Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 11th September: Remembering the Queen, and life going on.

It was on that very morning, Thursday 8^th September that the Sandgate Society sent out an email to announce that the fabulous topper for the Sandgate letter box outside the Village Shop to mark the Queen’s Jubilee had been presented to the Society for posterity.  There is a photo of it below, and it can be seen at the Old Fire Station when open on Saturday mornings.  Although we all knew it was inevitable that the Queen would pass away in the not too distant future, it still came as a shock, and how pleased we are as a group to have planted the orchards for her Jubilee, and to be able to remember her and this year as we look after those areas.

Having had bone dry water butts for so many months, it just fills you with joy when the rain comes and there is water again.  The pond is being replenished at speed, the grass is coming back lush and green, the plants are standing to attention and we can give the water pump plus watering cans a rest.  We are lucky at Enbrook Park to be given a weekly bowser of water by Paul the grounds manager.  Many allotments and gardens rely on rain water collection for irrigation and have had to collect hundreds of thousands of litres of rainwater over the autumn and winter months to keep them going over this drought year.  That process starts over once more and there is great relief that the water collection tanks are filling once more.

With the rain come the inevitable garden molluscs.  The dry weather had kept them hidden away, but now they are on the march and it becomes important to remove old and dying leaves where they love to hunker down.  There were two large snails hiding under a yellowing rhubarb leaf, however they are now relocated to another part of the park.  It pays to keep a close eye on your plants because before you know it they can be munched and simply gone.  

We managed to get some of our list of jobs done for the week.  Shrubs were cut back and composted, spring onions planted and winter lettuces pricked out.  Until the tomatoes and squashes are finished there is little available space for planting new seedlings, however the badgers continue to try and make some for us by pillaging the beetroot and digging more holes.  Always interesting on our visits to the garden to spot what has happened since the last visit.  This week we have found a multitude of scrapings made in the wood chip paths, and so we hope whatever it was, found whatever they were looking for.

The Uchiki Kuri squashes did get taken up on Saturday as they had grown all they were going to.  Most of our squashes and courgettes really struggled with the water situation or lack of it this year.  The squashes have too little time to be able to catch up now, but the courgettes seem to be having a final fling once the rain came back.  The mildew stopped, new green leaves appeared and they gave more courgettes.  We will give them another week or two and then they will be removed along with the tomatoes to make way for the broad beans, winter salads and perhaps more spring onions.

Sunday 11^th September is the date of the first Hythe Hops harvesting.  Sandgate Community Garden will have some hops to offer, but the amount is very much less than last year, however there are more growers in the scheme so the hope is there will be plenty of hops to go to the brewers on Monday.

What’s next? 

• Start planting the crates for the cold frames

• Lots of weeds popping up near the raspberry plot

• Hoe under the hedge along the outside of the plot

• Pull out more duckweed from the pond

• Cover the beetroot

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 4th September: Oh, you’re going to rain NOW, are you?

We are delighted to report that the Sea Festival was a great success for us and we managed to raise a massive £422.27 profit.  We are very grateful to everyone who came along to the stall to spend some cash.  We sold practically all of the plants we are glad to say, and 26 jars of Sandgate honey!

Trying to guess the weight of the fruit and vegetable hamper was a popular activity, and we could have sold the bundle of runner beans in the hamper dozens of times. 

Being obsessed with the rain situation, or lack of it; the only day we were praying for none of the wet stuff was Festival day, and with none scheduled to arrive, imagine the surprise and curses when it actually did rain, just as we were trying to get our stall set up in the morning.  Unbelievable.   However it was a great day all round, and lovely to see so many friends of the garden all at once.

Having recovered from the Festival, the rest of the week went by reasonably uneventfully, and yet again no rain to help us along so every session starts with watering and more watering.  Apparently the rainfall for the month of August was 33.3mm which probably fell on Sandgate the day that one of our gardener’s High Street residence got flooded and he lost many belongings.  It will surely take some time for the ground to become saturated again, and in the meantime any rain that does fall will continue to run off and away.

Now we are into September already and the days are certainly starting to become noticeably shorter.  The seeds we are sowing are becoming fewer, and once most of the winter salads are on the way, that only leaves the hardy broad beans, onions and garlic to make room for once the tomatoes, courgettes and squashes are finished.  We cut back many of the tomato leaves, just leaving a few at the top of the plant, making space around the last of the tomatoes to ripen and allow air to circulate.  The dill got planted as did some of the first winter mustards.  More spring onions got sown along with some winter lettuces.  Now is a great time to think about what to sow and grow next year as many of the shops are selling off seasonal items to include this year’s seed packets.  Most seeds will be absolutely fine to buy and keep for next year, and with discounts of 70% and more, being able to get hold of seeds at 10 – 15 pence a packet is a real bargain.  We have managed to get much of what we need for next year already, and in late November will review what we still need and buy more then.

Now that the school holiday period is over we will be starting to settle into the season of the coming autumn, and more familiar faces will swing by the garden, where the visitors have returned home.  We were treated to our own very special guest of a fabulous hummingbird moth paying attention to one of our salvias in full flower.  Up to now we only dreamt of seeing one in our garden but knew they were around in other gardens in the vicinity.  It certainly made our morning, although unfortunately any photographs we took did it little justice. 

What’s next?

• Still not planted the coriander

• Still not pricked out the pak choi

• Is there somewhere to plant the above?

• Cut back growth around bases of the trees and back of the compost area

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.