stayed in bed... (he has a poorly ankle! Get well soon!)

A small thank you to B&Q Leatherhead who just happend to have 3for2 on all paint today. Made things that little bit cheaper for us!

What a beautiful weekend it's been. A few new faces came down on Saturday which was great to see. Lots more vegetables were planted out in to beds and tyres, including loads of pumpkins which Jen has been tending to.

As you can see from the photos, we had a nice harvest of vegetables including new potatoes, mange tout, red onions and rhubarb. Everyone was able to take some home with them to cook up fresh. You can't get much better than picking them fresh yourself and eating them that day! Some even ate mange tout straight from the plant! Yummy!

After waiting an hour and a half for the keys for the shed we got down to some serious weeding today! With the warm weather the weeds have taken over whole beds and needed removing.
Once that was all done we planted out runner beans, romansco cauilflowers, red brussel sprouts and pumpkins, thinned out the tomatoes, beetroot and radishes, as well as planting out some marigolds to help keep some insect pests away :D
We then had a lovely rest and then chose and planted out sunflower seeds for the growing competition. We'll judge the cometition at the beginning of August! GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!