The Spring Chill

Icicle formed on a
leaky water butt

What a start to the season? We've had blizzards, pounding rain and uncommonly cold weather for this time of year.  My last update was in January, when we had what I thought was the last of the snow. Boy was I wrong. The last few weeks have been cold, very cold. I was away in Norfolk for two week and there there it rained for most of time and it snowed quite heavily on two separate occasions. Here in London the weather was pretty much the same. Rain, snow, hail, more snow and more rain. I came back to a garden absolutely soaked. Funnily enough all the plants seemed to have held up well. 

Planted up Herb Spiral

The currents have started showing leaves, and both the leeks and chards are still growing well. In the polytunnel, the salads, herbs and other seedlings all seemed to be undeterred by the cold, wet weather. 

Work in progress.
Building the log shelter.

This week we planted up the herb spiral we built back in November and it's looking amazing. Our friends at the national trust came through. I went down and helped take down a huge sycamore tree which was both shading the river and obstructing "the historical view" of the park from the Morden Hall building. We got quite a lot of branches and work has since started on erecting our log shelter (communal space). And they have also been kind enough to share there wood chippings with us. This we used on most of the paths in the garde and on some of the work/gathering spaces. No more muddy boots on rainy days. Another addition to the site is our new site map sign painted by one of our volunteers. This provides general information on the project and shows many of the elements that are on the site. Over the next few weeks we are hoping to erect more informative signs around the entire site, complete both the log shelter and composting toilet and have have the site ready for the busy summer period.