Garden News - June 2024

After some promising hot days, we’ve returned to the wet and windy stuff, for a bit, so things are slowing down apart from the weeds!

The poly-tunnels look lovely with their newly planted tomatoes, cucumbers, and chillis and fresh dressing of Kate’s wonderful Rosamund compost.

The currants are already laden with trusses of fruit and the loganberries and grapes are flourishing in the new fruit-cage. Even the new cherry tree has produced some nice-looking cherries in there. So we wait with baited punnets for the summer colour to arrive.

Elsewhere, the new raised beds have been filled with brash, manure, and compost, following the Hugelkultur method, and planted with potatoes, squash and brassicas. So far no weeds or slugs have been seen, which is unheard of at Rosamund, and is a very lovely novelty to be faced with. 

The orchard is waist-high with grasses and flowers and looks lovely with the paths and swales cutting through.

The wildlife pond has had many new visitors, namely 2 ducks and a beautiful dragonfly, some damselflies and many pond skaters. Who knows what's going on beneath the surface, but I’m sure we’ll be doing some dipping before long. Margaret is organising a wildlife survey soon, so we’ll report back on the findings.

In the orchard, Helen’s yellow rattle swales have all sprouted and can be clearly seen in this drone photo of the garden:

This is exciting and will start the bio-diversity journey for the wild-flower drifts there.

The wildflower patch near the willow bog is sprouting too, so hopefully there will be flowers to share in the next newsletter.

As promised, Ringway has started landscaping the entranceway and paths from the gate to the hub. They have cleared and created a wonderful hibernaculum bank from the spoil, which we have sown with wildflowers; and a lovely rectangular planting space, which will be planted in the autumn with native trees and shrubs etc to provide nectar, and food for the wildlife and us to share. 

Andrew from Ringway has done a great job of growing edibles and ornamental plants for the depot greening project. We’ve been invited to visit this month, so watch this space for photos.

The paths will be paved with a natural clay mix to provide a flat surface to make the garden accessible to all. We plan to make a new bay at the gateway for drop-offs of woodchip etc.

Work has started on recycling the arbour into trellis work.

The climbing plants have survived the collapse and are working their way through the lattice. We’ve had a lovely red honeysuckle display and are now waiting for the jasmine and passionflowers to appear. 

Despite the rain, most of the beds are looking really good after all the weeding and planting, we just need a good load of sunshine to really get things going.

This month we will be focussing on the hub and working on the cob and wattle and daub walls in a big push to get them finished. If you fancy having a go, please come along. It’s amazing how much we can get done with a bigger group.

Cubs Cultivate Skills at the Garden by Julie

On a gorgeous May Wednesday evening, the First Merrow Explorers Cubs pack met at Rosamund Garden to help them earn their Gardening Badge. They all had a wonderful time planting basil in pots for them to take home and wheelbarrowing mulch from the front gate to the raised beds. They had a tour of the garden and we explained about organic gardening and the no-dig method. They also loved eating the fresh chives from the beds!

A fun and educational time was had by all!