Tidying Up at Windy Windmill

November has been a month of strong winds, but it hasn't held us back, and we're well on track to get the place sorted in time for the worst of Winter.

We had a nice group today, with some old friends returning, so welcome back to Emma and Ray, and some new faces back for their second visit with a view to becoming part of the team - so welcome to Matt (and Anna) and to Shanaz.

First job of the day was to give the hugelkultur bed and the strawberry bed a good tidy up. We've been a bit lax, so the brambles have tried to take over. They are like someone at a bar reaching over everyone to get their drink, but in this case, the tip of the "arm" can root when it touches the soil, so brambles can "walk" around a plot making lots of new plants. We have used this tendency to our benefit, making our cultivated blackberry hybrids do something similar by pegging down the stems into the ground where they root. We've also done it with soft fruit bushes when they have drooping lower branches - a technique called layering. If anyone would like a berry bush or raspberry canes, let us know!

Hassan plants strawberries around the hill bed

Ray weeds out the last of the flowers, which were in full
bloom before the frost last week.

Lunch was well earned with a nice pumpkin soup that went down a treat, followed by a cake brought in by Emma - a great way to get in our good books from the start!

The happy band of pumpkin soup enthusiasts.

Afternoon jobs involved some bed clearing now that our flowers have finally succumbed to frost (thanks Shanaz!), and also cleaning the polytunnel roof, which was tackled by Matt with great care (and a squeegee mop!)

Matt - king of the squeegee mop

Shanaz weilds her rake with skill.

With any luck, things will be looking amazing for our Herbal workshop on Sunday 6th December, but we've got our fingers crossed as apparently the weekend will bring some thoroughly Scottish weather with gales and blustery showers. Doesn't help that we've agreed to do a stall on the windiest day - we'll have to tie Mark to the gazebo!