Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 29th January: life is very slowly starting to awaken in the garden at Enbrook.

Hooray!  There has not been quite so much in the way of rain this week.  Plenty of dull and freezing cold days but the sunshine has made an appearance once or twice. 

Although the gardens are quiet this time of year, there is certainly plenty going on in the background with all sorts of new projects, events and garden growing plans, and not just in our gardens either.  As a community group, one of our aims is to help and support other community groups, charities and individuals to grow food and flowers (to help the pollinators).

For a while now we have been working with the Nepalese community in Cheriton with a very exciting new project they are about to embark on, growing fruit and vegetables on a large piece of land just outside Hythe.  Many of the Nepalese come from a farming background so there is no doubt they will make a great success of this project. Our role is to advise on growing in the UK, and what needs sowing and planting throughout the year.  It will be very exciting to see if the community can grow many of their well-loved vegetable varieties here in the UK, and are sure we will pick up many interesting tips as well as delicious cooking ideas from them. It will be a fascinating experience and there will be so much for us to learn too.

In the meantime life is very slowly starting to awaken in the garden at Enbrook.  The birds are certainly starting to perk up a little when the sun shines and our garden robin is singing loud and clear so it must be time to start those nests.  We have been wrapping wool around branches and shrubs for the birds to take to line their nests.  The daffodils are already up and showing flower heads, and happily our earliest rhubarb variety has already started to push some new growth through the compost mulch.  Daylight hours are noticeably longer, and Spring will come eventually.

The raspberry patch got a good prune and lashings of new compost, the path to the bench weeded and mulched with wood chips.  It is quite unbelievable how many new strawberry plants we still need to pot up and remove to other gardens.  They multiplied all over the place and caught us by surprise.  Just another session spent taking them out and potting them up should do the trick, and they will be ready to plant in some of the other gardens as soon as it is warm and dry enough to do so. 

The countdown is on….. February begins next week, and that means just a couple more weeks to wait and the first sowings of the year begin!

What’s next?   

• Compost to be moved from the lower to the upper wall

• Check on the plants under the netting

• What is going on in the pond if anything?

• Need to start making new signs for plots

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

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.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 15th January: Compost, wild garlic, weeding and sustainable futures.

Another week has flown by with yet more wind, plenty of rain, and the odd bit of sunshine in-between.  We managed to catch a good day on our Wednesday morning session, but Saturday morning was a complete washout once again so not all of the tasks for the week got done.  Already it is still daylight by gone four o’clock in the afternoon which is most promising and good to see.

Compost bin three got emptied and spread onto vacant beds making room for compost bin two to be turned into it, hopefully in readiness to use by April with luck.  This leaves a rather full to bursting compost bin one to be turned into bin two, and a job to put forward into next week, and so refilling bin one starts all over again.   

We pulled up a few of the leeks to share and a large clump of the wild garlic which had self-sown into a wood chip path and had become so large that the stems looked as big as the leeks.  We have to keep a check on the garlic and use as much as we can, all of it being edible from the leaves to the bulbs, as it is thriving and will quickly take over given the chance.

Rita, our queen of the Golden Valley area spent quite some time tidying, weeding and pruning the planters at the shops as well as litter picking at Freemantle Park.  Before we know it, Spring will be with us once again.

There was a meeting this week with the Folkestone and Hythe Sustainable Futures Forum, and we registered an interest in taking part and to keep up with new developments in the locality.  On 26^th January at 7pm, the Sandgate Environmental Action group will be meeting again in the upstairs Reading Room of the Old Fire Station in Sandgate Road – all are welcome to attend.  Chris Turnbull, a prominent member of the Hythe Environmental Group will be there to give a talk on the history of the group and all the many projects it is now involved with.  I (Leonie) will be attempting to follow his talk with an introduction to fast aerobic composting on an industrial scale, which could be used by all of us, including our cafes, pubs and restaurants – the pros and the cons, plus a look at how it is currently being done around the world.  So, put the date in your diary and come along if you are interested.

What’s next?

• Finish turning compost bin two then start on bin one

• Still got a couple of empty beds needing compost

• Put wood chips down on some of the paths

• Weed the bed with the honey berry plants

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.