Update from Alan

Just in case anyone noticed, the column was missing from last Friday’s Guardian. There was a lack of advertizing and the paper was four pages short so much of the ‘overhead’ i.e. news and features was cut out. I’m told the column will appear this Friday.
2007 is one of those years when winter turns into summer with nothing between. In a couple of weeks we’ve gone from too cold and windy to work to sitting in the shade of the shed because it’s too hot.
Not that the past few days of sunny weather has been wasted. Moeen planted a whole blanket of coriander seed in B block and Libardo planted a more restrained three rows of radish in one of the box beds.
Dick showed up on Saturday with an air pump so the wheelbarrow tires are now hard again. It was a bright and sunny afternoon but the wind made the nursery garden a challenge. Dick and Moeen set-up in the lee of the compost boxes and spent the afternoon potting dahlias. Annette, Catherine, Pat, Shirley and Susan used the main building as shelter and cleared all the weeds from the south bed and trimmed the edge. It’s a rare treat to have five people to deploy on a job, in two hours the whole thing was weeded and presentable.
Sunday afternoon started out blowy but shortly after two o’clock the wind dropped and Soumendra and I had a quite comfortable time potting more dahlias.
Monday morning Angela R-C and Margaret cleared out the weeds from the flower beds at the back of the main building and from the long north bed at the front of the building. On Tuesday morning Margaret and Moeen cleared the display beds by the main sign and the large corner bed at Heart Lake Road and Old School.
Weeding the display beds has gone so well that we have time to add a small extension to the Wedding Garden. A load of sand will be delivered (this week?) and we will build a shrub bed at the north end of the garden. Humber Nursery has offered to donate the shrubs.
The first three beds of potatoes were planted yesterday afternoon and I hope the remaining seven beds will be in by week’s end.
So far, just over half of this year’s class have at least a couple of hours credit against their 14 hour commitment. If we can get a few more good turn-outs over the coming couple of weeks we will be in good shape to start planting annuals and tubers in the display beds at the end of May early June.
I’m available during the rest of this week and, as usual, 2 - 4pm Sat and Sun. Please let me know that you are coming.