This seems to be the first week we have started to feel the cold whilst working in the gardens, and late autumn is really upon us.  The rainfall for October was 106.6mm, a fair amount which mostly seemed to arrive just when you are busy outdoors!  So it was at the dismantling of the planter at the Re-rooting exhibition, and by the time we had transferred it to Cheriton we were soaked.  A big ‘thank you’ to Erica for using her car to transport the planter, and all the time she spent helping. 

The rain does come in handy when you are planting beds however, and the broad beans are in their new homes, as well as some of the garlic, with more to be planted out next week.  Some tulips and daffodils for spring colour got planted in some of our large pots, the hedge got a trimming, and we are starting to cut back many of the perennial plants in the flower garden.  One of our volunteers decided the banana tree should be wrapped up for the winter, and time will tell if it needed it or not! 

Even though we are into November, we are seeing the brassicas still being eaten by new hatchings of caterpillars – unbelievable!  The kale bed was looking somewhat diminished and it became clear that it was under attack from pigeons as the leaves were showing the tell-tale signs where the flesh of the leaves is stripped leaving the main veins behind, and so it will be sensible to start netting all the brassicas before they disappear.  On Saturday it was noticed that there were a great many ladybirds around too, possibly making their last searches for food before they find suitable crevices to hibernate for the winter.

Some of our volunteers love the community garden WhatsApp groups, and have been sharing pictures of what they have made using some of our produce, as well as recipe ideas.  A couple of the pictures are featured below.  It is always interesting to see what different people come up with.

It is with great excitement that we can now mention a project initiated by the Sandgate Parish Council for the Sandgate Park off Military Road, and Fremantle Park, in Fremantle Road.  To commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, as part of The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) our community is being asked to help plant an orchard of 12 trees within each park mentioned, on Saturday 13^th November at 2pm in Sandgate Park, and Sunday 14^th November at 2pm in Fremantle Park. * We will be planting apple trees, pear, cherry, plum, and cob nut, so if you would like to come along and be a part of this community event, then contact us, Sandgate Community Garden, through our social media platforms, via email sandgatecg@gmail.com or text Leonie on 07840138308.

[ * UPDATE 11/11/2021: The Fruit trees will not be available from the supplier for this weekend, so the planting is postponed until further notice. Thanks to all those that said they would help, and we’ll update again when we have the trees!]

Many hands make light work, and before we know it we will be enjoying and sharing the fruit from the trees hopefully for several years to come, so get in touch and be involved.

What’s next?

• Finish planting the beans, garlic and onions

• Continue the bulb planting

• Net the brassicas

• Weed along the wall

• Plant the orchards!

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We have always agreed in our garden WhatsApp group that should it be blowing a hooly or tipping down with rain on one of our designated gardening days then we would throw in the towel and not turn up.  On Saturday it was blowing and tipping at the same time, so that was that.  The site being rather exposed, at the far end of the park with no shelter or even anywhere nearby to take cover and wait until the worst passes, means you have to take the plunge and make a decision when the weather is dodgy.  All the same, the garden is always open for anybody to access from dawn till dusk and so if the gardening urge is too great to resist, then some of our gardeners can be found therapeutically weeding or deadheading whenever they feel compelled to do so.

Happily, the Wednesday session was reasonably fair, and there was a great number of volunteers making short work of our ‘to do’ list. We picked kale, salad leaves, chard, spinach, winter radishes and leeks, moved compost around to prepare some of the empty beds for re-planting, and the leaf compost bin got emptied.  The leaf compost was collected last autumn – fallen leaves were raked up from the grass and picked up from the plot and the pond, to be left to rot down for the year in the assigned compost area. 

This seems to be the first week that the autumn colours have started to show on the trees, that is the leaves that are left, as there are few leaves to compost so far, most seem to have been blown away!  Someone somewhere must be piled high with our leaves wherever they have been blown to, and we may not have many to compost this year.

