July’s working party was another opportunity to thin and trim the vegetative exuberance of early summer. We concentrated on a ‘chop and drop’ of the comfrey in the mini food-forest, and on pulling bindweed elsewhere on site.

Comfrey is deep rooted, which means it’s leaves are full of nutrients and make a brilliant plant feed. For vegetable growing, we generally steep comfrey leaves in water and use the resulting (extremely smelly!) water as a liquid feed. Here though, we used the ‘chop and drop’ permaculture technique – just cutting vegetative matter and leaving it to rot on the surface, cycling nutrients back into the soil that way.

It was great to check on the progress of some of the fruit trees and bushes planted earlier in the year, and have a taste…

The mini nature reserve is looking beautifully lush, and there was a wonderful abundance of insects and butterflies! Volunteers remarked that they couldn’t remember ever seeing so many together – and not just one of each kind, but pairs or more. We spotted Ringlet, Gatekeeper, Large Skipper, Speckled Wood, Large White butterflies, as well as Hornet Hoverfly, Red Soldier Beetle and more.

Thanks to Mr Thompson, Adele, Andrew, Sajjad and Janet for today.