Tim Prater

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 7th July: Parts of the garden are starting to take on a jungle appearance.

The rainfall for June was 17.5 mm.  We are now into July and most of us have given up trying to predict what the weather is going to do as it swings from being chilly and windy to bucketing down with rain to glorious sunshine.  It is a proper rollercoaster.

Most things in the garden are coping well, and currently the weeds are coping far too well, popping up all over the place.  In fact parts of the garden are starting to take on a jungle appearance.  The pond has nearly disappeared, surrounded by growth, and where the herb garden is we can no longer see the bench although we know it is there somewhere! 

The slipper gourds got planted with the cucumbers; the Siberian kale, cabbages and Romanesco cauliflowers also got planted out.  The purple sprouting got pricked out into modules, and more got sown.  The tomatoes have been throwing out loads of side shoots which had to be removed apart from the Roma variety which never seems to like to conform to being a cordon tomato and insists on doing its own thing.  The chives collected for seed sowing, got sown into modules, with plenty left to carry on into next year.  Swiss chard, more coriander and parsley got sown.

The sweet corn is growing well amongst the winter squashes and is currently of no interest to the badgers until they develop their cobs.  However the badgers have been in the beetroot patch and chomped the roots, neatly leaving the stalks and leaves in a pile where they were growing.  We are not going to let them know that the cabbages this year are so delicious and sweet, and luckily they have never taken any notice of the spring onions – thank goodness!

What’s Next?

• Sow some radicchio

• Clear the beetroot bed and pea bed – prepare for replanting

• Repot some of the pot plants

• Clear some of the Quaker grass from around the pond

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 30th June: Regenerative farming today, from the politics, to the science, to the everyday practicalities.

The longest day has gone and we are hurtling into July, but luckily it has begun to feel like summer and at last the summer plantings are starting to respond to the warmth and sunshine.  We have stepped up the watering, and so the sweet corn, beans and squashes are putting on new growth fast.  The netting previously put over the beans to protect them when newly planted has now been removed as the flowers are just starting to appear and the insects will need to get to them.

The broad beans have now been stripped and removed, then a thin layer of compost added to the surface of the now empty plots in preparation for replanting as soon as possible.  We planted a few more dwarf beans, spring onions, kale and a few lettuces.  The intention was to plant out the slipper gourds too but we ran out of time and that task will have to be put forward to next week.

On Monday a couple of us were invited to see a flagship composting site in Cambridgeshire run by Envar Composting Ltd.  We thought that Hope farm composting set up was huge enough but this was something else again!  We were grateful to some of the staff tasked with showing us around the site telling us about everything they compost there.  It is so very interesting to be able to see how waste is dealt with on such a scale compared to anything we compost.

Groundswell, the regenerative farming festival, took place this week in Hitchin.  There were two whole days of innovative, fascinating talks on the up to date situation with regenerative farming today, from the politics, to the science, to the everyday practicalities.  It can be difficult to imagine how farming at scale can be compared with our tiny gardens, however it was entirely relevant in so many ways, and in fact there were many of our garden friends we have met along our gardening journey there too such as the farmers from Pent Farm, Rupert from Shelvin farm where we got our last delivery of compost, Rebel Farmer Ed, and plenty of other compost nerds we have made friends with.  There are now many new ideas to investigate and consider trying.

One of our gardeners, Theresa, has been working extremely hard on a project to bring a festival of theatre and comedy to Folkestone.  There are 33 shows with actors and stand up comics throughout the weekend of 12^th-14^th July at the Quarterhouse theatre and Grand Burstin Hotel.  Check out www.folkestonelive.com for more information and to buy tickets.  Hope to see you there!

What’s next?

• Really must plant the slipper gourds

• Plant out more Siberian kale

• Prick out the purple sprouting

• Sow more purple sprouting

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 23rd June: The potatoes not eaten by the badgers, and the figs are swelling.

Well, it looks like we might have finally turned some sort of weather corner, and can finally look forward to a spell of decent sunshine and warmer temperatures.  Of course that always means that we have to get out the watering cans so it is a mixed blessing.

On Monday there was quite a gathering at the garden when we had a large visitation from the Napier barracks to celebrate volunteer week.  Luckily the ‘Friends of Napier’ brought with them oodles of lovely cake, so by the time the lads had managed to empty our two newly delivered ton bags of compost and barrow it all up the hill into the garden, the cake was out and waiting for them to finish.  It must have only taken them about an hour if that!  Thank goodness too as it would have taken us ages to have done, and it means we can start to empty some of the plots and put down new compost before the next crop goes in.

Apparently the badgers in the park are very active at the moment.  One of our gardeners living close by has had a badger getting into her compost bin, probably after anything edible plus the worms.  Badgers have also been visiting us and decided to have a go at the potato crop.  They crashed about in the foliage digging up several spuds, chewed up lots and left a proper mess.  So it was we decided it might be wise to take up the entire potato crop because no barrier will be enough to keep out a badger if their mind is set to get in there and make a meal of something.  Many of the crop were quite small and could have done with some more time to grow but it was either harvest now or possibly lose the lot.

We were delighted to notice that the fig tree is showing a good amount of fruit which is starting to swell.  We shall look forward to trying to beat the birds to them later on in the season.

We got some more beetroot planted and the first of the kale is in and netted from the cabbage white butterflies, not that there have been any to notice.  In fact many folk are saying that there is a distinct lack of insects, even worse than last year.

Thinking of the state of nature, it was reassuring to see so many folk from Folkestone boarding the train on Saturday morning to go up to central London to take part in a huge demonstration called ‘restore nature now’.  With an election just around the corner, it will be interesting to see if come 5^th July when it is all over, if any of the protests have been heard.

What’s next?

• Clear the broad bean beds and refresh with compost

• Plant out more kale varieties

• Plant out the slipper gourds

• Weed the tomato bed – be careful of the basil in there!

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.