Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 27th March: Sowing and more sowing, tomatoes coming soon and reclassifying snails.

The days seem to be racing along, so much to do and little time to squeeze it all in.  We did manage to catch up with ourselves this week and finished the list of jobs from the week before.  We can tell that the keen gardeners out there are responding to the warm weather and getting tasks done in the garden.  Many thanks to Enid, Peter and Isobel for the donations of terracotta and decorative pots for which we are grateful as we are working towards gathering plants for our plant sales later on in the year; larger pots are always useful for displays or some larger plants.  Talking of plant sales, our usual tomato plant sale will be announced soon as we will have many spares for sure.  This year we have at least ten varieties on the go, but you will need to be patient as we grow for planting outside, and plants will not be available for at least another four weeks.

The parsnips all got sown, and the last of the seed potatoes planted. More seeds sown in February are now ready to take their chances outside such as coriander, many varieties of lettuce, mange tout, spring onions, and spring cabbages.  Celeriac got sown as did more coriander, and bulb fennel.  The purple sprouting is looking fantastic, and in spite of being got at by pigeons along the way, they are producing some lovely broccoli spears as shown in the picture below.  This is the first time we have tried this variety called ‘Claret’, and we will be sticking with it for sure when sowing again this year.  Some of the kale got completely stripped by pigeons during the winter, but sheltered under some netting, has recovered just in time to give us some more leaves.

Some of us have been continuing work on a new patch of land in a back street of Sandgate.  It got covered in card and compost some months ago and will soon be ready to be planted up.  It is close to one of our gardeners house, and the neighbours have been commenting on how loved it looks already, and appreciate the few daffodils that have popped up there.  It is always possible to transform a scruffy overgrown area with a little bit of love and attention, it just takes time and the will to make it happen.

Talking of transformations, Fremantle Park just gets better and better.  The picnic benches have been in place for a while now, and much appreciated by families and visitors to the park.  We have had several comments from locals that they really appreciate the space and how much more attractive it has become with all the recent plantings and care, so thank you to the Parish Council and the community gardeners, the park is a real asset to the area and seems to be very well used.

On Saturday afternoon, some of us went to visit a ‘no dig’ allotment at Newington, hosted by a good friend of ours, Erica.  It was inspiring to see so many different growing styles going on at the allotment site, and of course, we had to partake in plenty of cake eating, washed down with tea made on site in a little shed with a tiny stove and kettle.  The sun was shining and it was bliss.  We hope to make more visits to different gardens later on in the year.

ITV Meridian got in touch this week and came to Sandgate Community Garden at Enbrook to film a short piece based on the fact that the RHS have decided that slugs and snails are no longer classified as pests in the garden.  The article could well be shown sometime next week but who knows!

What’s next?

• Prick out all the tomato plants

• Lots more seeds to sow this week

• Start to clear the mustards

• Clear the old Romanesco bed

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 20th March: Sunshine, Sandwich Spread, Sahara Dust and Volunteers

Yippee!  It looks like there is wall to wall sunshine on the horizon for a little while and everything is starting to perk up and look just that much greener. 

Rosie has been tantalising us with her homemade sandwich spread made with all sorts from the garden, chopped up fine and mixed with mayo, a little bit of tomato and grated cheese.  It is the sort of thing that you can make from whatever is available at the time, but has loads of flavour.  Rosie has also been roasting some of the dark kale or broccoli leaves to make ‘crisps’ which can be seasoned with all sorts of herbs and spices – absolutely delicious.

It has been one of those weeks where we did not manage to clear the list of things needing to be done from last week, but did manage to get rather a lot done all the same.  Wednesday was a particularly busy day as we had hired a drop side truck in order to collect compost from our friends at Hope Farm.  The farm make compost from green waste and very kindly allow us to come and collect some for free which is an incredible bonus as compost these days is so expensive.  The farm does not sell compost commercially, but supplies their farm plus a few others based in Kent.  Collecting the compost is always an easy business as the farm has all the right equipment and can load us up with a couple of bulldozer buckets in a matter of a couple of minutes. 

