Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 18th August: The sweetcorn is swelling fast and fingers are crossed that we get to them before the badgers find them. 

Most of the week was really warm and so the fabulous downpour of rain during the early hours of Friday morning was most welcome, and enough for us not to have to water at all on Saturday morning, therefore saving us a good deal of time.

At last the hedge got the tidy up we had on our list of tasks for several weeks, and much neater it looks for it too.  It is always the case that jobs have to be prioritised, and this one kept being pushed back every week in favour of watering, planting and sowing seeds.

Many winter radish, mustards, and overwintering onions got sowed this week.  This is the first time we will have tried sowing onions for growing on over the winter, and is in place of buying onion ‘sets’ which are small bulb onions planted in October/November to harvest in July.  Seeds are much cheaper to buy than the sets, and it will be interesting to see the results and if we think it was a worthwhile thing to do.  We have always grown spring onions over the winter and they have always been most successful, cropping early in the spring.

We planted out a few mustard plants we were given, and the first of our Chinese cabbage plants.  Chinese cabbages rely on plenty of water to get growing at the speed they like to grow, and so we will have to concentrate on watering them as often as we can.

We have mentioned many times the slipper gourds we are growing from the Nepalese community simply because they are new to us and they are most interesting as a plant.  They are now starting to grow the gourds or fruits, but not in the place you would expect them to grow.  The plants are flowering, but not fruiting anywhere near the flowers, and this week we have observed that the plants are attracting all sorts of different flies from hover flies to the tiny and the downright big fat whopper flies (must confess we know next to nothing about flies).  They seem to find the flowers absolutely irresistible and we can only assume they have some part in the pollination, as there are no bees or wasps to be seen anywhere near them.

The sweetcorn is swelling fast and fingers are crossed that we get to them before the badgers find them.  Most of the squash plants have now set their fruits and we will be interested to try out the smaller acorn squashes.  Apparently they are sweeter than a butternut squash, and can be used to make deserts – so quite versatile it seems.

Just a reminder that we will not be at the garden next Saturday 24^th August as we will be working hard on preparing our plants for our much awaited plant stall at the Sea Festival the following day, Sunday 25^th, on the seafront.  Therefore this is a final reminder to put the date in your diary to come and say hello and see if there is something we can tempt you with and take home.

What’s next? 

• Really water those Chinese cabbages

• Sow some winter lettuce

• Consider protecting the sweetcorn

• Sort out which plants we are taking with us

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 4th August: The Nepalese slipper gourds are clambering away through the cucumbers.

Having just complained last week that there was a distinct lack of summer so far, summer arrived this week, and now it starts to look like we are back to cloudy, windy, showery days with a glimpse of sunshine every now and then.  Oh well, as we keep being reminded ‘it is England after all’.  The rainfall for July was an impressive 49.9 mm with another 4mm falling during the night as we went into August.  However, we must not grumble as it is a doddle to water these days and most of the plants are appreciating a decent frequent downpour. 

It has been quite a busy week with more tasks than there was time for, and so it was a question of prioritising what needed to be done first.  The coriander got sown, the Chinese cabbages got pricked out into modules, as did the wallflowers.  The leeks got planted, pulled out by the birds and replanted again the following gardening session.  We had just one dwarf bean plant being plagued by blackfly for some reason, and so we gave it a gentle spray with some soft soap and will have to keep an eye to check that the pesky flies do not try to infest any of the other plants.

The Nepalese slipper gourds are clambering away through the cucumbers and up their climbing frame, they are now flowering and so we are hoping to see how the fruits develop as we have never grown them before.

This year we also experimented with growing onions from sets bought in the autumn and planted in October, and from seeds multi-sown in February, and planted out in March.  Sets are more expensive than seed, and it was interesting to note that the onion seeds almost caught up with the onion sets.  We have grown onions using both methods but not side by side before.  We conducted most of the experiment at Pent Farm where there is more space.  It was also interesting to note the difference in growth depending on which bed they were grown in too – the compost used also affects their progress, with some onions being quite large, yet others in another bed were much smaller.  There is so much to learn.

Whatever happens we always aim to grow more plants than we need just in case something happens, as often does to vulnerable seedlings, and an annoying space is created when something keels over and dies.  So it was that we had at least two dozen decent lettuce plants waiting in the wings with nowhere to go but happily with a little advertising in all the right places, they found homes and are probably nestling down in their new abodes right now.

What’s next? 

• Still need to tidy up the hedge

• Have we got time to sow more wallflowers?

• Sow lots of spring onions

• Take up the onions and leave the beetroot to carry on – net them.

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 28th July: A squash seems to be climbing through the hedge.

How can it be nearly August when you have been waiting for the summer to arrive?  It will be really interesting to see what the rainfall has been for this month, it will be more than usual, and the cloudy days add up to make the month quite disappointing so far.  Oh well, some things are certainly enjoying it like most of the brassicas, the squashes are setting their fruits, (one is even climbing through the hedge) and we have picked the first of the courgettes.  The sweetcorn has also suddenly started to lurch skywards, and of course the weeds…

We planted some cabbages for late autumn / winter, and managed to get the purple sprouting in too which will start flowering next spring.  We pulled a few of our onions which were from seed this year, and picked the first of the dwarf beans.  The cucumbers are trying hard to do something, and the Nepalese slipper gourds started to flower.  We sowed some Chinese cabbages and potted up some donated bearded irises in preparation for our plant sale which is now a mere four weeks away on Sunday 25^th August at the Sandgate Sea Festival.  We have been busy collecting and growing all sorts of things for the day, so please get in touch if you have something we can sell to boost the funds. 

We had decided several weeks ago as a group, to have a picnic at Pent Farm.  Some of us work there, but only a few have been there to see the garden.  We were extremely lucky because the weather was just perfect and it was great for us all to be together at the same time, to share some delicious food and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. 

What’s next?

• Plant the leeks

• Check the dwarf beans for blackfly

• Finish tidying the hedge

• Sow more Chinese cabbages and coriander

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.