Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 22nd January: PSA – It is way too early to start planting your seeds.
It has certainly been a great deal drier this week with much more in the way of sunshine and bitterly cold. As usual in Sandgate we missed the snow which was a feature inland and across the country. It was so cold that many of the gardens had become frozen quite solid which made it impossible at times to do anything, except admire the flowering gorse by our pond at Enbrook Park. During our Wednesday morning session the sun was shining and just managed to warm the ground enough for us to be able to put down some more compost on the empty beds as well as lay more compost along the wall where there are permanent plants and trees growing.
We are motoring through much of our compost stock in our quest to get it down before the spring arrives. On Monday a volunteer group came out from the Napier Barracks to help move some compost from our stock pile up to the garden. That’s uphill, this time with the addition of slippery grass. We are really grateful for the extra help with heavy tasks, which most likely would have taken us twice as long to do. Afterwards, and with time left, we took two barrow loads of compost down the hill to the village green outside the chip shop and mulched the long border there. We then tidied some of the debris and planted a few spare primroses.
Chris and Theresa got stuck into the emptying of the last of the compost needing turning in the composting bins. No mean feat, it can be a smelly and stomach turning job in high summer. Fortunately in this cold and with noses being frozen, it proved a little easier. We now have a completely empty first bin ready to be filled once more with waste from the garden and kitchen peelings.
Already some folk are champing at the bit to start sowing seeds. IT IS WAY TOO EARLY! Far better to wait for the slightly warmer and longer days when new sowings will catch up with and often overtake anything sown too early. It is time to practice some patience. The only thing we could prepare for in the way of seeds was to buy some seed potatoes. Now is the time to consider the varieties on offer and decide. This year we have, as usual, first early varieties, three in total, plus a few Pink Fur Apples to harvest at a later date. They are all sitting in front of a window in cardboard egg boxes ‘chitting’ away (the term used for sprouting potatoes) until later on in March. Hopefully it will be warm and sunny enough then to plant them out.
What’s next?
- The raspberry patch needs weeding
- Has everything been mulched?
- The path up to the bench needs weeding
- There are still strawberry plants to take out
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.