The work is at the other end when we have to unload.  Fortunately we had some amazing hard working and delightful volunteers from the Napier Barracks who soon had the compost unloaded and started wheelbarrowing it up to Sandgate Community Garden whilst another load was being collected.  In the afternoon they came to Fremantle Park and helped us to start work on the mulching of the area in-between the new orchard trees.  There is still much to do there, but soon we can begin to plant up this area with fruit bushes, herbs and flowers.  We are grateful to the ‘Friends of Napier Barracks’ for making such a task a much easier one for us at the garden, and we look forward to working with them again.

The family vegetable plots at Fremantle Park had their paths weeded and another layer of wood chips put down.  The chips from last year had all but disappeared into the ground, broken down over time, and it was getting difficult to work out where the paths should have been.

On Saturday, more coriander seeds got sown and the first batch of Florence fennel.  Early carrots got sown direct into one of the empty beds, watered in and covered in Enviromesh.  Carrots and parsnips are the only small seeds sown direct as their tap roots prefer not to be restrained in small sowing modules, but do not mind being in large pots with space.  There was not enough time to sow the parsnips so that will be another task for next Wednesday. 

As the weather was looking fine and the seed potatoes had sprouted, they got duly planted.  We only have the space for first earlies and managed to plant two beds with enough left to create another next Wednesday which is looking like a busy day already.

The winds bringing in the orange dust from the deserts of Africa did not get missed in the garden, our tool box was completely smothered in the stuff and the slugs and snails lurking in the compost bins next door had a fine time making orange dust trails all over it.  No rain on the horizon to be washing that off and so the phenomenon will be remaining with us for a while.

What’s next?

• Cut back the butterfly bush this week

• Pot up more seedlings just starting to appear, for relocation

• Tidy up the chard beds ready for their last fling

• Random onions still need removing from the Choke berry bushes

• Collect new hop twine and re-string the hops

• Sow the parsnip seeds

• Finish planting the potatoes

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 13th March: the Spring of Deception

One of our gardeners sent through a very appropriate reminder that we are currently experiencing the ‘Spring of deception’ where you get all excited and raring to get going, but that it could all go horribly wrong if we get too carried away.  The problem is the weather on the horizon is looking reasonable, and we have filled practically all of our seed trays and the cold frames are full.  It is so exciting to see all the little shoots starting to pop up above ground both in the trays and in the garden.  New this week is the very first hop and asparagus shoots; however we will have to remain most patient about the asparagus as the beds still have another year to mature until we can start to harvest just a few spears in April 2023. 

Many of the buds on the fruit bushes and vines are starting to burst, and the kiwi vines poised to scamper up the canes.  The Goji berries are already in acid green leaf and are under threat of being relocated if they do not perform and produce more berries this year.  To be fair they did get attacked by climbing snails last year which probably ate all the flowering buds. 

Many thanks to Diane who contacted us with a gift of a blackcurrant bush dug up from her Sandgate garden which was surplus to requirements.  We certainly have a place to put that!

Seeds sown this week were dill and chervil, peas for pea shoots as well as Mange tout peas, more radishes, beetroot, spring onions, lettuces and spinach.  The broccoli which failed the week before has been replaced by a new sprouting batch which will be thinned out this week to give them more room. 

The kale which had gone to flower last week was removed and the stalks composted, all the autumn raspberries were cut down to the ground as the new shoots are just starting to show through, (however, summer raspberries are not cut right back in this manner).  The enclosure containing the last of the wood chips was emptied, and the wood chips spread about on the paths. 

We are pleased to welcome Miracle to the garden, not quite our youngest member but certainly younger than most of us.  She is working on her Duke of Edinburgh award and has been busy sowing seeds and tending to the hop plants so far.  We hope she will enjoy her visits and gets to absorb what community gardening is all about. 

What’s next?

• Cut back the butterfly bush this week

• Pot up more seedlings just starting to appear, for relocation

• Tidy up the chard beds ready for their last fling

• Random onions still need removing from the Choke berry bushes

• Collect new hop twine and re-string the hops

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.