Now that the days are getting shorter, it is beginning to feel a little autumnal, and thoughts are turning to the last sowings of the year, harvesting and clearing away the summer crops, then getting all set for the winter months.  However the weather keeps trying to hang on to the summer and we are still watering and watering when you might hope we would get some respite.  It has been noted that the next time we plant the squashes and equally wandering courgettes, it would be a good idea to mark exactly where they are placed as it is notoriously difficult if next to impossible, to find where a plant begins in order to water the roots.  We often end up just watering the leaves and hoping for the best! 

The Goji berry plants, although still young and having put on plenty of growth seemed as if they would come to nothing.  This week they have suddenly come into flower and may yet surprise us with a berry or two – time will tell.  A photo of the flowers have been added below, they are quite delicate and interesting.  On the theme of flowers, the African marigolds have been superb (also shown below) and have given us so much colour.  Perhaps it was the flowers that attracted the nursery children from the Saga nursery, back to the garden this week.  We are pleased to welcome the children again into the garden with their teachers, so that they can collect flowers, graze on some of the fruits and vegetables and find out about where food comes from.  We cannot work with the children as we did before Covid for now, but we are delighted they have the garden as a resource for their learning.  Since the Covid rules for socialising have changed and we may be on the brink of further restrictions, we are going to have to ask all visitors to the garden to stay outside the fence whilst we are working on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.  We will position all available produce close to the gate for anybody coming to collect, and hope you will all understand we have to be careful and protect our gardeners.

The onion seeds have been sown; the last spinach plugs for the year have been planted, as has the coriander, leaving a few more pak choi, extra spinach plants and some spring cabbages to go in next week.  The last of the leaf mould has been removed from the leaf cage and added to the compost pile waiting to be spread on the beds, and newly fallen leaves are gradually being collected and starting to fill the leaf cage once more.  The brassicas liberated from the net cloches have certainly still been attacked by the cabbage white butterflies, and we have promised ourselves that next year we will be resorting to plan B as regards dealing with such brassica pests and investing in a tried and tested organic method which will be revealed as we get into spring next year.  The method of suspending a mesh above the purple sprouting is so far proving interesting, as they have suffered very little pest damage from either caterpillars or birds, but time will tell if they will fare better than the crop did last winter/spring.

Early on in the year, we applied to the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) to register the garden as part of the Community Gardening Awards.  At that time, the garden had been up and running for less than a year, and it was touch and go as to whether the awards would still go ahead with Covid happening.  Happily and surprisingly, we were given an ‘Advancing’ award, the categories being, ‘Establishing, Improving, Advancing, Thriving, and Outstanding’.  We still have a way to go for that ‘Outstanding’ award, and will be looking to how we can get there in the future.  In the meantime, we are considering the possibility of opening the garden for the National Garden Scheme – now there is another possibility, and plenty for us to be working on!

What’s next?

• Plant out last of spinach, and pak choi

• Plant out the first of the onion sowings – cover

• Continue to get strawberry compost out of the bags for adding to compost pile

• Keep watering

• Lay down fresh compost on beds being planted up with overwintering crops.

Below is a summary from Ray, our resident beekeeper, of the two hives we have in the Community Garden.

“A memorable year! As for the bees in the SAGA garden – a good year now comprising of 2 new honeybee colonies, a new local beekeeper now with a colony (Chris) but not one that has yielded any honey from our garden!

In summary – a small colony overwintered in Whittersham near Rye and right near the lead singer of Keane’s abode made its way to the SAGA garden in March this year.  The colony was poorly & needed to build in numbers to fill the main box where the queen resides which called the brood box.  This colony was rescued from a field over in Lenham in March 2019 and has been building nicely through the season and has filled the main brood box nicely and with the same queen. 

An additional colony was introduced in May of a package of imported bees from Tuscany, Italy.  SO, bring on the honey one may ask! 

At this point – it is worth highlighting the fact that the beekeeper’s role is limited to the quantity of making honey produced.  In short – bees produce honey for their survival and make surplus honey for the winter of which some can be extracted for sale as we know it. 

Now back to the garden – both colonies have been busy foraging locally and are currently busy with the main last forage of the season which is ivy.

The new colony arrived with a Buckfast mated queen from Tuscany and so the colony was set to go from strength to strength and stock of jars checked in June.  The bees collectively have a plan which on occasions differs from the plan of the beekeeper!  The indication being that the Buckfast bees were not happy with their queen and were making signs that meant that she would be replaced by them.  This is called supercedure and occurs with aged queens, poorly mated or damaged queens.  It ensures that a healthy queen head-up the colony by producing new cells that will produce a new queen – in fact two queens can happily cohabite in this case or swarm.  They chose the option to swarm but left us with a new queen cell which has subsequently hatched and is now busy laying eggs to become the winter workforce.  The colony has recovered nicely from this diversion and so back on track but not sufficiently to fill the honey jars ready at the CT20 bee-base!.

Both are being checked for required winter honey stores and treatment of varroa mite where seen necessary.

So, the aim has been achieved to end this beekeeping year with 2 healthy colonies in the SAGA garden site and strong enough to hopefully ensure our winter period and plan to get off to a bright 2021.

Chris has greatly enhanced her knowledge this season and with a little encouragement now a wonderful colony of Buckfast bees in a Beehause hive which has developed well and ready for the 2021 season.

Thank you from the SAGA Community Bee Team… we’ll BEE in touch!”

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We really appreciate having the bees resident in the garden as it just seems to make it complete. 

Below are some photographs taken by Ray of the bees foraging.

Very excited this week to be picking our hops for the great Hythe Hops weigh in.  The first of the ripe hops had to be picked on the same day and taken to a collection point.  The next hop picking day for any hop plants in the scheme that were not ready, are to be picked in two weeks.  We started late morning once the hops were dry from any morning dew, and it took three of us two hours to collect all the cones.  We seriously underestimated quite how many there were and how long it would take to pick them.  There were 2.120kgs which does not seem like very much until you remember that hops are just paper thin and very light.  The hops or cones were sticky, which is quite normal when ripe, and they had an amazing smell.

It has turned dry again in our Sandgate micro climate, where the rain clouds seem to bypass us and pour down elsewhere!  The greenhouse tragedy and lost plants has left us with a lull in the planting until, we hope, the new sowings can get going.  It is already starting to feel quite autumnal, and our thoughts are turning to the final plantings of 2020 in October, before the winter sets in.  We are keeping an eye on the long term weather forecast with a view to getting together as a group for an end of season outdoor picnic to reflect on how the year has gone and consider what changes we would like to make for next year, what to grow more of and perhaps less of something else not so popular.  The most beneficial thing we can do for the garden during the winter months is to take time to put down all the compost we have been making and collecting, currently piled up in every available space.  The woodchip paths will also be put down fresh again.

The leaf compost pile has been partially emptied.  Just made from collected fallen leaves last autumn, they have turned into the most amazing rich dark compost; perfect raspberry bed mulch.  So barrow after barrow was turned out onto our raspberry beds, and being woodland plants, they will just love it! The rest of the leaf compost is to be mixed with the other composts, leaving the leaf  cage empty, ready and waiting to be filled again with this year’s leaf fall in the park.

What’s next?

• Finish emptying the leaf cage, ready to start collecting newly fallen leaves.

• Still a few more onion seeds to be sown

• Keep an eye on the brassicas as they have been liberated from the mesh and may be attacked by cabbage whites.

• What is attacking some of the Chinese cabbages?

• Pick some sea buckthorn berries?