Garden's blog

Well, I have to be thankful for one thing, there have been no more frosts, so all the tender plants are still alive. However it really has been pretty cold and one severe gale felled a large willow tree as well as breaking and burning the courgettes. Still most will recover and in the greenhouse the tomatoes are growing fast and furiously, already onto their second truss of flowers. Today we planted out peppers in the polytunnel. As always seems to happen we got much higher germination from the chilli peppers than the sweet ones. I must remember next year to buy extra seed of the sweet varieties.

All around the garden the lupins are vibrantly in flower. Mostly self-sown they pop up in all sorts of places and then provide their wonderful variety of colours year after year.

This week I made the biggest decision in the garden year and planted out all the frost tender seedlings. So now the courgettes and french beans will have to take their chance with the weather. So far it feels like a good decision and it's great finally to have some rain as well as the warmer nights. We still need to build some cold frames so that all seedlings can be hardened off to reduce the planting out shock.  It's a good couple of weeks earlier than usual which should mean earlier and more abundant crops so long as we don't go back to night frosts.

 The dry, sunny weather continues to everyone's amazement and I'm just hoping that we don't have a repeat of  a few years ago when a hot April gave way to a long, cold, wet summer. On Saturday night we marked the beginning of Summer by celebrating the Celtic festival of Beltane. More than thirty people turned up for a magnificent potluck meal and ceremonial fire. A number of them, together with some members of the community returned on Sunday for a sacred pipe ritual and shamanic journey led by visiting shamanic teachers, Mark Halliday and Claudia Conçalves from Edinburgh. We are looking forward to doing more work with them in the future.

Welcome to the Monday Gardening Blog, your opportunity to share in the almost always joyful experience of Monday morning at Newbold when the community extends to include anywhere from 2 to 10 volunteers who focus their attention together on our beautiful vegetable garden.

Today the garden is fragrant and bubbling with apple blossom as we work in three groups. Some are preparing beds and planting them with baby beetroot and lettuce grown in module trays.

Others are working with seedlings in the greenhouse, potting on tomatoes, basil and french sorrel destined for the herb garden whilst the third group is hoeing the established rows of peas, broad beans and spinach.

 My name is Christopher Raymont and I’ve been growing food organically for more than 30 years. In 2008 I was working one day each week in the Newbold Garden and now for 2009 that increases to two and a half days. After all these years I feel a very real sense of coming home to this garden and am completely inspired by the opportunity to explore the potential of this wonderful space simultaneously as a place of production and of deep healing and peace.

We celebrated the first sign of the return of Spring at the Celtic festival of Imbolc on February 1st and used it to mark the first big stepping stone on the path of renewing the walled garden. This is the completion of the restoration of the garden’s glasshouse originally used for cucumbers and grapes. Now it will be the heart of the garden’s life housing the plant propagator which will supply seedlings to fill the garden with the maximum range of seasonal produce as well as summer crops like tomatoes and cucumbers.

Hello, My name is Jeferson and my home country is Brazil. I came here as a working guest in July this year and  loved it so much that I am now part of the staff team and am responsible for  looking after the garden and the maintenance of the house. In my time here I have learned that Love is the basis of all creation, and love allows you to get in touch with all forms of life.