The climate is quite different at Fremantle Park, with shelter from the wind, and the ground seems to collect more moisture sitting within a dip.  All the gardeners that volunteer there met up last Sunday to weed and tidy the plots and pathways, put fresh compost down and share which crops did well for them.  It was interesting to find we have a phantom planter, as nobody confessed to establishing a line of fabulously flowering osteospernum plants along the outer path edge.  So obviously we have a secret and shy gardener who would be welcome to join us if they made themselves known!

We are still establishing the slope within Fremantle Park, and gradually removing brambles and shrub runners as they try to reappear, with the view to putting some fruit bushes and more flowering plants there in 2022.  The strip of annuals we planted in the spring have made a lovely display and on looking to see if it needed cutting back and removing, although a trifle battered, was still full of flower and alive with bees, so we have left it and probably will not remove anything now until the first frost or the plants give up the ghost themselves, whichever comes first.  Rita, our queen of plant propagation and flower seed sowing, planted some donated iris roots and perennial wallflower plants she had grown from cuttings – something the bees just love!

Talking of donations, the Hyth Hops group got in touch with offerings of free beer from Hopfuzz and Docker brewery, a can or bottle from each brewer to all hop growers to say thank you for the donated hops grown within the collective.  In true community spirit, all the gardener names were entered into a lucky dip, and two were chosen to be the lucky recipients.  There are cans of ‘red-green hop’ available in the Sandgate village shop if you are still yet to sample some of the fresh ‘green hop’ brews.

Still on the subject of donations and especially community spirit, we are pleased to advertise and take part in an event on Saturday 20^th November 11am to 3pm at the Radnor Park Bowls Club, called ‘Disco Soup’.  The idea is to take part in transforming surplus food into a community feast, and activities will include apple pressing, learning how to fement food in jars, and various craft stalls.  A great day for the family, and a wonderful way of using food which may otherwise have gone to landfill.  See the poster below for more information and how to take part.

What’s next?

• Dismantle the fringe exhibition

• Start planting the broad beans

• See if there is space available for other things

• We have bulbs to plant for the spring

• Keep checking on the plants in the cold frames Still weeding and cutting back to be done

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This week seems to have been all about ‘almost’, ‘not quite’ and ‘maybe’.

It is difficult to pinpoint, but along with the changing of the weather and the season, there is a shift in how our volunteers are having to arrange their free time to fit in with a change in work patterns, trying to grab a holiday before winter sets in, visiting or being visited by friends and family.  There has been a sprinkling of ill health, medical procedures, and various ‘jabs’ of one sort or another topped with a bit of COVID ‘pinging’ just to add to the mix.  We have had some new faces too, which is refreshing, and always interesting to know why people seek us out and want to come along.  The good news is we are a friendly bunch!   

We have been in talks for some time to try to get access to a supply of good compost.  We established contact with a farm just outside Folkestone where they actually make compost to put on their own fields and sell the remainder to other farms in Kent.  The farm owners are keen to support us by bringing a large trailer load of the ‘black gold’, however, at the last leg we got scuppered by the fact that their enormous tractor is too large to gain access to the tipping site.  Not knowing anybody in the locality with a spare smaller tractor or transport happy or able enough to help us out, we find ourselves back to square one until we can find a solution to the dilemma. Oh well!

We have managed to complete the ‘what’s next?’ list – the onion sets and garlic all got planted, the remaining mustard plants were nestled into some mushroom crates and housed in the cold frames, and will now be spending their time under cover until the spring returns.  The flowering plants and seeds are being looked after with the view that they will be planted or sown and in place for next year, wherever that may be, in Sandgate.  The tree leaves are starting to fall in greater numbers now, mostly bypassing the autumnal riot of colour and simply dropping.  So begins the prolonged clear up, not forgetting that they are a useful resource and go straight to the compost bin as lying around on top of some of the leafy growing crops like spinach or chard can make them start to rot and encourage slugs or snails which we have in plentiful supply as it is.  In fact the appearance of many a hole in the various crops verifies just how warm and wet it continues to be.  It all goes to show how organic we are though, and accepting that you have to share your food with insects, wild animals and molluscs, although it is never good to find something sharing at the same time!

