I am delighted to announce to you all that we have now become a charity. We had official notification late last week with a charity registration number being allocated.

In practical terms, this means that we will ensure that our three charitable objectives get the prominence they deserve as well as being able to claim Gift Aid on all our donations to the charity. The three objectives in simple terms are:

• Food education for all schools and colleges that visit in addition to the wider natural environment
• Horticulture therapy
• Community activities

We are preparing a press release to announce becoming a charity as well as trying to encourage greater volunteer involvement from the local community at Tuppenny Barn. One area that we are trying to increase numbers is our education volunteers, due to the number of school visits that are now happening. If you know anyone that might want to get involved, please get in touch as I’m sure Abi would love to hear from any potential volunteers.

Lindsey is putting in the final tomatoes this week, soon to be followed by the cucumbers that survived the frost. Sadly we are having to re-sow quite a few due to numbers being affected. We will be re-planting the chillies that we have nurtured over the winter – the first time we have been able to do this. Not all survived, however, a decent amount did, so they will also be going in this week. We will be planning what we will be selling at Stansted Garden Show as that will be with us in just over 4 weeks’ time.