Tidying Sticks and Windfall

We finished working on our Potato Day posters on Wednesday this week. On Thursday, we just wanted to be in the garden! Lewis and Catriona potted on some winter pansies in the shed whilst Danielle and Grigor started to clear winter debris from the raised beds and surrounding area. We have had a lot of gales that have strewn the garden with branches and twigs!
The Walking Stick Cabbages looked a lot neater once we cleared the debris. Some were a little lopsided too, so we pushed the support sticks deeper into the ground.
Here you can see a solitary wasp nest in the greenhouse. Not sure if it will still contain an egg that will emerge as a wasp in Spring, or if the hole means one already emerged at the end of last summer?? I have read that a solitary wasp will build a nest, lay an egg and bring a paralysed insect into it for the lava to eat when it hatches. It will then seal it, so seeing as there's a hole in this one I think it must now be empty. Any entomologists that could confirm this - please add a comment!

Potato Day Planning

Welcome back after the Christmas Break! Not much happening this week in the garden - it's pretty wintry so we've been indoors creating posters to advertise the "Transition Black Isle's Potato Day" that we are going to help out with.

The idea is to have over 50 varieties of seed potato for people to buy at a reasonable price (10p each) and in any quantity. It should be an interesting event, with lots of varieties to talk about and try. We'll be buying our own for the garden this year, and also hope to take orders from staff to encourage them to "grow their own".