Winter in the community garden can be pretty slow at times. This morning we got there and looked at each other and thought - there's nothing to do! Since it was still icy cold, albeit sunny, we retired into the hydroponics shed and decided to pot up some seeds to sell at next month's market (or possibly the one after that, depending on how they go). So we put up several trays of peas, beans, onions, chillis, capsicums etc. While we were doing that we had to get into the other shed where we discovered that ten bales of straw had finally been delivered. We have been waiting some time for this delivery so that gave us something to do until lunch time. First we spread out the loose straw that Brady had mucked out of the chicken runs, then threw on some blood and bone, added biscuits of straw and watered the lot in. Both the food forest and the herb garden were given this treatment.

Then the children descended on us once more, and we were busy keeping them herded into the area they are supposed to be working in (as opposed to scattering around having water fights, flirting wildly and generally being un-engaged). Once they were doing what they should be doing (sort of) I chatted to their teacher about things they can be doing that do not involve actual gardening, so they will now be recording the height of their plants and the weather conditions prevailing during the week. It will be interesting to see their results.