Garden craft

Today has been such a fun day:) We are going for our Bronze John Muir Award at school and our year group is leading it. We have a very enthusiastic teacher in the team who is pulling it together with the support of a Ranger and his team . Today was spent weeding and clearing the raised beds again -  those of you who follow me will remember we tried to do this 2 years ago but the very tough natural grasses in the soil killed the plants we put in. This is in order to try and plant a wild flower area to attract insects, butterflies and moths. Hopefully we will be more successful this year.
The children had the chance to weed , plant yellow Rattle, dig and bend willow into a fence around the beds. The hope is the willow will grow and protect the beds. We also found lots of very large earthworms - the one in the photo was about 6" long which apparently made it about 6 years old!

We had some interesting news today as well. Last March Nigel and I found a layer of oyster and mussel shells embedded in a bank down near the beach. It was at my eye level [ I'm 5' 2"] and there was a thick layer of soil above it. Both thinking it was possibly a midden left by prehistoric tribes we contacted the local archeological group who confirmed today that it is in fact one although they have no idea how old it is. It's been entered into the records!!!