Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 20th October: Collecting food and storing it for the long cold winter months ahead.

The weather was very much like it was last week with periods of beautiful warm sunshine and lots and lots of the wet stuff in-between.  It was even the same on Saturday as it was last week in that we had to cancel the morning garden session because of the rain, but there was wall to wall sunshine in the afternoon. 

There was a spectacular Hunter’s moon on Thursday, so called because it is ‘the time of year when historically hunters began collecting food and storing it for the long cold winter months ahead’.

On our Wednesday morning garden session we got cracking with clearing more of the strawberry plants trying to take over a vast area, and lots of mint which also needed cutting back.  It revealed our little lemon tree hugging the wall and bearing lots of beautiful pink and white flowers.  Having picked a lemon from the tree a few weeks ago we are keeping our fingers crossed that it might grow one or two more next year. 

The wall has many flowers growing in front of it, and down the other end there is currently a spectacular show of nasturtiums with lush green leaves and numerous flowers from pale yellow through to deep orange.  We sometimes forget that the nasturtium is very edible and makes a great addition to a salad.  Talking of salads, we planted one of our favourite winter salad leaves – Claytonia, or winter purslane.  It is well worth growing as it is extremely hardy, not much liked by slugs and snails, and keeps on producing edible leaves and flowers well into late spring. 

One of our gardeners confessed after the session that the claytonia had not been ‘watered in’ which helps new plants to get established quickly, however we need not have worried as by Wednesday evening the heavens opened along with a great show of thunder and lightning – it was fabulous to watch, and helped our new plants settle in at the same time.

What’s next?

• Plant some overwintering onions near the banana tree
• Keep checking for more caterpillars on the brassicas
• Continue to lay woodchip paths and put down compost
• Clear the area behind the pond

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 13th October: A spectacular show of colour.

There was no sitting about enjoying the sunshine this week, although there were plenty of opportunities, just not when it was our formal gardening sessions on a Wednesday and Saturday morning.  Unfortunately we had to cancel our session on Saturday because it just rained all morning even though the weather apps kept promising it would brighten up any time soon. 

The clear night skies gave the chance for many of us to see the Northern Lights again this week and there have been many photographs of the locality on social media bathed in a spectacular show of colour for the past couple of nights.  Some people pay a small fortune to travel northwards to catch the Northern Lights, and here they were in our own backyard!

We did manage to start the job of laying down more wood chip paths, and continued the work of clearing some of the finished summer crops such as the dwarf beans and summer squashes.  However we still have plenty of ground work to be getting on with and it will be keeping us busy for a few weeks yet.

The few strawberry plants we left under the soft fruit shrubs have had a great time spreading out and invading other parts of the plot, so their removal was started, although it will take some time to take out the lot. 

The purple sprouting broccoli has been slowly growing under the netting but we noticed that they were starting to look a bit chewed to say the least and on inspection it was clear the netting was protecting vast quantities of cabbage white caterpillars from being picked off by any predators, and so it was our job to lift the netting and remove as many as we could to be relocated to the sacrificial nasturtiums where they could continue to develop. 

The autumnal days have brought out the spiders in our houses and gardens as this is the mating season when the males in particular will go on the search for a mate before they die.  Female spiders, usually larger, can live longer, and the photo below is of a particularly huge garden specimen which has been hanging about making a massive new web every day suspended between a fence post and a fruit tree for about a week now.  As much as such a beautiful creature can be admired for the patterns both on her body and those she creates with her web, it would indeed be terrifying to be that much smaller and caught up in the sticky trap – what a way to go!

What’s next?

• Continue laying wood chip paths
• Put fresh compost in the top of the potted plants
• Put down fresh compost on the cleared beds
• Clear the rest of the strawberries

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 6th October: Admire the flowers, watch the bees and butterflies, and listen to the birds singing.

This week we have said hello to October and some fine sunny, warm weather.  The rainfall for September was 98.5mm, which is quite something for late summer and the start of autumn. 

The path to the bench was cleared so that it could be seen again, and the winter squash plants taken up and composted as were the bolted lettuces.  Wednesday was our busiest day when lots of volunteers came out to give a hand, however Saturday was quieter, and so beautifully warm and sunny that it has to be said we just sat and took time to admire the flowers, watch the bees and butterflies, and listen to the birds singing.  It was a piece of heaven for just that moment in time in that place.

True to form and bang on time, the Michaelmas daisies are in full flower (how do they do that with such regularity and perfect timing?)  The bees have certainly been enjoying their blooms as well as the red sedum situated around the pond.  There is always something in bloom throughout the year, and each season has its real gems. 

We took a good look at the fig tree, however it seems that the birds managed to beat us to most of the fruits; but it appears the fig has more it can give as apparently the leaves have many health benefits, has been used in the past to treat lots of ailments and makes a great fig leaf tea.  The other thing we discovered this week whilst admiring the large rose hips is that the outer flesh is edible and very soft and sweet it tasted too – who would have known?

We had an invite to the Nepalese community open farm day at Pent Farm.  It was a real pleasure to walk amongst the vegetable plots finding out about some traditional crops, and tasting delicious food grown on the farm and prepared in true Nepalese style.  It was a perfect end to the week.  The home brewed rice wine was flowing by the gallon, very similar to Japanese Sake, unfortunately had to be avoided or it was likely that the remainder of the day would have been lost in an alcoholic haze!

What’s Next

• Put down some wood chip paths where needed

• Still have radishes to plant

• Keep putting down more compost

• Take up the summer squash plants

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.