Monday 15th April 2013

Do come along to our Gardening Workshop next Saturday the 20th April if you are busy all week but would love to learn more! The workshop is called "Spring into Spring" and is all about Planting & Sowing Your Veg-it will teach you to think about the needs of plants and seeds and practice techniques to help you to sow and transplant successfully this Spring.

The cost is £30 including a light lunch and refreshments.For more information or to book please ring Sarah on 01229 588164

Thursday April 11th 2013

It is warming up and we have had a small amount of rain so we have been planting out and building the support structure for the summer raspberries. We are getting lots of visitors-it has been extremely busy over the Easter holidays! We also had a visit from Dave and Hazel from Furness Beekeepers and have decided where to site our beehive-very exciting!

Paddy Dillon - John Muir Project

11/04/2013

I had a very interesting chat with Paddy  recently who has been volunteering since last October. Paddy is an Outdoor Writer & Photographer and occasionally gives talks about his work at the Coach House. As an Ulverston resident who loves the outdoors and having spent lots of time walking in the grounds of Ford Park he decided to become a volunteer and one of his first jobs was spent raking up leaves.

This is a never ending job as you can imagine so after discussion with Kim it was decided that as part of the John Muir Awards he would set up a tree trail. To start he updated the original tree survey that was last completed in 2007.  Then to begin the trail he explored the grounds to see where to best situate the trail and what trees to use. Each tree on the trail has a number and information about it and is  great fun for both children & adults to follow.  

The John Muir Award has three elements to it & these are:

1 To explore the area.

2 To conserve that area.

3 To share information about it.

In creating this wonderful tree trail Paddy has managed to do all three very successfully and this trail will delight visitors for years to come. You can pick up a leaflet from the Coach House Cafe so do call in and take a stroll to see if you can find all the trees. 
www.paddydillon.co.uk 

Click on the picture to enlarge.

Click on the picture to enlarge

Tuesday 9th April 2013

A Strawberry planter, propagation bench, window boxes and the refurbishment of a market stall-we have been in construction mode today! We have also been planting peas, beans and spinach out in the beds and doing masses of sowing, pricking out and potting on + watering!

Monday 8th April 2013

Our new trainee gardener Simon Kirkwood started today! He has lots of experience (mostly decorative/amenity gardening) and qualifications in food production so we hope to give him lots more food growing experience and a chance to complete level 3 qualifications -we are sure he will fit in very well with all our volunteers and be a real asset to the team!!

Monday 8th April 2013

Last week we spent some time putting in tensioned wiring for the espaliered apples and harvesting lots of mizuma, american land cress, kale, broccolli, pak choi and lambs lettuce! We are now weighing and recording all our harvesting for the next 12 months so that we can get a good  idea of our productivity-we just need some warmth and rain so that everything will grow faster!

Monday 1st April 2013

Easter Bunny and the Gardener! We had about 500 people in the park and garden today-lots of people looking around the kitchen garden, doing the tree trail through the orchard, buying plants and asking our gardener questions