Around the World at the Old Acorn Barn
From April to July the Old Acorn Barn has been awash with sights, sounds, tastes and smells from around the world! Each week the Makers have enjoyed discovering a different country – including USA, China, Spain, India, Australia, Mexico, France, Peru, Italy, Kenya and more!
It has been fun trying all kinds of different foods – with some more popular than others – familiar foods such as hot dogs from USA proved to be the most popular but everyone was willing to give everything a try, even when it included ingredients we did not recognise, such as the Ugali made from maise flour and common in Kenya.
Jieun has been helping us to explore the art, music and sometimes dancing from different countries and we have loved all the bright colours from so many different places!
Of course we cannot leave the Allotment unattended as the season is prime growing season. We have been busy pulling up weeds, preparing the beds, watering (on the hot days) and giving thanks for the rain to save us from this task. A competition to growing pumpkins is becoming a bit of a tradition – the seeds have been sown and the plants have started to grow, but who will grow the largest pumpkin in 2024! We’ll have to wait until the Autumn to find out.
At the start of the year we learned our long standing volunteers Jenny and Steve would be standing down from their roles at the allotment. This is sad for us as we love to see them, but it is good for them. It was wonderful on our last Thursday of the term to have them join us, to see how we have been getting on without them, and to say thank you for all the time and energy they have brought to the Allotment – the site has been transformed under their guidance… and Steve couldn’t help himself, so will be popping back to help prune the apple trees in due course.
If you or someone you know would be interested in getting involved to support the Allotment we would love to hear from you – an hour or two a week helping with some of the ongoing tasks of weeding and watering would be most appreciated!
The workshop has also been a hive of activity… Tom has been supporting Makers on Tuesday’s to build a bug hotel for the allotment and most recently they have used reclaimed wood to construct a raised bed on legs (Rich thought it was a trough for the nearby farm when he first saw it) to use at the Barn for growing a few crops – Makers have suggested potatoes and carrots – so we will have to wait and see what goes in. Having the raised bed on legs makes it accessible for those who find it difficult to bend over or work at ground level.
Our routine now changes as we head into our summer programme – which will include a Musical Theatre Workshop, Picnic, Cycling, Birds of Prey and a trip on the canal.