Rosie and Louise

Rosie and Louise, two volunteers with Wwoof and Workaway arrived around the same time - beginning of November.  Rosie is an English horticulture graduate with a passion for organic vegetable growing and Louise is taking a break from an art and education undergraduate degree course.

 

Rosie posing with a yacon bulb.  One of
the first things we did was to harvest
the yacon plants that had turned black
with the first frosts.  They have an
unusual flavour - a cross between a
potato and water chestnut and can
give you wind!!

Loads of apples that we harvested
together.

Rosie and Louise in the kitchen.

Our small medlar crop ... an unusual ancient fruit that
is a little fiddly to eat but has an interesting flavour -
kind of somewhere between banana and ... not
sure what .....

Here is the young medlar tree
Mespilus germanica.  A couple
 of years old now.

Rosie clearing around the asparagus
plants - they'd got rather swamped
with edible marigolds ....

Louise, a novice in the garden, learned
loads working with Rosie ...

Creating in the kitchen with garden weeds.

They worked hard to clear an area of forest
garden around the round garden - harvesting
edibles, digging out brambles and other 'weeds'
and planting herbs and fruit bushes and finally
mulching with straw and leaves.

 



Rosie worked wonders in the
greenhouse.  She created
raised beds on both sides and
transplanted some vegetables
into the garden.

Great job!!  "I didn't realise it
was so easy to make a raised bed"

Local retired builder Albert arrives with his brother
in law's tractor to pick up logs from trees that
he cut earlier in the year ... he also gave us a hand
to move two huge stones into place on the terrace
that we are slowly constructing with stones from
the land.  Here Kevin and Albert balancing the stone
while the tractor manoevres it towards the terrace.

Placing one of the stones ....

Rosie and Louise did a fantastic job adding stones
to the terrace - a slow and meticulous job!!

Thank you both for all your help - you have transformed the garden,  made huge headway with the terrace, made jam and chutney and learned lots about permaculture. 

Good luck Rosie with your exciting future - to grow organic food ... somewhere, somehow ... at a crucial time for our ailing planet ... what a noble pursuit.

Bon continuation to you Louise - have fun and learn loads on your wwoofing adventures for next year.