
Welcome to Spring Blossom – Saturday May 30th 2020
Thank you for calling by May’s Family Workshop. We’re normally in Okehampton’s wonderful EcoHub every month but due to COVID restrictions we can’t so we’ve gone on the internet!
The Moon is in the 1st quarter of the Oak or Rose moon with the Full Moon coming up on June 5th
Wild Roses are blooming in the hedgerows and cultivated roses in gardens and magnificent foxgloves can be seen everywhere.
Franklin’s nights have come and gone (hear Kevin’s story to find out more about this) and we have finally planted out our seedlings with the warmer weather. The broad beans have flowered and produced their first crop. We have been picking and eating some edible flowers alongside some new fresh leaves (see our wild salad) and re-potting our sunflowers. Our daughter and granddaughters have been busy painting sticks to hold the fast growing stalks. We hope you enjoy doing some of these things at home too.
Cooking : BBQ’d Broad Beans
Our broad bean blossom flowers are being pollinated by the bees. They can then grow the seed pods – the broad beans!
We really like BBQing broad beans in their pods. The beans steam in the pods and you can eat bean and pod .. no waste! In this recipe we have cooked some asparagus with the beans.
Cooking: Foraging a wild salad
Match the colours to identify what we put into the salad!
Growing: Nettle Tea in the Polytunnel
Making nettle tea for the tomato plants! Come and find out!
Growing: Potting up the Sunflowers
If you have grown some sunflowers do email in your pictures and we will post them in the website!
Create: Sunflower and Bean Sticks
Sunflowers and beans can get blown over in the wind. Why not make a painted stick for them?
Use acrylic paint or maybe tie on foraged objects – shells, stones and interesting twigs – to make them into a work of art.
Megan, Rowan and Esme created these sticks.
Create: Pressed Flowers
Collect some flowers from your garden or when out for a walk to press
- Choose flowers that have freshly bloomed and have no blemishes or tears
- Pick flowers when they are dry
- Choose flowers that are flat as they are easier to press
- Only pick flowers when you are with an adult so they can help you identify the flowers. Ensure you never pick flowers that are endangered or poisonous. If you are unsure then don’t pick and make sure you don’t pull up the plant accidentally!
Materials you will need:
- Flowers
- A magazine you don’t need anymore as the water from the flower may cause the pages to wrinkle.
- Absorbent paper (newspaper, parchment paper, thin cardboard)
- Heavy Books or other weighty objects
Directions:
Step 1: Begin by preparing your flower. Remove any unwanted leaves and put in the compost leaving the blooms you want to press
Step 2: Place the absorbent paper in the magazine pages
Step 3: Position the 1st flowers you want to press face down and flat on the paper/card on a page near the end of the magazine. Carefully cover the flower with another piece of paper and cover with some of the magazine pages, making sure not to move the flowers. Repeat in between other pages until you have done all the flowers you want to.
Step 4: Place books or other weighty objects on top of the magazine. Keep in a place that is out of the way and not likely to be knocked into.
Step 5: Let the flowers sit for 3-4 weeks. The longer you press the flowers, the less water will be left in them. Give them two to three weeks before removing from the magazine. If they don’t have a papery feel, press them for longer.
Once you’ve created your pressed flowers, you can use them to make cards, frame them, or anything else you can think of! Happy pressing
Story: Franklin’s Nights
A strange tale from Devon with late frost, apple blossom and a greedy orchard owner.
We hope you have enjoyed the family workshop. There are some more resources to come! Look out for the next workshop.
Thank you to Learn Devon for funding the Family Workshops and Growing Plot Project
Thank you to Okehampton United Charities for funding our education and community program of activity