As part of Student Volunteer Week, a dozen students supported by Brighton University and Santander staff turned a chalk wasteland into a fruit growing area on a beautiful spring day.
First they had to finish pickaxing out the chalk and subsoil.
Then they went behind the compost loo to collect the bags of humanure that have been composting away.
They added it to the hole and shoveled some of the topsoil back in, then pushed up wheelbarrows of compost up our steep slope to help feed the new plants.
After a bushcraft beef stew lunch…
… everyone helped plant 3 boysenberry plants (boysenberries are a bigger, sweeter version of blackcurrents and the bushes were 2 year old cuttings from one of the forest garden plants).
Other students dug the first potato trench of the year and checked out the croaking frogs who’ve been busy spawning (while the newts have been busy eating the spawn)
A great bunch of volunteers who we’d welcome back anytime. Cheers!