Two weeks away from the garden the beans, peas and winter salad vegetables growing in the greenhouse all looked healthy and ready to be planted out on the terraces. 

Maurice, Troy’s assistant, had changed the catch on the greenhouse door to make it safer, and had been carefully watering the plants in our absence.  Thank you Maurice.

All the seeds had arrived from Dobies as had the raspberry canes and strawberry plants.  We had hoped to be able to plant out the peas and beans this week so that there was space in the greenhouse to plant the new seeds, but the weather was against us. Several frosty nights and a snowstorm in the lunch hour meant it was too cold to plant anything out.

But there are always jobs to be done on a garden.  One team was on leaf tidying duty, raking up the stray leaves by the compost heap.  (A compost heap is good for the garden, but can also house harmful insects that eat the vegetables so the heap is best kept away from the garden.)  Another team sat in the Green Room stripping the bay leaves from the stalks ready to be put into bags for sale at the Friday Cake Sale.   A third group continued to remove the hard core away from the newt ponds so that we can sow a patch of wild flowers for the newts to snuggle up in.  Newts, like frogs, are useful in the garden because they are rather partial to slugs.



Then, as the snow fell outside we sat snugly in the Green Room learning about companion planting.  And this is what we learned.