Mushrooms and more

Hi everyone

How are you doing? Things are ticking along here just fine here.  Some exciting news from the garden is that we have grown our first wine cap mushrooms! After inoculating a bed of woodchip 4 months ago (with spawn from fab local business Upcycled Mushrooms) and keeping it damp with the run off from our sink the first fungal wonders popped up last week. The woodlice are very much enjoying them as well but I can confirm the one I took home was delicious and tasted nutty and potato-ey.  Now as long as we keep feeding the mushroom mycelium more woodchip it should keep fruiting every year also we can just take a shovel load of the colonised woodchip and start new beds –  until we have delicious mushrooms everywhere! AND as the fungus breaks down the woodchips they release their nutrients and feed the soil. WOW!  Gardening is a thing you can do for years and years and there’s always new and exciting stuff to try and grow.
Summer in the garden has also been the usual whirlwind of kids’ activities as we run our holiday clubs as and family adventure days with children with SEN and their siblings.  We’ve had some brilliant sessions making pea shooters, hammering, drilling, baking, making jam, juicing, climbing, creating, singing, dancing, engineering,  harvesting., cooking and hanging out in homemade hammocks  in the shade. The garden is quite overgrown in places and quite wild in places which is perfect for adventure.  Also the edible forest trees are so mature enough that the children can cheerfully disappear into the green and make dens and munch berries. Lush..
It’s been great to have new volunteers joining and new faces round the table on a Wednesday.  If you’d like to come along – please do!!  No experience is necessary and no need to bring anything except yourself. You don’t need to come every week or stay all day so you can fit volunteering around your energy levels and other commitments.  And if you someone you know is looking for something lovely to do on a Wednesday please let them know!  New folks are welcome to drop in 12 or 2:30 when you can have a tour and quick induction and after that it’s drop in between 10-4..

AND finally I’m sad (but also a bit relieved) to say we are cancelling our Harvest Fair but very much hope to be back with a bang for our annual Bonfire Night TBC

See you in the garden, hopefully sometime soon!

Lucy

07506 905 394
ghcgarden@gmail.com