2011 Monthly Activity Blog
This is an example of what happens in the walled garden every month. We will put a brief summary updating what is happening here every month or so, so please feel free to keep up to date!
Previous years blogs can be found here 
2010 | 2009 | 2008
Click on the camera icon 
wherever you see it throughout the blog, to view images of the garden and students.
November and December 2011
It is that time of the year when 20 tons of soil improver is delivered from Gowy Composting Facility to the project. Teamwork ensures that the compost is transported safely by strong young students from Derwen College and then double dug into the vegetable plots by volunteers.
Here you can see the students transporting the soil improver. 
Here you can see Thursday's volunteers, Jean. Kelly and Mark help Annelise dig the compost into the old brassica bed. 
On Tuesday 22nd November, there was a very successful Christmas Craft sale held at the Walled Garden. All the beautiful crafts that had been made by clients and volunteers in Sylvia’s sewing class were carefully displayed. Most items were sold to around 30 visitors, who also were treated to home made cakes and a cup of tea. Fresh vegetables were also available, and Annelise took interested visitors on a tour of the walled garden. The Charity were pleased that £314 had been raised that afternoon.
Here you can see some of the people who had worked hard to make the occasion memorable. 
There are still jobs to tend to in the gardens, and here you can see Mark and Noel collecting logs from the log store to ensure that our wood burning stove does not run out of fuel. 
The Charity has been successful in drawing down funding from The Wrexham Communities and Facilities Fund and from the People's Postcode Trust to improve disabled access into and around the walled garden, and to build raised beds.
Here you can see Mark and Shane start work on a raised bed at the top of the gardens. 
Finally, we had a Christmas party, on 20th December, to thank our clients and volunteers for all their hard work throughout the year. Games were played including 'pass the parcel', and 'wrap up the mummy' and 'eat the bar of chocolate with winter woollies on'. There was lots of delicious food too, and Sylvia brought in her accordion, which she skilfully played whilst everyone sang Christmas Carols. Here you can see Michael creating his own individual music on the accordion.
We wish everyone who follows our blog 'a very healthy and prosperous 2012'.
September and October 2011
On Monday 12th September, we were pleased to welcome 11 students from Derwen College, a residential college in Shropshire, who are carrying out work experience in horticulture within the walled gardens and surrounding area.
The students arrive in their mini bus, and along with John their Instructor, and with help from Annelise are gaining valuable experience in our project as they work alongside our existing beneficiaries.
Here you can see the morning students help paint some signs in the greenhouse. 
Here you can see Naiose helping clear the undergrowth away around the nature trail. 
Emma is proudly showing us the size of the sunflowers that have grown in the gardens this year. The seeds will be kept and used for next year. 
We have been trying out some delicious recipes in our Basic Skills Class. Here you can see Jan and Janice whisk up some egg whites for some lovely meringues. 
We have had many apples cropped this year from fruit bushes planted around the walls. Here you can see Kerry and Rosemary collecting tasty apples, which we share out at lunch times. 
We have been welcoming a few new faces to the project and here you can see Mark making onion ropes in the greenhouse under Annelise's tuition. 
We have 36 pictures which have been taken on how to correctly plant a crab apple tree. Here you can see how the team work together so everyone helps out. Crab apples used to grow in the gardens over 100 years ago, so we are re-creating parts of the garden to show how it might have looked in the Victorian times. 
July and August 2011
The gardens continued to blossom with lots of fruit and vegetables cropped and taken to local markets. Here you can see Mademoiselle Annelise and Monsieur Tom selling our produce at the Grosvenor Garden Centre in August held on the 3rd Friday of every month. 
We have had also had some important visitors from the Horticultural Community, when the Walled Garden was part of the Community Gardens in Wrexham to be judged for the ‘Wales in Bloom’ competition in July and ‘Britain in Bloom’ Competition in August. We were pleased to hear that the judges were impressed with the gardens, and how we involve volunteers and students in their upkeep and development. Here you can see Emma showing the judges around the garden. 
On the 18th July, we were proud to show Francis Anuilan from Uganda, around the project. Francis was accompanied by Richard Lewis, of Glyndwr University, who volunteers for the DRIP Project (Direct Rainwater Intervention Project), which operates in Pallisa, Uganda. Richard offers advice and guidance on using stored water so that crops can be cultivated throughout the year.
Here you can see Francis in the greenhouse, with our Monday students. 
We also welcomed the Science Technicians to the gardens for their ‘team building day’ in July. They helped remove ragwort from the orchard area, so that the dried grass would not poison horses. Here you can see the team being helped by Michael on a hot Thursday afternoon. 
On the 15th August, Simon from the North Wales WildlifeTrust, came to cut the orchard area with a reciprocal mower. Here you can see our students admiring the special machine. 
During August, we sadly said ‘Goodbye’ to 2 of our volunteers. Ron, who has been at the project for over 4 years, and who has ‘turned his life around’, whilst being the person responsible for most vegetable growing and cropping; the person who kept the kitchen and building tidy; the person who came in at weekends to crop mushrooms, and a friend and support to everyone. He is returning to work in catering at the Cunliffe Resource Centre, and we all wish him the very best in the future. Here you can see Ron on his last day at the project. 
Tom, or ‘The Fonz’ as his friends know him, also left at the end of 12 months with us, and he has enrolled at Yale College to do an IT Course, and we will all miss his jokes, and ready smile. Here you can see Tom on his last day, with Stephen, one of the many friends he has made here. 
Geoff, a volunteer who joined us in May, is now helping the basic skills class held on Wednesdays on a regular basis. He has introduced a ‘learning plan’ for everyone, and here you can see the students learn first hand about electrical safety, from James, his son, who is an electrician. 
