February in the Walled Kitchen Garden by Shirley Roberts, Academy Gardener at Clumber Park

FEBRUARY. Although most of the plants and trees are dormant at this time of year, behind the walls of the Kitchen Garden you will find a hive of industry as the gardeners get ready for the growing year ahead. Well, perhaps not all the gardens team… our Director of Vermin Control (AKA Mr Tibbs) is often to be found having a nap in the warmest part of the office! 

One of our biggest tasks is pruning the collection of Heritage apples and pears, and with over 450 trees in the garden this is no mean feat! So to boost our pruning power, we’ve enlisted the help of our garden volunteers. In late January, 15 of our hardy volunteers came along to a pruning workshop presented by Jane our Senior Gardener. The first half of the day covered all the ‘theory’ of pruning, plus essential tuition on how to keep your tools clean and sharp. Then after lunch, it was off out into the orchards for some hands-on sessions. Winter pruning is essential for the health and vigour of your trees, and will reward you with a bigger and better crop of fruit. Although it can seem daunting at first, pruning is fairly straightforward and our volunteers soon got the hang of it! 

Here are Jane’s 3 ‘top tips’ for gardener’s new to pruning: 

1. Keep your tools clean and sharp 
2. If you're not sure why your pruning it, then don't! 
3. Keep stepping back and looking and what you've done to see if it looks OK 

For more help and advice, ask one of our gardeners or volunteers next time you visit the garden. They’d be happy to talk you through it! 

The garden will be open during Half Term 11– 23 February, check our website for opening times. Not all our crops are dormant though… some of them, like our rhubarb collection, are beginning to show signs of life. Just like our Victorian predecessors, we put terracotta ‘forcing’ pots over the emerging stems (Rhubarb ‘Timperley Early’ in this case) to force them into early growth by excluding light. New stems are usually ready to harvest about 8 weeks after they’ve been covered in this way, and are much more tender and sweet than stems produced later on. The downside to this method is that it exhausts your plants quite quickly, so it’s never a good idea to force your rhubarb crowns for more than 2 years in a row. They need a bit of a rest afterwards! 

We’re also still busy harvesting our produce. The leeks and cauliflowers are looking amazing right now, and the gardens team can vouch for their flavour too! We’ve also some tasty leafy crops such as chard (pictured), watercress and many salad varieties. This is undoubtedly due to the mild weather we’ve been having so far this Winter, but it also pays to give your leaves a bit of extra protection. A cloche or some horticultural fleece can really pay off when pickings are slim in the garden. Look out for our produce in the Clumber Park shop and on the menu in the restaurant. 

And finally… What do you think this is all about? Come along to our Winter Wassailing event in the garden on 2 March to find out! Well, if they can wassail on ‘The Archers’…

Ring in the Olympics at Clumber Park

At 08:12 on 27th July 2012, thousands of people across the UK will be joining together to ring in the first day of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as part of the 'All the Bells' project.

Work No. 1197: All the bells in a country rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes by Turner Prize-winning artist and musician Martin Creed is a London 2012 Festival commission and will be performed by you.

Join the Clumber Park team and be one of millions taking part in this historical event.

The theme at Clumber Park is bycicle bells - so bring your bike and join us by the Lake outside the Chapel just before 8.12am.  The first ring of the Chapel's tonne bell will mark the start of a 3 minute bicycle bell ring at Clumber.  If you have a bike, but don't have a bell you can pick one up from the cycle hire centre.  If you don't have a bike, why not come along and listen to the bells anyway or hire a bike and take a cycle ride around Clumber after the bell ringing - we're hoping it will be a unique 3 minutes to remember!

If you're not an early bird and need a pick me up, the Clumber cafe will be opening early on the 27th so you can pick up a coffee to wake you up!

We hope to see you there.

 

Flowering Fairies and Gardening Gnomes

It will soon be summer trail time again in the garden.  This year we are celebrating our garden helpers, the flower fairies and the garden gnomes.

The gnomes are great fun to have in the garden! They work very hard helping us with our jobs. They collect slugs and snails which damage our plants. They help feed the plants and they are great at weeding.

Some of them are very sporty. They’ve even entered a team in the London 2012 Olympics.

Mr Pilwinkle Gnome is always running laps around the garden. He’s entered the Marathon! Some of his friends have also entered other events, you’ll be able to see them practicing if you visit when the flowering fairies and gardening gnomes trail is running.


