Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 10th July: Insufficient water, ants, bees and the incredible Cardoon.

It certainly has been a warm month and how very glad we are to receive a bowser full of water every week or we would surely be in trouble trying to keep the new plantings alive.  The trouble is, the courgettes are trying to swell as are the tomatoes and the beans, but with no rain such crops would suffer if we did not water.  We are now planting crops that mature in autumn through winter and into spring, such as kale, swede and purple sprouting broccoli, and of course, should they fail, then there will be nothing for later.  It makes you appreciate how fortunate we are not to have to rely on the success of what we grow, not so for many parts of the world.  We are not so sure about the outcome of many of our other sites in Sandgate which do have to rely on rain and the occasional can of water we try to bring which never is enough.  All we can do is hope things survive which is their instinct to do, and that this weather breaks soon.  In the meantime the grass has turned to yellow and the only good thing about that is it requires no cutting.

On Saturday morning, Jay, one of our new volunteers, got into the pond as the water has all but evaporated, to cut back some of the pond weed which had seriously grown since last year to create a huge spongy mat.  A few buckets of water were spared to put in the pond which we are sure the wildlife will appreciate.

Earlier in the week we were concerned to see a very young green woodpecker, looking vulnerable and not wary enough of dogs and people; we kept an eye on it until eventually it managed to fly up into the trees.  Green woodpeckers love to eat ants and there are certainly plenty of them around as we watched hundreds climbing up our fencing and marching along the top rail for some reason better known to them.  It was quite fascinating to watch and realise there is plenty of blackfly in the garden now and the ants must be on their way to ‘milk’ them for the honeydew they produce and to protect them from any predators. 

Ray, our site beekeeper, has been working hard this week to extract more honey from the garden bee hives.  Many of our gardeners and friends of the garden have put in their orders for the honey currently in the process of being put into jars.  Today (10^th July) is National ‘Don’t step on a bee day’, so to help mark the event, Saga has asked Ray to put some jars of his honey in the canteen at Enbrook for staff to purchase.  One of the messages about this important day is to support local bee keepers – 85% of the honey we consume is imported, and as we have been reporting, the quality of such imported honey is not always that good and cannot be compared to the local stuff.

Perhaps the largest flower in our garden is currently that of the cardoon.  One of our plants must be around 10 feet tall as it absolutely towers over everything.  The flower is quite spectacular and loved by insects but before it breaks into colour, the flowers can be picked and eaten just like globe artichokes.  The scales of the outer part of the flower are not as full as the artichoke, but the fleshy middle section of the flower is very tasty with more flavour than the globe artichoke.  We were originally sold our cardoons as being artichokes from a well-known DIY garden centre and since then have decided to grow artichokes from seed as they are easy to grow, you know what to expect, there are different varieties, and they look architectural as a plant within a garden.  They feature in the Lower Leas Park this year again, and certainly make a show although not sure as yet if they are actually cardoons!

What’s next?

• Continue the turning of the compost heaps
• Keep a close eye on the watering situation
• Prick out the cauliflower and broccoli seedlings later in the week
• Sow the autumn lettuces

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 3rd July: 100% real unadulterated local honey.

Where is the summer going?  Time seems to be passing at a rapid pace and we are working on planting and preparing for the autumn, winter and next spring harvests.  The kale has been planted, the spring purple sprouting and Romanesco pricked out and the winter purple sprouting in the pipeline to be sown.  The mange tout has finished, the frame removed and the bed prepared for something else.

We harvested some first carrots this week, and are eagerly waiting for the courgettes to be productive and for the beans to arrive.  Some of the tomatoes have the tiniest of fruits starting to emerge so we will have to be patient and hope that we will not be hit by blight this year before we get to see any tomatoes. 

Unfortunately the first cabbage white has been spotted actually in with the brassicas as they sat in the cold frame.  So we have just this Saturday started to spray the natural bacteria known as bacillus thuringiensis to thwart the cabbage white caterpillar from making mincemeat of the brassicas even, it seems, when they are netted. 

We have started to use our own compost made in our own compost bins.  It looks pretty good for homemade stuff although it would be a challenge to get it through a sieve!  Whilst working in the compost area we were delighted to spot a slow worm lurking under one of the covers.  What a treat it is to see such amazing creatures in our locality – we were also sent a video of a hummingbird hawk-moth taken in one of our Sandgate gardeners back garden, the reward for having many flowering plants and being vigilant to spot it.

