There were some lovely episodes of sunshine during this week and a very gradual rise in temperature.  The main preoccupation of the week was to water, water and water, with no rain, and none on the horizon.  The raspberry patch got staked, the sweet peas planted, along with more lettuces to fill any gaps.  Celery, celeriac, sweet corn and all the courgettes and squashes got sown.  Dozens of tomato plants have been handed out to our volunteer gardeners to grow at home, and lots of coriander and parsley got potted up to donate to the Incredible Edible seed swap and plant sale.

The sale held on Saturday was a resounding success, raising an amazing £302.17, all of which will go towards more plantings of fruit, vegetables and herbs in the locality.  Whilst contemplating raising funds, we are getting ready to release all our spare tomato plants on Wednesday 21^st April, this coming Wednesday, at the garden in Enbrook Park; we also have pots of mint, as well as some young plants of coriander and Parsley.  Please come along and support us if you can – any plants not taken on Wednesday will be available next Saturday, also at the garden.  All proceeds will go towards the various projects we have around Sandgate, with a ‘BIG plant up’ of all the areas we look after being planned for the first week or two in May IF the weather continues to improve.

Although it has been so cold, we did manage to pick our first radishes which were very welcome, and although the frost and snow finished off many of the flowering tender plants from last year, we can see evidence of their scattered seeds starting to come through; some of us are getting very good at identifying weeds to pull and what to leave.  In particular the self-sown violas are looking quite spectacular.

For some time now we have been in contact with the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway to get ourselves onto their list of causes to benefit from access to used railway sleepers at a much reduced rate.  Their yard has been closed during the Covid lockdown, but this week they have opened the yard, and we collected 100 of their small scale used railway sleepers which will be just perfect to edge paths and keep piles of compost and woodchip tidy.  It seemed that 100 sleepers would go a long way but we have already used over 50 at Fremantle Park without even trying! 

What’s next?

• Pot up all the tomato plants for the Enbrook garden

• Pot up plants for the sale

• Continue to water new seedlings

• Plant the potatoes

• Sow the cucumbers and chard

• Edge the compost and woodchip piles with sleepers!

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• Make new bed at Fremantle for flowering annuals