Garden News - February 2025

January is a quiet month at the garden, as most things are still hibernating and dormant and the weather has been pretty mixed with some beautiful frosty days and mad stormy ones.

It’s a good time to take stock, make plans and think about goals for the year ahead. It’s also a great time to prune the fruit trees and bushes before they start to wake up.

Some small signs of Spring are around: the snowdrops are up - the first flowers of the year; and the vixen was screaming for her mate as I left at twilight and spotted them furtively watching me before they headed into the garden.

Our salads are starting their growth spurt in the poly-tunnel and providing some lovely spicy leaves. The broad beans and garlic have survived the frost so far and there’s even an early rhubarb leaf popping up in the perennial bed.

There are also signs of an owl roosting in the treebog - we found lots of pellets and poop inside, but unfortunately, he’d forgotten to lift the lid!

We’re planning to position some wildlife cameras in the garden and capture some night-time wildlife action.

The big job Sunday was spent planting most of the trees from SCC in our forest garden. We had fun planning where they went, and experimented with burying some mushrooms from poly 2 to see if they’d take.

Ann has been busy making a seed order list, and Clare and Margaret have been planning what edibles we will grow in the forest garden.

We’ve had a lot of damage in the orchard from rabbits gnawing the bark off the fruit-trees. This has caught us out, as we’ve never had a problem before so don’t bother with tree-guards. After seeking advice we have tried 2 methods to try and help the trees:

1. We wrapped the damaged trunks with dry hession-backed wool 

2. We applied a damp layer of sphagnum moss with the hession wool on top.

Unfortunately, some of the trees may not recover, but we are putting tree-guards around them all to prevent further problems. We’ll report back later in the year to see how they do.

AGM

We had a lovely AGM at the beginning of the month, with just 6 of the committee attending. It was agreed that we’d had a brilliant 2024 with many positive achievements and new connections. 

The growing membership support and some successful funding applications have meant we can finish the hub this year and buy some much-needed equipment for the garden. 

Our committee members have all agreed to stay for another year. Although our website manager, Olivia Cal will step down, she will continue to support the website and social media.

Hub

The guys from Andy’s Man Club have been busy this month, working on the hub and making new potting benches and containers from all the excess wood from a local building site. Our new wood-burner has been installed and has been keeping them warm and comfortable.

The next stage will be to build stone plinths around the bases of the wattle sections and fill in the gaps at the edges. 

March will see us cobbing again, so watch out for cobbing dates for the diary.

We’re also planning to re-design our compost bins to smarten up the area, and provide Kate with some really snazzy bays. 

Groups

The young people from the Royal Grammar School and Guildford High School have made a great start back this month, with a lovely group of 16 coming on Tuesdays. They are working on making some dead hedges around the garden, and clearing our outdoor spaces ready for the Spring.

Our DofE students are back and getting stuck into their projects. Amy has been making some lovely signs, which will brighten up the areas and help people understand what’s going on.