By Angela Hoy and Alex Kaiser

Our first work party of 2024 got off to a good start! We reshaped Bed V1 and sowed it with broad (fava) beans which had been soaked overnight to speed up germination. And we harvested the remainder of the overwintered leeks before they start to bolt. Sadly, there were only a few carrots left that were fit to harvest, and these had started to produce lots of tiny side roots so they had to come out.

The Haskap bushes are in flower! We had intended to hand-pollinate them as the flies that normally pollinate them are not around yet, but imagine our surprise to see a beautiful little green hummingbird doing the job for us! Well, maybe one fly…

These flowering red currant are important for the hummingbirds this time of year as well.

Our volunteers also removed a large quantity of creeping buttercup and hairy bittercress from the pollinator and vegetable beds, two weeds that can spread like wildfire if not tackled early.