Stats for February: 398 hours of volunteering by 32 volunteers, over 17 sessions; 3 new volunteers and 1 work experience placement.
Stats for 2024: 865 hours, 39 active volunteers, 7 new volunteers, 1 work experience placement.

February was still cold and wet, but the first cherry plum blossom appeared on the 1st! A sure sign spring is coming.

The barn saw a lot of changes this month as the shop was finally moved to the cabins with a big effort at the start of the month. Our first day trading in the cabins was Tue 6th Feb.

Immediately we reorganised the barn to create a designated storage and prep area for the shop and leave the rest of it clear. This was just in time to host the February edition of Southampton Clothes Swap on 10th. After that we were able to reinstall the Pre-Loved Shed in the barn. And then at the end of the month our first batch of chicks and ducklings arrived, hatched by our new animal care lead, Cari Stewart.

Produce from the land was still coming in small quantities – leeks and a few salad leaves. The watercress was going strong still and we unearthed some lovely Jerusalem Artichokes.

Visiting or serving in the shop was a miserable experience in the rain as both doors opened directly to the outside and it was a wet walk from one cabin to the other. At the end of the month we managed to fit a marquee between the two cabins. We had to cut some poles down to fit the last section, but with a bit of jiggling it worked and we have a rainproof space from door to door. A great relief. We weighed it down with our homemade sandbags, using coffee sacks and the sand that now flows from our spring. Thankfully the whole structure was tested by heavy winds a few days later and we were relieved to discover it stood firm.

The raspberries that had been growing under the apples and pears (bed 25) were transplanted to make a new bed near the outdoor kitchen and we mulched under the trees with a large wool carpet, hoping to keep it much tidier than in previous years. We also enlarged the rhubarb bed by the outdoor kitchen.

We created a new path around the back of the outdoor kitchen, giving a lovely way to go around the perimeter of the farm. We levelled the heap of compost beside PT3 (from the cucumber beds last year, just before they became the wildflower bank). The team saved about a dozen sacks of compost for use in potting-on later in the year.

Around Valentine’s day the frogs converged on the pond for their annual spawning – a busy time! We had to work hard to keep the ducks away – several times they broke through our fences, but eventually we seem to have won.

We had a surplus of garlic which was determined to grow and not be eaten, so Gordon created a new garlic bed on the bank at the top of the farm.

In the polytunnel, tomatoes sown in January were ready for repotting.

Routine work continued: refurbishing the compost bays and filling the hot boxes; pruning fruit trees and currants.

And Sonny Boy our cat kept his cool, dozing in the tool shed, favouring our basket of string.

Stats: 460 hours of volunteering by 31 volunteers over 17 sessions.
4 new volunteers joined us.

Tuesday 2 January was cold and wet yet we had a full house of volunteers, keen to get on with the winter jobs. Christmas festivities over, we had a busy programme of activity from the very beginning.

We have been going as fast as we can to get our shop moved into the two shipping containers (cabins) that have been with us since 11 December. On new year’s day the farm manager was digging up the concrete outside the barn for the cables to carry electricity to the cabins. On 2nd January we were laying the cables whilst Henry (a local builder and volunteer) didn’t have any work so came and spent all day designing and fitting the shelves for the new shop using wood reclaimed from pallets. Over the next few weekends he also built our beautiful veg display shelves.

Out on the land we moved on from Christmas, shredding Christmas trees returned by customers and taking down our extensive collection of Christmas lights. The farm was bare again, but still producing leeks, watercress, Jerusalem artichokes and some salad greens for the shop. The ducks loved getting out and about and always seemed to find rewards for their persistent foraging.

We sowed onions and planted out some elephant garlic we had been given.

We also sliced the last green luobo winter radish, and kept the top to grow to flower and seeds:

Our winter maintenance jobs were underway – harvesting compost from last year’s hotboxes in the polytunnel and beginning the cycle again, filling them with compostable materials. In the compost yard we did the next turn on various batches of compost and began a serious refurbishment of the compost bays. This was possible because we had been given a quantity of large pallets saved by our neighbour from a hotel refurbishment in town. We also made a new culvert below the blackcurrant patch, as the surface water in that area was becoming a problem.

We began pruning currants and gooseberries and our apples and pears. This was early for us – it’s good to be organised.

Our water supply comes from a spring which has started giving out a lot of fine sand, especially after heavy rain. We have added to our maintenance schedule the clearing of the spring box and irrigation lines of sand.

In a new job for us, we started cleaning bricks from the old shed on the farmhouse that had blown down in the autumn. We hope to sell them to a reclaim business.

On rainy days we spent a lot of time stapling 10% off vouchers on shop leaflets, ready to encourage new customers for Jan, Feb and March. These were delivered by friends and volunteers, including the very enthusiastic guys from Good Gym:

Mid-month it was very cold at -5C in the barn on 18th January. Yet in this time our duck and chicken eggs were fertile and the first batch went off with Cari, our volunteer animal lead, for incubation.

In the background the farm manager was busy with budgeting and funding applications, taking time out from practical work. To facilitate this Liz took on an extra day of leading the volunteers and Eddie took Tuesday afternoons in the shop.