Cracking Plans Ahead!

| 7th March 2022
A spring day bathed in sunshine is the promise of the summer to come.
March is ‘The Month of Expectations’ and we’ve certainly got loads to look forward to. With most of our winter gardening jobs out of the way, we’ve planted blackcurrants and a new herb bed at the allotment, and have nearly finished our winter pruning of the fruit trees at home.

There’s always something that needs to be done, but isn’t that just the very nature of caring for something? Meeting its requirements, being prepared for what is needed next, knowing that as we nurture, good fruit will develop. As we prepare for the new season of Spring, let’s feel excited with expectancy as the cycle evolves.

We are expecting a bumper crop of spuds…

Our potatoes are already chitting, growing sprouts that will become roots and shoots of new plants yielding tasty tubers for wonderful wedges, brilliant bakers, magnificent mash, royal roasties – you get the picture?

This year we are only growing Desiree as this red skinned variety was by far our favourite over the last couple of years and the large shiny spuds are easy to spot as you gently lift the soil at harvest time.

They are nearly ready to be buried and, with the warmer weather coming soon, we may well get them in the ground before the traditional dates of St Patrick’s Day or Good Friday.

Burying something that looks old, shrivelled and definitely past its best is evocative of the Easter story reminding us of new life after death.

If you want to have a go at growing your own potatoes, check out our film below…

We are expecting a new flock of baby chicks…

I’ve been deliberating over this for a while, as it’s a big responsibility hatching chicks, but have thought it through and will be supporting our local church in the run up to Easter with a hatching project that should give us super cute chicks as we talk about new life at Easter. The chicks will then come home with me and and we’ll rear them carefully until they are big enough to join the big chickens in the garden.

In the next week or so, I’ll have the eggs settled in an incubator ready to hatch during the school holidays, hoping for lots of girls in the clutch that can grow up to be Hens of the Corner…

We are expecting a juicy harvest of peaches…

Many of our trees still look stark and bear, but tiny blossom buds will soon burst open releasing a celebration of confetti once the honeybees have feasted on the rich nectar. The peach tree is always the first to flower with pink petals of promise. I always worry that it’s too cold for the bees to pollinate them, but last year my fears were allayed when I picked over 80 flat Italian peaches.

We are expecting lots of visitors…

As we are starting to feel more confident living in the ‘new normal’ it’s been great to welcome course guests back in person. We’ve already had bread courses, both Introduction to Bread and Sourdough, we’ve had days making Marmalade and Cheese and, of course our favourite session Family Feathers and Fun.

In between running these courses, there’s been a lot going on behind the scenes putting plans in place for the whole year whilst regularly writing chapters for our forthcoming book.

Check out our full range of courses here.

As the weather warms up, we open our doors to a range of events for families:
You can’t have Easter without eggs and you can’t have eggs without hens…

Our Easter celebrations have always been sell-out events and we are really looking forward to guests joining us this year.

Make your own hot cross buns, Easter craft, egg hunts, feed the hens, home made refreshments and *meet the new chicks*

Easter at Hen Corner Saturday 16th April Morning:10.30am – 12.30pm or Afternoon:2-4pm

Family events coming up:

Family Feathers & Fun Saturday 7th May

Bees for Children Tuesday 31st May & Wednesday 1st June

Where Does My Food Come From? Tuesday 9th August

Other news:

  • After visited a London Primary School, who have both an allotment and an apiary on the roof, we are hoping to support their bee keeping
  • Sara has been asked to run *FREE* Food Waste Workshops in Hounslow House on Monday 28th March, 12-3pm
  • We’ve been included in a new book by Omlet, more details here

Jobs for the week:

  • Try out the new pasta tools my daughter bought me for Christmas
  • Sort out my seed box, what do I want to grow this year?
  • Practise a new sourdough Hot Cross Bun recipe

Thanks for joining us on the journey, let us know some of your plans for springtime!

Sara


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2 comments

Lewis Rees 12th March 2022 at 3:12 pm

Hi Sara, great to hear everything is picking back up! Now that we’re not shielding anymore, I was wondering if you are going to be offering any gardening courses or tips sometime soon? We really want our garden to be productive and beautiful this year to make up for our lockdown laziness.

Lewis & JD, Number 56

Reply
Sara Ward 12th March 2022 at 6:02 pm

Hi Lewis,
Thanks for this!
The garden courses that we run are Keeping Chickens and Keeping Bees, but there are some community gardening workshops and volunteering/learning opportunities available run by Cultivate London.
We are also hoping to run some garden workshops at St Paul’s Church in a month or so.
Here’s to a lovely Spring!
Sara

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