A week of far too much weather seems to have been the theme, going from one extreme to the other; however the rain was most welcome and saved us having to water at the end of the week, hooray!

A busy Wednesday morning, with many visitors to the garden, either having a look around, or coming to pick up some vegetables or flowers.  The sweet peas are starting to come quite fast now, and it is important to pick every one of them at each of our gardening sessions to encourage them to keep flowering and not to go to seed.  The zinnias also have started to bloom, as well as one or two dahlias. 

The Florence fennel has now finished, and the way made for beetroot, which will probably be planted next week.  We picked more broad beans, beetroot, salad leaves, a few potatoes, some courgettes, and a handful of blackcurrants, last of the mange tout, spring onions, and some baby parsnips thinned out from the parsnip bed to allow the others to grow bigger.  We can only expect a little fruit from the fruit bushes until they have matured a couple more years down the line, when we could be picking buckets!

The carrots sown just last week have already started to show, and we have had to cover them with mesh as the wildlife has started to kick the dirt around looking for something other than carrot seedlings.  We planted more lettuces, more dwarf French beans, more basil, and a couple more plants around the pond.  The compost bins got watered as they were becoming too dry, the tomatoes have had their side shoots removed, the cucumbers and climbing squashes tied in to their posts, and the hops have had their lower leaves removed to keep the plants clean.  Unbelievably, the second lot of asparagus planted ridiculously late at the beginning of June are now starting to show the tinniest bit of life thank goodness. 

We have an amazing group of volunteers at the garden, they are all enthusiastic and hardworking, happy to weed or water or tackle something in the garden they may never have done before.  Some of our gardeners had never sown seeds, and are now feeling confident enough to try sowing and growing even more in their own gardens.  Most people may be growing a few tomatoes and beans, but even if that is the only space you have available, there are things that can be grown before and after they have been dominant.  Below we have a picture of Chris’s enviable lemon tree (with lemons!), she has loads of tomatoes on the go too.  Rosie is growing all sorts of things to include, lots of herbs, chard, courgettes, squashes and cucumbers.  She is looking into where she can squeeze in even more – fantastic.

Lots of positive comments about the Incredible Edible planter in the High Street and it seems we now have volunteers to keep it watered and looked after – thank you so much.  Yet another Incredible Edible space is being developed in Sandgate.  It is currently being cleared and will be planted up with vegetables and perhaps a few companion flowers.  The site is somewhere in the back streets of Sandgate, so you will have to look quite hard to find it, however there will be some pictures when it is completed.  Already local passers-by have commented they are delighted to see the space being tidied and are interested in getting involved in looking after it …. Excellent, this is what Incredible Edible is all about.  It is hoped there will be more news about growing spaces in the area, and please get in touch if you would like to get involved as we would love to hear from you.

What’s next?

• Collect some of the potatoes

• Sow collected chive seeds in pots

• Still not weeded the salad cloche

• Still not thinned out all the carrots

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You will not be surprised to hear that we have run out of space in the garden again for everything we are trying to grow!  When the onions came out last week we planted up the ground with runner and dwarf beans, soy beans, lettuces, cucumbers and leeks.  We have no idea where the rest of the lettuces, kale, beetroot, purple sprouting and chicory will go as yet.  With any luck we can squeeze some into a couple of spaces, and will have to wait for the rest of the broad beans and beetroot to mature, but even so, space is precious!

The compost heaps got turned, and the mint finally got potted on, along with the horseradish; carrots have been sown where the pea shoots were, and most of the leeks sown in April have finally been put where the mange tout came out!  We put up a sign at the gate to say that we may have fresh vegetables available on the Wednesday and Saturday mornings, and we let some visitors have our first bunch of sweet peas, and our first globe courgette.  This week we have onions, spring onions, salad leaves, beetroot, Florence fennel, a few broad beans, and perhaps a few courgettes and sweet peas, so come and ask us when we are there, or text me (Leonie) on 078 401 38308 if you are partial to something we may be growing – we know some of you are asking about marrows, they will be a while yet.

As part of the Incredible Edible project, we planted up a container in the High Street just outside The Ship.  We hope you will enjoy helping yourself to the herbs and vegetables; we will be replanting and watering it from now on.  We are looking for more Incredible Edible spaces so if you live or work in the High Street, have the room, and would like us to create an Incredible Edible space for you, please get in touch to talk to us about it.

With all this sowing and growing, with a view to getting more of you into seasonal, fresh fruit and veg, we are in desperate need still for greenhouse space, and although we had a great response in the spring, by the late spring, a greenhouse we were using was being filled again by the owner, and so we are still looking for anywhere that preferably is not currently used, with easy access.  It could be the start of a beautiful relationship!

We hope that most of you have by now seen the lovely drone video of the garden taken by the Saga head gardener, Paul, and sent out by the Sandgate Society.  How fantastic to have another perspective, and for those of you unable to get up to the garden, a chance to see it.  Paul was up at silly o’clock to take that video, and catch the blackbirds having a dip in the pond.  Part of it is now on our Instagram page, but get in touch and it can be forwarded to you if you have not had the opportunity to see it.

This week we have another two pictures from two of our volunteer’s gardens, to show what they are growing this year.  Julie is growing all kinds of herbs and vegetables, as is Ann who has upgraded her veg plot to really go for it this year!  Great stuff!

Bee News

The excitement for this week is that Chris, one of our bee keepers, has just bought her own bee hive, and is looking forward to getting a new queen and a few bees to start it up.

What’s next?

• Weed the salad cloche

• Check on the early potatoes

• Thin the carrots and parsnips

• Check if the compost heaps need watering as they are quite dry.

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The onions have toppled over, a sign that they are ready to be lifted and dried, and once done, the ground was covered with the last of the saved compost and planted up with more beans and cucumbers.  We have put extra windbreaks along some of the beanpoles to give the beans as much chance as possible. 

We planted a few basil plants, kale, and Brussel sprouts, all kindly donated by the new mayor of Folkestone, Michelle Dorrell.  Michelle is a keen allotment holder it seems, and has joined the Incredible Edible movement which some of us are involved with locally.  She is yet to visit the community garden, and hope she can find the time to do so this summer.

Everything is starting to grow fast, the courgettes and the sweetpeas are almost in flower, and so it will not be long before we can expect to be picking more.  Most of the time we have enough for the volunteers to have a taste, and occasionally a visitor to the garden will ask if anything is available, and go away with something too.  With the onset of the summer glut, we hope to be able to get the vegetables to even more people – not forgetting we are also sharing with the wildlife (most of us have not seen a strawberry as yet!).  Before the virus overtook, we would take produce to the library or perhaps the Sandgate Society at the Fire Station; and so now we are thinking we could make it known that we may have some seasonal veg available at the gate, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings from 10am until midday.   

Thank you so much to all the kind and friendly visitors we have that come up to the garden to lean over the fence and take a look at the changes, compare notes, or ask questions.  We really do appreciate all the positive comments we have had, and hope that more of you may find the time to do the same.  We are interested in promoting the growing of seasonal fruit and vegetables locally, as well as supporting wildlife.  Many of our volunteers are growing at home too, even if they only have space for a few pots, and below are a couple of photos from two of their gardens.  There was a request for the photographs to be listed for easier identification, so hopefully they should now make more sense!

What’s next?

• The mint has still not been potted up!

• Sow more beetroot and chicory

• Remove some of the finished pea shoots to make way for more lettuce plants

• Remove spinach as it is bolting.

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