Well, what a difference a year makes. In January 2020, with Covid lurking round the corner, early springblossoming plants and shrubs, like chaenomeles, were already breaking blush-red buds into flower, as if to say ‘enjoy the beauty while you can because this is going to be a year like no other.’ Come April 2021 and the chaenomeles (flowering quince) in our beautiful garden at the Crouch was only then in full gorgeous flower, just like in a normal year. If you’ve a mind to be fanciful, could this be a sign that we will, soon, be able to welcome all our volunteers and visitors back? Oh, we do hope so. For those to whom Wednesday mornings are their garden treat, you are missing such delights as the spring snowflake, Leucojum ‘Gravetye Giant’ fronting the roses in the Mediterranean border, and a host of orangey-red tulips in pots, raised beds and among the fruit trees. If you look back to the dog days of last summer, the plum harvest was huge, and this year’s massed blossom surely presages a similar profusion of fruit. And near the entrance, the young rhubarb was prolific. The infant broad beans were shooting up strongly at either end of a raised bed near the classroom, protected by netting supported by sticks topped with flower pots. Katie said the rig pulls the netting tight and stops the birds from being trapped beneath. Ingenious eh? Peas will be planted between the two lots of beans.
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Nearby, in front of the raspberry bed, Abdul was busy preparing the soil for runner beans, using our own homemade compost. Katie was to be seen peering into the depths of the little round pond in the gravel area which a month ago had been filled with frogspawn. However, the depths were murky and the top looked distinctly soupy. So what happened? It is possible that the spawn had not actually been fertilised or that the sudden frosts were too much for the spawn lying on the surface. But fingers crossed that there is still time for the frogs to lay some more. Last month we mentioned the furniture construction being carried out by Brian. His frenetic output includes a bench by the side of the classroom, still to be equipped with shelves, at which volunteers can work and plants can be displayed, a refurbished octagonal table and bench to provide seating for volunteer tea breaks and visitors in the sun, and the completion of a produce-weighing bench outside the poly tunnel. We can hardly wait to be able to show it all off. Until then, enjoy your own gardens, or venture into the Crouch gardens and the wonderfully replenished Peace Garden in front of our Seaford Community Garden. The Garden Team Photos from top right, cockwise: Abdul tips our own compost onto a bed to prepare it for runner beans; Brian’s refurbished octagonal table and bench; ...and his workbench; Plum blossom against a sunny wall; Tulips feature all over the garden; Rhubarb promises to go on giving; Giant snowflake cascades in delicate snowdrop-like flowers; This flowering quince lights up a bed.
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