I should probably explain why :) I went for my second lot of volunteering in the garden's at Tyntesfield on Sunday, and came away feeling like 100% I want to do this for a living! I love everything about the gardens, especially the walled garden and glass houses. Even down to the smell of the potting sheds, it just makes me think 'this is it!'.
So yesterday I was working with a chap called Adam who's being paid to do some weekend seasonal work after being a student volunteer for years. It was different to working with the ladies I worked with last time, and pretty useful hearing how he got into gardening (which he does as his full time job now). I started the day side shooting and topping tomatoes and picking nectarines and cucumbers in the glasshouse and then headed into the walled garden to strip the three espaliered morello cherry trees of their fruit, there were thousands of squidgy ripe cherries! Then I cut some sweet peas and bunched them to sell, pulled some beetroots, spring onions, picked the nectarines on the espaliers using a pair of antique step ladders and then that was it. I was supposed to just do 10am-1pm but ended up staying until 3pm, it was awesome! Even weirder when people asked me questions as if I knew what I was doing! :)
We ended up picking a grand total of 20lbs of cherries in the end, most went to the restaurant but some stayed behind on the table for visitors to buy. It feels a bit fanciful to say it but working there is like being in another world, its so peaceful and old, there's a real feeling of history there and I imagine the original gardeners in the Victorian era going about their business growing food for the big house. Just hope that I did a good job! Will definately be back next week, so will try and remeber to take my camera this time!
For the time being this link shows a few views around the estate, also Chris Bertram's photos here are great!
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