A visit from the Green School

Today we were delighted to welcome pupils from the Green School on their first visit to Windmill. The school have their own growing area, and they are hoping we can help them to learn more about gardening. We are also hoping that they will help us by growing some seeds and giving us some of the seedlings.

Half of the group getting on with planting in the high beds

The group had a tour of our various growing areas, and other environmentally-friendly features. Then they got kitted up, and got down to work. Pupils planted our first potatoes of the season - first earlies which should give us new potatoes by the end of June. Then one group went on to plant onion sets with Mark and Ulrike, whilst the other group worked with Tracey and Jade to plant pumpkin, squash and sweetcorn seeds. These have now been taken back to school, and we look forward to seeing how they grow, and hopefully to getting some of them back.

Preparing the ground for potatoes

Planting potatoes

Planting lots of seeds - hopefully we'll get lots of plants

The group took the opportunity to have their lunch with us, and just fitted nicely onto the fire-pit benches. We kept them entertained by showing them some of the many strange things we've dug up, including a medicine bottle, metal bolts, hooks, butter knives and even oyster shells!

Actually we left something out of the story - something else we dug up. When they first started to dig, one of the pupil groups discovered that our local fox had left us a present... Carefully buried in one of the raised beds was a duck! We presume that the fox has decided that our allotment is a good place to cache food, where before it just seemed to be digging for worms and beetles. It hopefully won't be too upset to find that we have now buried the poor beastie in the hedge instead.

So sorry me duck.

Foxes use their scent to show that the cache is theirs, or that an area is their hunting patch, so if the fox keeps burying food, we will try smearing vaseline mixed with citronella around the beds. This strong scent acts like a calling card, saying "My smell is stronger than yours, buzz off!" We won't try this straight away though, because foxes can be a great help in the garden, reducing the numbers of mice and other things that like to eat our crops. We do, however, make sure we don't leave any food waste out in bin bags, as the fox will rip them open and have a party. One person discovered that they had a block of cheese in their compost heap, presumably from someone leaving it out in a bin bag and the fox  taking advantage of the tasty treat!

Dyeing to tell you what we've been doing at Windmill!

 For the last 2 afternoons, we've been trying something new at Windmill - dyeing and spinning wool.

You might remember that last year, some of our meadow plants turned out to be weld - a dye plant that produces a rather nice yellow dye. Apparently, combined with woad, weld was used to create Lincoln Green, so there are a lot of historical associations with it in this area. Knowing we had the weld, we contacted the Spinners, Weavers and Dyers Guild, and they put us in touch with Sue Routledge who happily agreed to help us find out what to do with it.

Sue gets set up - don't be fooled by the L plates
- she knows what she's doing!

The Wednesday group get ready to dye their wool.

So for the last 2 afternoons, Sue has been running workshops for us to show us dyeing techniques with weld. She has experimented with the dye and discovered that the effects can vary from a gold to an almost flourescent yellow, and we managed the same variety over the 2 days. We were given prepared wool (it needs to be treated so that the dye will be taken in), and we bound some of it with string to give a tie-dye effect. On the second day, we made our own "Lincoln Green", though we used artificial blue to simulate woad, by painting it on to the wool we had already dyed. With the string effect, we ended up with white, yellow and green wool. Sue kindly gave us some woad plants though, so hopefully next year we will be able to make our own woad blue too.

Tying string round parts of a wool skein for a tie-dye effect.

Pip placing the wool in the dyebath

Wednesday's gold wool

Thursday's dye batch - a few tweaks meant a stronger colour

Carrie shows us the 3 colour effect of adding
blue in patches and steaming in clingfilm

The final result - and Mary arrived ready colour co-ordinated

Sue is a skilled spinner too, so she provided us with drop spindles, made using old CDs and dowels, and showed us how to do it, and also got out her spinning wheel. The spinning was a big hit, with some of our visitors finding it almost addictive!

Sue shows us how to use a drop spindle.

Getting the hang of spinning by hand

Sibel with some of the woollen thread she made

Trying out knitting with some chunky wool and big needles

Sue shows us how to use a spinning wheel
it's not as simple as it looks!

If you missed the fun but would like to know more, keep an eye out for Sue and other spinners at the Sherwood visitor centre at their monthly visit there. We are also hoping that she will visit again soon. We'll keep you posted. 

More about weld and how to use it to make dye here.

Spring celebrations at Windmill

It was great to celebrate the coming of Spring at Windmill this Wednesday. We hosted Bilborough Family Centre to help them discover the joys of the season. The volunteers came out in force to help families to enjoy lots of different activities.

In the orchard, Carrie helped our visitors to make nests and art using natural materials, as well as advising what to do if you find a chick out of the nest.

Art in the orchard

The nests were works of art.

