Our December Update

Crafty Christmas

The last few weeks of November and into December saw the Friday Nature and Nurture group spend some time making festive cards and willow and hay wreaths. It’s an activity that many of the participants love and we are always delighted by the wreaths made. Clients usually take these home, but this year some were sold in the shop. This is one of the many ways our groups give back to the Charity. Christmas is not an easy time for everyone and some of our clients struggle at this time of year, it was heartening to hear one client say to another “that was just what I needed” after a quiet session of craft. We will take a two week break over the holidays and resume in the New Year when we will start planning ahead for the coming season. It’s so nice to look forward during the colder and darker days of winter.. 

This month, our school wellbeing groups have been celebrating the wonder of winter by creating some wonderful sustainable decorations and delights. They took great joy in using items that might be thrown in the recycling to make paper stars and using evergreen foliage to create swags and wreaths, as well as filling the Education Centre with the smell of Christmas, making spiced ginger biscuits. We had the pleasure of welcoming Jill Eatherden to share her expert craft of willow weaving with our Sunflower group, who made decorative willow stars with lights. In December our wonderful Education Volunteers helped to put together hampers for some of our valued local families made up with contributions from the Tuppenny community and local businesses. The packages make a huge difference to many of the families we support over the Christmas period, so thank you to all who donated.

The Christmas Market

Despite the weather, and the resulting lack of marquee, the Tuppenny Team pulled out all the stops transforming the portacabin (ordinarily used for sorting veg) and one of the polytunnels into delightful Christmas grottos. They really enjoyed the challenge and, especially, dancing and singing along to Christmas songs as they worked. We were thrilled with the turn out, too, with lots of new faces enjoying the Christmas buzz. The quality of the amazing exhibitors was great, and we’re so thankful to them for joining us.

In the Garden

The big news in the garden this month is the fabulous new wheel barrow store made by Adrian and Peter. This has freed up lots of space for our other tools, and generally makes the space a little more accessible.

Those of you who ordered a Christmas box are in for a real treat; the Brussels are looking fabulous and have had a couple of frosts so should be nice and sweet. It truly is brassica season, with the kale cropping well. Head Gardener Helen’s current favourite brassica is Fiolaro Di Creazzo from Vital Seeds, which we grew for the first time last year. The leaves are a beautiful shape, and they should produce lots of flowering shoots (like a sprouting broccoli) from the base in January if we’re lucky.

The oriental leaves and other salad leaves and herbs are growing happily in the polytunnel. We’re also experimenting with wire hoops and fleece tunnels outside for salad – so far it’s extended the season quite successfully, we’ll see how it goes!

Broad beans have been sown in modules in the polytunnel, ready to plant in there for delicious bean shoots to complement our famous salad bags. We aren’t sowing straight in the ground as the slugs and snails have been voracious this year. Hopefully they’ll be a bit more able to fend for themselves by the time we plant them out.