May and June 2011
We have, as always been working very hard in the gardens to ensure that all the vegetables that have been carefully propagated in the greenhouse, are planted out in the prepared beds. Here you can see Tom carefully planting leeks after some of our fantastic crop of new potatoes had been harvested. 
We are also part of a local initiative, Wrexham Food First, and were asked to supply rhubarb, horseradish and cabbages for a Gala Dinner held at The Rendezvous Restaurant, Yale College on the evening of 11th May. The Dinner was a great success, with beautiful food made from locally sourced ingredients, and a bouquet of flowers from the walled garden was presented to Caroline Dawson, the co-ordinator of the Food First Project. £78 was raised for the Charity by the guests at the Gala Dinner. Here you can see the flowers that were picked by Heather of Nant Ucha Farm where free range eggs can be bought. 
As part of Wrexham Food Trail Week, we were also proud to show the walled gardens and the surrounding areas to 20 members of the public, and everyone was amazed to see what we have achieved over the past 8 years or so.
We have also been pleased to welcome a few more volunteers to the project, with Dilys and Geoff supporting us by helping crop produce for the market, and also in the basic numeracy and literacy classes held on a Wednesday. Here you can see Geoff admiring Mikes ability to put together a jigsaw on the computer. 
We have also received another load of spawned mushroom compost from Joseph Houghton in Lancashire. We hope that lots of mushrooms will be ready by the third week in July. Here you can see Janice put the casing onto the compost. 
A group of carers visited the project during National Carers week, and were able to enjoy some home made scones from Anne, Sheila and Rosemary, who are all volunteers at the project. During the same visit, Alan Davies, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development also visited the gardens, to see first hand how the funding from the Rural Development Plan had implemented and improved facilities for the local community. Here you can see Noel carefully cutting sweet peas which we divide and bunch into different colours. The flowers smell lovely! 
As promised, I am able to confirm that around £560 was raised by the Friends of Erlas on a sponsored walk over 4 days along part of the Offa Dyke Walk. We had 20 people taking part, with the first days between Oswestry and Trevor Basin being the busiest.
Sheila invited us to her house on the evening of the first day so we could catch up on the Royal Wedding, and also hear her talk with great pride about her visit to Buckingham Palace when she received an OBE on 10th March from the Queen for her contribution to Education and the implementation of the Foundation Phase to early years learners. Here you can see Mike and Sheila set off on their trip to the Palace. 
We were blessed with good weather over the 4 days, and here you can see the satisfaction of those walkers who ‘managed’ the whole 4 days, enjoying a glass of liquid refreshment at Bodfari. 
March and April 2011
March is the start of the sowing of and planting out of many vegetables in the greenhouse and in the gardens. Annelise shared all her knowledge and experience in horticulture by preparing for and holding 2 workshops for 50 primary school teachers in Wrexham over 2 days. We had very good feedback from this training and all teachers felt more confident to engage their pupils in gardening activities this coming summer. Here you can see Annelise demonstrating on how to prepare the soil for planting. 
Mark and Shane who have been constructing the nature trail, benches, log store and bird hide have been making the finishing touches to the seat in the hide. Here you can see Paul and Mike helping with the finishing touches. 
Ann and Mike held a wildlife gardening workshop at the end of March for the Caia Park Communities first group. The group learned about other aspects of horticulture over 5 weeks, through sessions held at the ‘top’ garden project with Liz, and also with Annelise. Here you can see the group make a home for insects. 
April was a very busy month for everyone, but Roy’s Monday class were treated to a visit to Northop College to visit the facilities there. Here you can see our students leaving on their luxury transport to Northop! 
In early April we were privileged to have a visit from Steve Morgan and Rhiannon, a Trustee form The Morgan Foundation. The Foundation has already granted the Charity £40,000 in May 2006, to restore the ‘bothy’ buildings, and Steve was keen to see how much the gardens have changed over the past 5 years. He was very impressed, and also donated a set of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Shirts to our students. Here you can see Gareth receive his shirt from Steve. 
The gardens are beginning to look colourful now, and here you can see the lovely tulips growing amongst the wallflowers. 
We can finally say that Spring has arrived, although we have had very little rainfall in March (18 mm) and even less in April (5 mm). Our students have been recording the first signs of Spring, and Heather is showing us a cabbage white butterfly which flew into the education room to join the Tuesday sewing class. 
We have also seen Mr and Mrs Duck arrive and paddle around our new pond. We are hoping that there may be a family of ducks that will make their homes here in the next few months.
For the next blog, we will report back on a sponsored walk that took place over the weekend of 29th April to 2nd May by a group of 20 friends on part of Offa’s Dyke Path.
January and February 2011
The New Year started with cold temperatures, so we kept busy finishing parts of the nature trail, altering the rabbit proof fencing around the boundaries and constructing the raised beds so that more students can work on them. 
We also took time to visit the woodland area and wonder at the age of an oak tree, which could be up to 300 years old. 
8 bird boxes were fixed up around the nature trail, so we can see what begins to make their nest in each one later in the spring. 
It was very windy in early February, and our scarecrow finally succumbed to the elements. Michael and Janice are looking to see if the scarecrow needs any help, but we think it may be too late! 
Tidying up the gardens in readiness for planting is an on-going task, and here you can see Emma find a very late parsnip in her ‘patch’. 
On 22 February, we were able to plant over 450 native hedging plants which were funded from the Rural Development programme. Along with our students and 5 volunteers we had the welcome help of 9 adults from ‘Making Tracks’, a Charitable Organisation based in Colwyn Bay. Here you can see David plant a hazel sapling. 
Finally, we have seen the first signs of Spring arrive, with a yellow brimstone butterfly observed in the gardens on 24th February, and a frog was noted in our small pond on the 22nd February. Here you can see the first daffodils just coming out at the end of February. 