The Gardens are waking up after a long and exceptionally severe Yorkshire winter…

The Gardens team are now busy at work on the new vegetable beds in the Walled Garden at Harewood. This new kitchen garden is very much a team project with the Gardeners, Catering staff and Volunteers all working together to make the Harewood plot-to-plate plan a reality.

The Walled Garden at Harewood will revive the tradition of growing food on site to support the House and Estate and as part of our continuing support of local growers, reducing food miles and home-grown produce these new vegetable beds will supply both the Courtyard Shop and Café – so you’ll be seeing the food grown here on the menu in the café too!

As you can see from the pictures, the new beds are huge, much bigger than even the Gardeners had envisaged when they marked them out. Muck-spreading is the first job with sowing taking place late March to early June – parsnips, beetroot, carrots, potatoes, cabbages; many of which are new varieties for 2010. Next time you visit, take a stroll around the lakeside to the Walled Garden and see how work is progressing!

We’ll keep you posted with developments, just sign up to follow our blog!

Harewood has opened for half term, the weather has been cold, sometimes clear, sometimes wet!
However there has been lots going on. One of the most popular activities has been the felt puppet making of tiger puppets to celebrate the Chinese year of the Tiger. in fact it has been so popular that Jennifer Auty, one of our Learning and Access Officers (she provides fabulous ideas for school trips) has had to go an buy more felt for the puppets twice! Here she is making a prototype puppet.

Today is Shrove Tuesday or now more popularly known as Pancake Day. It has been a spectacular success today with a huge number of families coming to see the demonstrations and get some ideas for their own pancakes. The pancake tossing was particularly popular. This year we will be doing a lot more food demonstrations in the Old Kitchen.

Autumn Glory has been a great success with the most glorious array of Autumn colour we have seen in years. Harewood’s grounds look beautiful at this time of year and it’s also a great opportunity to get the family out of the house this half term!

The event is only halfway through so there’s plentry more half term activities and family fun still to come. The weather forcast for the next few days is great so why not come along and explore Harewood this Autumn!

You can upload your own Autumn Glory images and snaps to our Facebook site…please do so as we’d love to see them!

Autumn Glory is set to be spectacular this year with good weather promised and the leaves turning red and gold as we speak!
Autumn Glory celebrates all things Autumnal with half term activities, treats and experiences for everyone to enjoy. The week will be packed with things to see and do including…

• Make A Wish Entertainment
• Scavenger Hunt Trails
• Fun in the Bird Garden
• Autumn Leaf Hunt Prize Draw
• Childrens Art Activities
• Scarecrow Trails
• Face Painting
• Biscuit Decorating
• The Good Soup Company
• Lottie Shaw’s Parkin
• Twilight Tales
• Diwali Celebrations
• Weaving and Spinning Demonstrations
• Autumnal Crafts
• Silversmithing Family Workshops

Different activities and entertainments every day, for a full programme please visit the website.

Autumn Glory
Sunday 25 October 2009 – Sunday 1 November 2009
Daily, 10.00am to 4.00pm
Half Term Fun for all the Family
You can Book Now on our website!

Harewood is a great place for family days out take a look on the website, pay us a visit and see why!

We’ve finally got a name for our flamingo chick…who shall now be know as ‘Flimgo’!
Some of the suggestions we had were:

• Snowball
• Flimgo
• Flingo
• Harry
• Lucky
• Julian Clarey
• Pinky
• Pinkish
• Fluffy
• Fennella the flamingo
• Phoebie the Flamingo
• John’s little Miracle
• Alice (as in wonderland)

The little guy/girl is now approx 70cm high, fully stood up.

It’s been feeding itself from the lower food bowl provided for just over two weeks now, but is still also being fed by the parents. When they regurgitate the ‘crop milk’, it’s a bright pink colour, this will slowly be reduced by the parents as the chick gets older.

At the moment it still has its grey downy juvenile plumage, but has small primary flight pin feathers developing on its wings, and some pin feathers on its body. This means it’s gradually getting adult plumage, but will still be a grey colour until next year.

It can be seen resting on one leg as the adult Flamingos do and can now swim quite well.

It’s also now large enough to be tucked up overnight in the boat house winter quarters with all the adults, without the risk of it being trampled on, or pecked by other adult Flamingos.

Sponsor our flamingo chick or find out more about flamingos on our website.