In the polytunnel, Chris and Mark organised planting peas in gutters and making bird feeders out of plastic bottles.

Planting peas in gutters

The clay oven was running, with Tracey and Matt helping everyone to make "bunny buns" which were   delicious - with cheese or butter and our own home-made jam.

First wash your hands - the tip tap worked well.

Making the bunny buns

The last few bunny buns

Pete and Andrew helped everyone to find hidden egg pictures with activity ideas to try on the back of them and later hid egg tokens to swap for chocolate!

Willow work and a battle of wills

We really are hardy souls at Windmill, but last week, the weather and the wind chill actually reduced the amount of useful work we could do so much, that we cancelled some of the things we had planned. Back at the allotment though, things continued to happen, and the snow was useful because it means we can tell who was there!

Who's been visiting us?

Cat,  fox and pigeons have all left their mark.

Something else left its mark, but the photos don't really show it so we haven't included them. Mice or voles are clearly enjoying our indoor peas! Normally sowing lots will help get over this, but presumably the little beasties are staying in the warmth (well, relative warmth!) of the polytunnel and using the peas as a handy snack box. There are little dimples in the soil, where each pea has been carefully dug up. The only evidence is where the seed leaves have been nipped off and left on the bare earth.

Andrew starts operation "mouse out".

So it's time to get a bit creative. The newly sprouting peas are the main attraction, so we are starting again, but not planting in the soil. Peas don't like to be disturbed when transplanting, so we either plant them directly where we want them, plant them in gutters (so they can be slid into a shallow trench outside when it's warmer), or plant them in something that will rot itself, so the container + plant go into the ground together. Egg boxes can work well for this, as can toilet-roll tubes and paper pots. We went for the egg-box method.

Peas ready for the last layer of compost.

When the peas sprout, it's pretty simple to pull the box apart and plant the two halves straight into the ground. If you want the peas further apart, you can rip up the individual egg compartments. Of course, if we put the peas on the ground the wee beasties won't mind if they are in egg boxes, and will tuck in as usual, so more thought is needed. We went for a high-rise option, as we have a nice metal pot stand and we are betting that they won't easily climb it.

Peas on the pot-stand

The egg boxes fit on the stand quite well, and it is quite a handy place to put labels. It's also normally useful to raise pots in cold weather, as it removes them from the coldest air at ground level, which will be helpful as more frosts are forecast. However, we decided to improve the chances further by wrapping the whole thing up in fleece. We'll see if it works! Worst case scenario is that the mice just shin up the fleece...

A final layer of fleece to reduce effects of frost

We did venture outside for a short while, as our fedge needed a little work. A fedge is a fence made of living willow, created by hammering willow poles into the ground. Even quite large willow will root, so it's a quick way of making a hedge. The willow tends to grow straight up in the air, making long poles which then need to be woven sideways to thicken up the hedge. It's obviously best to do this before the leaves emerge so you don't knock them off, though the cold weather has been on our side this year. 

Pete starts weaving the new growth in the fedge.

Andrew and Pete were pretty well wrapped up, but even they had to put on extra layers to brave the wind-chill, and then come back for a warming hot drink. Still, they managed to weave in the whole hedge - not bad when you can hardly feel your fingers... 

Extra layers and gloves make the task a bit less Baltic.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit warmer!

The Big Dig (or the Big Splash?)

A few months ago, we signed up for a Nationwide Event, the Big Dig. This was designed to get folk volunteering on practical growing projects all over the UK, with everyone doing their bit on Saturday 16th March, ie today. We duly got organised, put out posters, sent out some postcards to local addresses and got together some nice food to say thank you to anyone who turned up.

Some of the hardy souls who turned up.

Today, we took a look at the weather forecast, and were quickly pretty sure that no-one would turn up! Actually, we were delighted that quite a few regulars appeared, despite the weather, and a few old friends made an appearance as well. The Big Dig didn't provide any new volunteers for us but we did have a great morning. We managed to nip out between deluges and turn over the green manure bed so it will be ready for planting later in the year, and we also did a bit of seed sowing in the polytunnel during the really wet bits. Jeremy and Steven did a great job with the catering, providing us with a feast of pizza and curry dishes.

The weather forecast was spot on - WET!

Turning over the green manure bed

Well done to all the hardy souls and if you haven't had enough, we hope to see you at the next Saturday session (next week, 10-12)!

Steven makes his famous sausage curry

Mhairi and Holly enjoy a well-earned cuppa

The clay oven helped cheer us up with pizza

Mia made sure everything was well watered in the polytunnel

How to make a Tip Tap (Windmill style!)

Send a Cow has a great "how to" video for making a tip tap, but we made a few variations, so here is our "how to" version.

