Rosamund Community Garden Update April 2023

How we Increased Rainwater Storage Capacity at the Garden to 1,100 Litres!

Enjoy this article in Guildford Dragon News. Thanks Hugh!

🗓️APRIL EVENTS 2023

💪Re-covering the Polytunnel and Installing Gutters, Thursday 27th April 10.00 am to 4.00 pm

🌱Hurdle Making with Rob Stringer at Rosamund, Sunday 30th April 11.00 am to 3.30 pm

Join us for a unique and exciting workshop where we’ll learn how to make a split hazel hurdle with local woodsman Rob Stringer.

This is the first half of our wattle and daub workshops, so we’ll be fitting some hurdles into our hub project too. If time we can have a go at daubing on the day.

Bring a packed lunch, refreshments provided.

Price £30 pp

BOOK HERE

📝Garden News

It’s been a busy month in the garden, despite the wet and chilly weather!

The plum trees are in blossom and the blackthorns are looking very pretty with their promise of sloes in the autumn.

The orchard has been pruned and Charlotte and the volunteers have been clearing and mulching around the trees with manure and woodchip. The comfrey is sprouting at the tree bases, and will help to release precious nutrients to the roots, as well as provide nectar for the insects later in the spring.

The willow obelisk workshop was a lot of fun with some beautiful plant supports created. We now have 3 to use in the garden, and they’ll be a gorgeous addition to the beds for the sweetpeas and nasturtiums etc.

We’ve bought some weaving willow wands from World of Willow, to plant around the garden. These varieties will produce more flexible basketry wands of various colours for future weaving projects. They are rooting in water at the moment, and will be planted by the end of this month.

Lisa ran a water harvesting workshop with Ben McCallan from Zero Carbon Guildford. The afternoon was a great success, and they installed secondary guttering on Poly 2 and a reclaimed 1000 litre reservoir, which is already full from the recent rain! (also see article at the top of page).

This month, Galliford Try are coming on the 27th to help us re-cover Polytunnel 1 and install guttering for more rainwater harvesting, as their community volunteering day. This is a big job and we need as many volunteers as possible to help us achieve completion

We had a good turnout for the wildlife pond big job Sunday. The team planted up the margins with a great variety of native species and it’s looking really good.

🕐APRIL JOBS AT THE GARDEN

• Prepare poly 1 for re-covering - dig trenches along the sides ready to remove the old cover

• Sow seeds and water seedlings in poly 2

• Continue to weed beds and prepare for planting/sowing

• Weed fruit-cage along raspberry bed

• Plant new basket willow (clear ground well first)

📰BLOGS & UPDATES FROM OUR COMMUNITY

🐝What’s Happening with the Bees at the Bottom of the Garden? by Peter Smith

CLICK TO READ

🍎Orchard Update from Charlotte

CLICK TO READ

🌳GARDEN VOLUNTEER GROUP SESSIONS

We are building some regular groups on Tuesday and Sunday pm (2.00 pm - 4.00 pm) and Friday am (10.00 am - 12.00 pm) so if you want to come and garden together, just come along. Joanna is at the garden on Tuesdays at lunchtime, so another possibility.If you are in our WhatsApp group, please also use this to check if people are in the garden for a session.

🔚AND FINALLY

It's Community Garden Week from April 3rd to April 9th, READ ON.

💰Membership Info

The Rosamund Community Garden (RCG) shares a membership system with Guildford Environmental Forum (GEF) for joining info please email Adrian, GEF Membership Officer at [email protected]

previous update

PS this photo is surely worth a fun caption!