Talking of flowers and insects, Ray, our beekeeper at Enbrook Park is proud to announce that the hives there have done well this year and he has extracted quite a bit of honey.  We cannot wait to give it a try, it looks really dark in the jar pictured below, and we know the bees have been foraging all over the area collecting from a diverse range of flowers from trees, shrubs and annuals.  Unlike the honey mentioned in my newsletter a few weeks ago from well-known supermarkets that fail to mention the jars contain a high percentage of sugar syrup, this is proper 100% real unadulterated local honey which cannot be compared. You will be delighted to know that Ray is prepared to sell some of it, if you are interested, at £6 a jar with a 20p discount on the next order if you return the jar.  A bargain when you consider all the work Ray puts into his hives as well as all the gear he has to buy to do the job properly.  I am collecting orders, so text me on 078 401 38308 or email sandgatecg@gmail.com and treat yourself to something special this summer.

Rainfall for the month of June was 19.8mm, for which we are grateful, and gave a little respite from hand watering.  We are delighted still with our past purchase of an electric water pump to help with the chore, and on reflection are concluding that it may actually be saving us water as the constant water flow prevents having to keep filling up and remembering where you last were and possibly watering again or just from using up what is left in the can.  Who knows, but so far so good.

We are excited to announce that we will be at the Sandgate Sea Festival at the end of August where we hope to be raising funds for all our projects.  We will be selling plants which we are currently busy collecting and nurturing for the occasion.  This is a big fundraising event for us so please write it in the diary now to be there and support us.

What’s next?

• Sow more sprouting broccoli and rainbow chard

• Continue to turn the compost bins

• Check on the gooseberries not picked

• Looks like a warm week so keep watering the pots

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 26th June: The skills of managing tomatoes.

It has been a challenge this week to keep up with the tomatoes and the growth they are putting on.  Every week our list of jobs includes checking all the tomato plants for side shoots, and every week those side shoots sneak up on us and start taking over.  Keeping tomato plants as a cordon or single stemmed plant is quite a skill, you really do need to know your stuff when it comes to identifying a side shoot and nipping it out before it saps too much energy from the plant and goes off at a tangent.  Of course, in the wild a tomato plant would naturally be a bush, but in the short time we have in our summer to grow a decent crop of tomatoes outside, then it pays to be vigilant and train them.  It has to be said that last year (and the year before) we somewhat lost the plot when keeping our eyes on the growth and they went out of control in a busy time when so much is going on anyway.  However this year the determination is to plug away at it……… all we need now is some tomatoes!

Any promised rain this week is up to its usual trick of appearing on the weather apps and then completely passing us by, or even being so localised that we can have a short shower at one end of Sandgate, yet not at the other.  The yellow warning of thunderstorms and heavy showers faded to nothing and many a water butt at gardener’s homes remain empty.

However, we get on with what needs doing, and there is always plenty.  The kale seedlings all got pricked out into modules, the broccoli seeds sown, and the swedes planted, along with the second batch of lettuces.  One of the red potato patches were pulled up and more onions.  Sadly the mange tout is starting to dwindle but soon we hope the courgettes will start to come thick and fast.  The gooseberries are thinking about ripening but as you can see in a picture below, we had another volunteer turn up, in the shape of a squirrel, with a keen eye on what we were doing, and what he could glean. 

Over by the asparagus beds a mole is having a wonderful time making mole hills all over the place and we are rather hoping he will be making his way under the fence and out.  With the imminent arrival of many brassica plants (swede, kales and broccolis) we will have to think about their protection from the dreaded cabbage white butterfly.  Sadly, we have not seen many butterflies or insects, well not as many as we should.

The memories of ‘fly soup’ or being able to look across an open space and see hundreds of flying insects, is now in the distant past, along with having to clean the car windscreen due to all the casualties encountered on a journey.  It seems a wonder that any of the flowers are fertilised and the fruits form at all, but fortunately they still do and long may it continue.  Where last year there was just one pyramid orchid in a spot near the Enbrook garden, this year there are two, and the fact we are surrounded by a diverse range of flowers, grasses and trees will help support the much needed insect population.

Just as the insects need support, so do we at times, with various projects.  Saga has a fantastic scheme to encourage employees to spend a day volunteering for local charities and projects.  This week a dozen came out to support Touchbase Care at Pent Farm, along with some of our gardeners, to unload several truckloads of compost, varnish the inside of the summer house, weed, water, construct compost bins from recycled pallets and with great enthusiasm, roll massive tractor tyres down the lane to make raised beds.  They were a fabulous hardworking bunch, but suspect that after a day of hard physical graft in the great, hot and sunny outdoors, they were suffering for it the day after when back in the office! 

What’s next?

• Prick out the broccoli seedlings, the smaller the better

• Check on the gooseberries

• The woodchip paths need another layer
• Keep watering the new plantings

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.