In between all the rainy, stormy and bitterly cold days we’ve had this month, we had a beautiful sunny day for our garden work party on Saturday 11th January.
We made the most of it by getting back to work on our garden path, and as you can see from the pictures, our progress made for a great start to the new year!
Back to the garden path
Picking up from where we left off from our last garden work party, we started at the other end of the garden path.
We had used up all our cardboard, so Keith had managed to find some local used hessian sacks being sold off cheap that we could use instead.
We used them exactly the same way we had done with the cardboard – laid them over the weeded path, fixed them in place under the logs that make the path edges, then covered the sacks with woodchip.
The sacks would probably have gone further if we’d split them but we decided to keep them doubled up to have a greater weed membrane barrier.
The idea with the hessian sacks is that the jute fabric will soak up moisture and hold it in place where it’s needed most. By being covered with a thick layer of mulch it works as an excellent weed barrier, and after a few years out in the elements the hessian will start to rot away, adding organic matter directly to the soil.
Food glorious food
We had a real winter warmer for our bring and share lunch. There was a delicious home-made dal, a home-made bean stew with rice, some coleslaw and other dips, a plant-based “meat alternative” snack and a variety of sweet treats and apples. It really was a feast!
And the added bonus was how well our cavolo nero was growing in the garden. A couple of our volunteers took some leaves home to cook up at home later, where there was talk of making kale crisps in the air fryer or microwave from them!
