Thursday 3rd July 08

A good morning, took the boys to school and a big sack of riddled compost plus a big sack of leafmold, and my rotasieve, to mix with the loam from molehills to finish filling the containers bought by Julia for Green Thumbs. This took 45 minutes and I have now justabout filled them all, there's just one big pot which is only 3/4 full, so one more sack of 'ready mixed' to go in there, I'll prepare that at home and take it in, perhaps for this afternoon's Green Thumbs.

The afternoon went all too quickly and Gill went to school first to pick up the boys, I followed on to do the Green Thumbs Gang. We planted out some radishes and a few other bits in the planters I finished filling this morning, but then it started to rain so we went into the classroom and I read most of the group the 'Magic School Bus' book on decomposition which CRAG Anna sent me as a present... the children seemed to enjoy it.

In the evening I went to the Hull Road Ward Committee, where I was presenting the fourth item on the agenda, on the progress of the Planning Panel.

Later, at home, I started to prepare the immature walnuts for pickling. I washed them and then used a needle mounted on a handle, which is from my days collecting insects as a teenager, to make a series of little holes in each one to allow the brine solution to draw out moisture. This took an hour, and resulted in some of my fingers going brown.... walnuts contain a very strong dye... I did know about this but do not enjoy using rubber gloves.