A View from the Caburn

A View from the Caburn 10^th Feb 2011

Last week Mat was mostly to be found shovelling mountains of compost and topsoil - fantastic, local, South Downs compost and topsoil made out of green waste collected from the local area and made lovingly by T J Composting. Phil the farmer helped us to pick up 5 tonnes with the aid of his tractor and trailer, which then needed moving by hand into large bags for storage; go Mat!

We went along to Seedy Saturday in Lewes where we had a great time choosing seeds and taking part in a quiz to identify 20 different seeds - pretty tricky! Susan had very kindly taken a few of our early plant offerings to put on her Village Connections stall so we also made our first few sales of the year - snowdrops and daffodils planted in little terracotta pots.

We planted our berry bushes yesterday, as the moon was favourable, in the ground next to the greenhouse, where they should be nice and sheltered from the wind. Rosemary is going to show me how to train (and tame) the blackberry brambles in the garden too, which I'm really looking forward to as they taste quite special.

Tearoom preps are also rolling along and we hope to paint the walls this week and finish the design for the logo so we can start preparing our marketing material. I have written a piece for the Parish magazine too this week which should appear in the March edition. Lovely to see the sun out earlier this week, feels like Spring with all the daffodils everywhere! All this rain seems a bit much and has hampered bed digging but on the bright side is watering in the berry bushes and gave Mat the opportunity to sand down the rustic gibbet Phil made us to hang the sign for the tearoom. Phil is quite the practical solutions man having also designed and made with Mat a trolley barrow for moving trays of plants around. I shall make some cakes for them both to enjoy by way of thanks.

Tondra & Mathew