To make a Tip Tap, you will need:

• 1 plastic milk bottle at least 2 litres in size
• 2 stout sticks with pointed ends about 1.5m long as the support posts
• 1 strong stick with straight cut ends about 1m long as the top bar
• 1 strong stick about 30 - 50cm as the foot pedal
• Strong string or thin rope
• 2 sharp nails
• 1 phillips screwdriver or round-wire tent peg
• 1 mallet
• 1 claw hammer (claw is handy in case you get it wrong!)

Stage 1. Use one of the nails to make a hole in the handle of the bottle at about the half way point. Widen this as necessary to fit the string / rope through the hole.

Stage 1 - set up the handle hole for your bottle.

Stage 1 continued 

- thread the string through the hole in the handle of the bottle

Stage 2 - Use the nail to make a pattern of holes in the bottle on the opposite side to the handle hole at about the same level. Also make a small hole just above the handle to make sure that air can get in easily. This helps the water to come out more easily too. Put some water in the bottle and test to see how well the water runs out in case you need to make more or bigger holes.


Stage 3 - Dig a hole about 30cm across and at least 20cm deep. Fill this with rubble or gravel to provide a soak-away under the tap. Alternatively, provide a wide basin to catch the water so you can use it for watering afterwards.

Stage 3 - Create a soak away

Stage 4 - Set up the supports on either side of the soak-away making sure they are close enough together to let you fix on the top bar. Hammer the thick posts with the pointed ends into the ground until they are firmly in place. Tamp the ground down around them with a log or mallet if the post needs further firming in.

Stage 4. Putting in the supports.

Stage 5. Attach the top bar between the support posts. We nailed ours into place, but it can be fixed by lashing it on.

Stage 5.  Nailing on the top bar

Stage 6. Tie the bottle to the middle of the top bar and fill it with water. Make a hole in the lid of the bottle, thread another rope through this, and make a stopper knot in it so that it is fixed in place when the bottle lid is put back on. Now pull down on the rope coming from the bottle lid to test how well the bottle releases its water.

Stage 6 completed - testing the bottle.

Stage 7.  Tie the end of the shorter stick to the rope so it can sit at an angle at the side like a foot pedal. Now tie the end of the rope to the frame, leaving enough slack so this "pedal" can be pushed down to make the bottle tip (probably easier to look at the picture to fully understand this bit!)

Foot pedal in use!

Through the Keyhole!

Who would work in an allotment like this? Well, the Windmill volunteers and the good folk from the Gateway to Nature project certainly would, and we even had pretty good weather for it, in between a couple of snow storms!

Our project for this week was to create a Keyhole Bed. This is another idea promoted by the folk at Send a Cow (you may remember that they inspired the Tip Tap we installed last week). A Keyhole Bed in their style has a composting basket at its centre, with the slot of the keyhole allowing people to get close enough to the basket to fill it. The earth is angled so it rises to the compost in the middle, and worms helpfully transport the compost into the surrounding soil, adding fertility. It's simple and ingenious, particularly because it helps people to concentrate their resources and reuse their waste.

For us, the design was a great way to make use of some old wooden benches that were no longer strong enough for their original use, but still have quite a bit of sound wood. Chris helpfully reorganised Tracey's original plan for these to make it a lot more workable (ie - just because the design is circular, there's no need to follow it exactly when you have nice long planks that will make a perfectly good hexagon!). Obviously if we had been using bricks or stones, the circular plan would have worked nicely too.

Clearing the site.

Everyone set to with a will and cleared the ground in very quick time. The area has quite a bit of couch grass though, so we will probably need to go over it quite a few times to really clean it up. The shape of the bed was drawn in the cleared area by attaching 2 sticks together with rope so they were 1.5m apart, and then using this to draw a circle 3m across. We also added another stick to draw the circle for the central compost bin. The planks were placed so that their ends touch the circle, and then pinned in place with wooden stakes.

Placing the planks in place.

With all the planks in place, we began to construct the compost basket. Some of the group had already sharpened strong willow stakes and stripped off the bark to ensure these won't root when placed in the ground. We drove these into the ground and began to weave thinner willow around them to hold them in place.

Putting points on the uprights for the compost basket.
Done with care + health and safety in mind!

Digging holes for fixing the compost uprights in place.

Whilst all this was going on, Andrew managed to get another tip tap going, so that we have a washing station near the shed. Thanks to Mia for helping with digging the soak-away hole for this with a little help from her Dad! Pete also did a very efficient job changing the tyre on the wheelbarrow with the flat. We've gone for a puncture-proof tyre this time, so hopefully he won't have to do it again...

Pete and the amazing puncture-proof tyre (fingers crossed!)

That's how the project has been left at the moment, as we ran out of time and Thursday's work will be tidying out the shed - essential work! However, we hope to do more to it during "The Big Dig" on Saturday. There will be pizza and some of Steven's famous curried delights - so maybe we'll see you there!