It bugs me that there's Horn Beetles in the compost

Sam having arrived (as per usual) 20 minutes or so early to the session got roped into the first task, which was to bring over the watering hose from the clubhouse to the Walled Garden via the Kitchen and Forest Gardens.

Meanwhile, Claire, Hayley and Lucy were patiently waiting for Simon and Sam to finish off that task to be let into the Walled Garden. It was great to see Hayley again after many months away and hopefully, she can pop over more often.

Once they were all in, Simon set them to their first task, which was to organise the compost area more efficiently. Over the past few weeks, Thorlands had a delivery of ProGrow, which was firstly outside and then last week we moved it inside. However, the tonne bag of ProGrow had been nibbled by the foxes and about 3-4 wheelbarrows worth was on the floor. We knew this as we shoveled up 3-4 wheelbarrows of ProGrow. Firstly, we moved the bag to store it next to the backwall (hoping the foxes won't get to it). Next thing we moved the compost bag closer to the ProGrow bag as Simon's idea is to have a compost making station in the back, where one can mix compost and ProGrow before putting the mixture into planting pots, in raised beds/planters or on the ground.

The current compost setup needed managing as Simon wanted the middle compost bin to be emptied into the compost bag that we moved. Thus, Claire and Hayley proceeded to shovel the stuff into a wheelbarrow that Lucy was driving and Sam helped tip the wheelbarrow into the compost bag as well as "supervise"/"make small talk". During the compost shoveling, Claire and Hayley kept on finding Horn Beatles that was nesting in the compost - ideal environment. A whole family of them being deported by the shovel load...Their eyes were peeled to finding more, but in the end, their weary eyes were identifying small baby potatoes as Horn Beatles (same same, but different).

Not noticing the time and the logistics of getting to the next task, Sam had to quickly dash when Simon was explaining the next two tasks. One was to empty the planters by the front wall as they had dry and older soil, to fill it with the compost/ProGrow mixture. Yet, the other task, which everyone opted for due to time constraints was to fill up the raised beds that the foxes managed to dig out with the compost/ProGrow mixture.

We'll continue with filling planters and hopefully, there will be a delivery of woodchip, so we can start mapping out a woodchip path in the Forest and Kitchen garden.