The Horfield weather station records that we have had the wettest six month period since their records began in 2004.  It recorded rain on 51 out of 60 days in January and February. And I guess we are all beginning to feel it in our bones.

One bright spot in all this is the slack water pictured here near the orchard. This is the place where John would rescue the frogspawn as the water dried out each summer. Tony has suggested that we make a small clay bank where this drains away so as to make the water last longer and I am glad to report that Jim, from South Glos, hopes to get a team on this shortly. If that does not work we will do it ourselves.

We had a very good meeting of our management committee and have some great plans brewing for the upcoming Festival of Nature on May 23rd this year. More on this to follow, but Sharon is offering to do a plant stall. She says this

Plants Wanted!

As we start (or start to think about) sowing vegetable and flower seeds it would be great if you could sow just a few more this year.  Those extra plants would enable us to have a well stocked plant stall at the Festival of Nature. Any plants that you are able to donate would be gratefully accepted.  The more money we raise the more trees we will be able to plant. We also plan to develop a wild flower meadow to enhance the park for us all. Details of how to donate your plants will be circulated prior to the Festival.

Also – Our grafting session was great fun and particularly interesting as we tried to make new copies of  some old  trees from Magpie Bottom. Here are Venetia and Jim learning the art! I hope to do some trees that Mark is trying to preserve shortly. We shall see if we were successful.

Finally, assuming we do get some decent weather we are hoping to create a new wildflower meadow in the orchard and need to prepare the ground, so I suggest working days as follows:

Wed March 18th 10am – 12
Sat March 21st 10am- 12
Wed March 25th 10am – 12

If you can help at any of these we would love to see you. That’s all for now. Rootstocks for Mark’s trees have just arrived, so I need to get busy!