It’s Tuesday, it’s Roots day. I helped to harvest squash and chillies today.
Yesterday I picked the last Gladiolus and brought it home, all in bud. Now in the warmth of the kitchen it has bloomed. 
Look how pretty the slice of pear is. 
Tag Archives: community roots
Squash, Gladiolus and Pear
The Loveliness of Roots and Embroidery
It was a beautiful day today for working at Community Roots along with other volunteers including several children. The site was full of colour and veggies ready for harvesting.
R in the mud kitchen
Ready to be made into soup in the kids’ mud kitchen
A few of the 8,000 onions being harvested
I finished off my new patch for the Redruth StoryCoat by adding the bluebells this afternoon so now it can go away to be sewn on.
War grave to F R Gill and his mother Mary Angove Gill
Community Roots, A Gift and A Poem
Such a busy day at Roots, school holidays means lots of youngsters all doing their bit. More onions harvested today too.
The post brought a package, two beautiful crochet butterflies made for me by a wonderful blog follower in my favourite Suffragette colours, purple, white and green. Thank you so much, J. 
I’ve posted Lemm Sissay’s poetry before and when I saw this lovely mural on Fb had to share it. I don’t know the artist or the photographer to credit. Please help if you can. 
Potting On, Poly Tunnels and A Petal
Volunteering at Community Roots is such a joy. The place and the people combine to make this a place where you can be put back together as you work and chat. Today three of us potted up countless baby asparagus plants, beautiful little things that together in their seed tray looked like a miniature forest of Christmas trees.
I hadn’t been up there for several weeks and the growth in the poly tunnels was remarkable, cucumbers ready for harvesting , red tomatoes likewise, beans galore – such abundance.
Walking about I spotted a beautiful poppy petal, blown off by the wind, and lying among the clover.
Kindness, View and A Lily
A lovely friend with whom I sing at choir and work with at Community Roots, has today brought us a big pan of soup, so thick her daughter calls it ‘stewp’! She made it with masses of fresh vegetables all grown at Community Roots and when others heard the meal was coming to us, added tomatoes, green beans and a big bunch of parsley. It was such a ‘stewp’ that it was our entire delicious evening meal with some crunchy homemade croutons.
Other friends have kept our tomatoes at the allotment well watered.The kindness of friends this week has been just wonderful. . 
I have enjoyed the view of flowers from the kitchen window.
Our lily is blooming.
Shadows, Tomatoes and New Plants
The evening sun last night shone through the glass agapanthus and its glass jar making coloured shadows on the sunlit white wall.
Lots of potting on to be done today at Community Roots and a gift of some tomato plants for each volunteer who wanted some. Ours are now in the poly-tunnel at the allotment.
Also there are some baby Asparagus Kale plants which sound very interesting, an old variety, listed in Vilmorin’s ‘The Vegetable Garden’ in 1885. Reputed to be one of the tastiest of kales and is treated like broccoli. We’ll look forward to the next Spring!
Potting On, Paella and A Poem
So much potting on today that a whole team of us were working on many baby plants including cucumbers, okra and cosmos. The tomato plants sown only a few weeks ago were being planted out into a poly tunnel.
Tomato plants
Tomatoes going into their growing space
More very heavy rain
Our lunch today was the most delicious paella made by one of the volunteers – such a delicious and warming meal after a hard working morning.
I saw the following poem on Facebook and loved it so I wrote to the poet, Caroline Mellor, and she very kindly sent it to me to post here. It is printed in her book, “The Honey in the Bones.’Â This poem links so well with the song I posted a couple of days ago which can be found here.
We Need to Teach the Children the Old Words
“Words are world-makers”– Robert MacFarlaneWe need to teach the children the old words,words like brabble and grubble,twitter-light and clinkerbell;words which dance and trip and slipand drip like honey off the tongueTeach them that a hazy halo of cloudaround the moon is called a moonbrochand that swiftly moving clouds are named cairies;how a vixen’s wedding is a sunny shower of rain,and that a single sunbeam breaking through thick cloudis known as a messengerTeach them to know the seasons and scentsof queen of the meadow and bride of the sun,how to tell Jupiter’s staff from fairy fingersand which roses bloom with the strawberry moonTeach them to spot pricklebacks in the tottlegrass,how to recognise a smeuse or a bishop-barnaby,when to watch the sky for flittermice and yaffles,and to pay attention to the dumbledore and mousearnickleas she graces the lazy leahs of summerTeach them a few of the old Sussex words for mud,like gubber and slub and stodge and pug,so they know that the precious soil beneath their toesis anything but worthless dirtTeach them to be users and keepers and makersof the words which bring the land alive:a storybook, where everything has its rightful place,including us;where the wilds are fearful and filled with magicand people do noble things, and nothing is impossible
In this world of harsh new words –words like planetary dysmorphia and solastalgia,extinction debt and grief mitigation,megadrought and megafire,anthropogenic, pyrocene,words which alarm and get stuck in our throatsdescribing a world which our hearts cannot grasp –we need to teach the children the old words,so that if they should feel lost,the old words might colour for thema warm and breathing, living map,a light to guide them safely home.
 Once again, as when I have posted other poems, WordPress has decided to take out all the verse breaks. Why do they do this? It makes me so mad!
Glossary – also given to me by the poet, Caroline Mellor, for which I am very grateful. Regular readers will know how I love words, old and new, and I just love all these and the poem.
brabble — to argue loudly about matters of no importance
grubble — to grope around in the dark for something that you can’t see
clinkerbell — icicle
twitter-light — twilight
queen of the meadow — meadowsweet
bride of the sun — calendula
Jupiter’s staff — mullein
fairy fingers — foxglove
prickleback — hedgehog
tottle grass — high grass
smeuse —the gap in the base of a hedge made by the regular passage of a small animal
bishop-barnaby — ladybird
yaffle — green woodpecker
flittermouse — bat
dumbledore — bumblebee
mousearnickle — dragonfly
leah — meadow, clearing
gubber — black mud of rotting organic matter
pug — a kind of loam, particularly the sticky yellow Wealden clay
stodge — thick puddingy mud
slub — thick mud
And for all of us – 
Onions, A Cat and Primroses
In mid January, I sowed thousands of onion seeds while at Community Roots. A few weeks ago we potted them on and today they are being planted out – just magic!
I was in town this afternoon and charmed to see this beautiful cat in a shop window. 
Near the car park were masses of primroses.
Delicious Treats
We all worked hard today at Community Roots, some of us potting on dozens of baby tomato plants while all those working outside were preparing beds ready for the big plant out of onions, shallots, garlic, broad beans and more. We had all earned our treats at the tea break today.
Cheese and Olive Scone made by me
Chocolate and Nut Flapjack made by Simon
Beautiful Orange and Lemon Drizzle Cake made by Nicky
Cake, Roots and Spring Blooms
The cake I made for Valentine’s Day last week, for the volunteers at Community Roots, has been in the freezer as we couldn’t go. It went down well this morning!
Plenty of happy volunteer workers today and lots of salads being harvested.
Happy volunteers
Salad harvesting
Just look at the onions I sowed only 3 weeks ago!
Quite late this afternoon we decided to go to the gardens at Trelissick to see how things had changed in the ten days or so since we were last there. The Magnolia over the bridge was absolutely lovely, still some buds to open. The Daffodil Walk has lots of bright, open nodding daffodils (and on one, a bee! A rather blurry photo as the wind was blowing.) We managed to find all that were advertised on the Welcome board. Click on any photo for the bigger version.
The Welcome board
Part of the Daffodil Walk
Bee
Reflection
Magnolia over the bridge
Primroses
Snowdrops
Pink path
