This is the blog that I prepared in January 2014 but could not access the website:

We have experienced awful weather these past couple of months with gales and torrential rain so there have not been many opportunities to do any gardening. Luckily we had felled the trees around the site beforehand, as they were restricting sunlight, and we have now finished cross cutting and storing the logs. These were shared with Rhyd Y Creauau, Field Studies Council who let us use their land. The remainder will be sold next year for income for our community group.

We have had 5 fruit trees, apple and plum, ready to plant for a while but had to wait for the trees around the garden to be felled before we could plant them. There was a window of opportunity on 10^th November so we had a family day at the garden and we cleared the area of branches after the tree felling. It was cold but it didn’t rain and was a pleasant day. There were plenty of hot drinks and sandwiches and the children enjoyed playing games after they had helped.

This is also a good time of year to plant willow in order to soak up the sewage from our compost toilet. We took some cuttings from another willow structure at the site and planted them around the compost toilet to make it into a tree bog. Hopefully the willow will be effective from next summer; otherwise we will need to refill the straw that was packed around the base as a temporary measure.