The fairies have been growing lots of flowers and fruit for everyone to see during the summer and our garden scarecrow fairy has been looking after the fairies in the soft fruit garden. She’s called Ruby Pomona. They have been casting spells on all the strawberries to make them delicious and juicy!
 

Everyone is really looking forward to the garden trail, and to seeing all our visitors dressed up as gnomes and fairies!

The trail will be running from 22 July to 2 September daily in the garden.

The trail is free to enter (normal garden entry fees apply).

Don't forget to keep a look out for the golden gnome!

Hope to see you there,
Hazel
Clumber Gardener

Life as a full time volunteer

When looking to choose a placement for my current degree in Events Management, I was immediately drawn to a position with the National Trust’s Clumber Park; it presented itself as being both a great opportunity and very exciting as I would be involved in a huge variety of events on offer to a wide spectrum of the public. It was for these reasons, and many more, that finally led to me making the choice to volunteer with them and I have now been working at Clumber Park for a year.

Me! On Father Christmas's sleigh

Whilst working here, I have been given the space to create my own events, such as a Halloween Pumpkin Trail, Pancake Fun Day, Easter Celebrations and much much more. On top of this, I have also had the chance to meet, and work with, a number of external companies, including Race for Life, Trailblazer and Illyria, who all host events here at Clumber Park. This gave me the chance to expand my skills in managing events and communication, and also allowed me to help with Traffic Management Plans, Event Plans, Staff/Volunteer rotas and Risk Assessments. 

Enjoying our Easter Egg trails

Completing and finding out about writing and carrying out a Risk Assessment has been a huge learning curve for me. Each detail constantly needs to be checked and staff and visitors need to be made aware of any risks or dangers that could occur from the events. This is particularly important when I help set up the events, i.e. putting up marquees and gazebos. I have to make sure that the area we will place the structures has been checked, that the staff and volunteers who help are aware of the risks and that they are given clear information on how to erect the structure safely.

Not only have I had the chance to plan, organise and execute these events, I’ve also been given the opportunity to market them, which includes creating posters, dealing with printing companies, creating poster and leaflet schedules and making sure our Admissions and Admin team who deal with the public directly know what information needs to go out to the visitors.

One particularly exciting part of my work here is that I am responsible for wedding enquiries that the organisation receives. It is then my job to process the enquiry, show the couple around our various reception and ceremony sites, create a contract, collect the deposit and final payment, set up the area and also be there on the night to make sure the evening runs smoothly. This is hugely rewarding because you are able to take part in a very special day in the couple’s lives.

This is all just a tiny fraction of the work I do at Clumber Park, and while it is a lot of hard work, it is an extremely fun and rewarding experience. I have gained a great deal of knowledge that I will be able to carry on into my final year of University and in any job I go into. 

My view of the Pleasure Ground and Lake

It also helps that all of this hard work is accompanied by an incredibly beautiful setting. I am able to wake up every day with a breath-taking view to look out on, which makes the whole experience truly worthwhile!

Miriam Kirby

Events Assistant

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to our brand spanking new blog, bringing you all the latest news, behind the scenes action and stories from the team.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the blog and how you've enjoyed your visits to the Park. If there's anything you'd like to see us posting about, let us know.

So, what's new at the moment?

We are all working very hard behind the scenes to try and get Clumber into the Guinness Book of World Records.

So, dust off your sewing kits, as part of the Big Jubilee Lunch on 3 and 4 June,  we are attempting to break the world record for the longest string of bunting, and we need your help!

The official Guinness record is currently held by the Fairtrade Foundation in London who created a line of bunting measuring 3,427.94 meters long (that's a lot of sewing!).  To break that record, we need to string nearly 20,000 pieces of bunting together.

We are working with community groups including nursing homes and schools to make as many unique pieces of bunting as possible, and throughout May there will be opportunities to make your own bunting at the Discovery Centre on the Park, based on ‘your place in history’. This could be a significant event in your life, a particular trip you really enjoyed or something that just represents you.

If you’d rather make your piece at home, you can drop it off to the Discovery and Exhibition Centre during your next visit, or send it in for the team to assemble. In order to break the record, we must use the official Guinness world record template which you can find on our Facebook page.

We need to receive the finished pieces before 3^rd June so that a bunting maze can be assembled in the events field in time for the Big Jubilee Lunch. Prizes will be awarded for the best bunting in several categories - so get crafting and come along to the Big Lunch and try and find your piece in the bunting maze!

To find out more about the Big Jubilee Lunch, take a look at our website.