Talking of sharing, we are sharing our words of wisdom and experiences in the garden with Explore Kent.  Their website can be found here Get Out and Explore Kent – Explore Kent and we were asked to send some pictures of the garden and contribute autumnal and wintery ‘blogs’ on what we are up to and all that  can be done in the garden.  There is always plenty to be done during the colder months and quite amusing when the assumption is that we will be ‘shutting down’ for the winter to then re-open again in the spring. 

What’s next?.

• Plenty of leaves to pick up and compost

• Plenty of weeding to be done along the wall and behind the posts

• Plenty of compost to shift from one place to another

• Still plenty of crops to be picked after sharing with the wildlife

• Can we fit in some onions between the fennel bulbs?

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Have you ever wondered what happens to the town’s bedding plants when the season is finished?  We certainly have, and made some enquiries with Folkestone and Hythe horticultural department that carry out all the summer and winter floral displays all around the area from the parks to the street planters.

Most of the plants are annuals, which means after their display, they are literally exhausted and finished, fit only to be composted.  Some of the plants are perennials and can survive all year and come back to flower once again.  These were the plants we were interested in, as there were quite a few of them from dahlias to verbenas, gazanias and salvias.  It seems that most of the plants are removed from the beds and reused which is good news.  We were concerned that these plants might also end up on the compost heap and were keen to rescue them if that were indeed the case, and put them to good use in some of the areas we are looking after.

However, having removed all the plants the council decided that they did indeed have a few too many perennials left and offered them to us.  Always keen to save valuable resources, we jumped at the opportunity, and liberated several plants which we shared with the Incredible Edible team.  Many thanks to Folkestone and Hythe Council for thinking of us for these spare plants, and you never know, after planting out the winter bedding, there might be the possibility of a leftover plant or two – you never know!  The great thing about gardening is that nature is the master of recycling, and nothing is wasted.  Plants give their all by flowering or providing fruit/vegetables, and even when finished make the best compost, and the cycle continues. 

Talking of compost, our compost heaps all got turned this week, which was warm work!  Bin 3 which contains the finished compost got turned out and put onto empty beds, whilst bin 2 was turned into the now empty bin 3.  Bin 1 was full to bursting with all the new waste from veg peelings to finished plants, and got turned into bin 2, leaving an empty bin 1.  By Saturday, bin 1 was half full again, but you can be sure that by the time we return for our garden session on Wednesday the compost will have started to rot down and make some more room!  Turning the compost gives an opportunity to mix the ingredients together for a perfect end result – too wet, then add some brown or dry ingredients, too dry then mix with green (wet) ingredients.  Always interesting to see the compost wildlife, especially the worms, hard at work.

As well as flexing some muscles turning the compost, the onion sets and garlic got planted, and hundreds of broad beans sown in anticipation of an early crop next year.  Planting or sowing into modules has given us time to empty some of the beds over the next month or so and cover them with a new layer of compost to benefit all the plants in that bed for the next year. 

As the days are starting to shorten, the garden is entering a new phase in preparation for the winter to come.  The dominant summer planting making way for the hardy autumn and winter crops.  Leafy chard, spinach, cabbage, kale and sprouting broccoli alongside the roots of swede, celeriac, and parsnips.  Their time is about to come, and some first pickings have been made.  These plants enjoy a slower pace unlike their summer predecessors, often maturing at different rates with an ability to be left in the ground or on the plant until required.  A useful state in a family allotment, but probably not appreciated in a community garden where the demands on fresh vegetables is at a premium – no time for storing or biding time, unless the destination is a jar of chutney or frozen meal of course!

What’s next?

• Search out more planting boxes for the cold frames

• Finish planting last of the onion sets

• Check on seeds needing sowing in the autumn for flower beds/herbs

• Start clearing fallen leaves

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