Tim Prater

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 28th April: The wet and cold has been perfect for the slug and snail population.

How can it be possible that we will be in the month of May in a few days?  It managed to get even colder during the nights this past week, and it was not until the weekend that temperatures have improved a little but brought rain again. It will be good to be warmer, but it is the sunshine we really need to get the plants growing.  The wet and cold has been perfect for the slug and snail population, making short work of most of the calabrese, peas and cabbages.  Luckily we had a few spare plants, and having a network of other growers means that we can swap seedlings and hopefully help each other out if things fail.

Talking of friends, the ‘Friends of Napier barracks’ helped us out this week by bringing some volunteers to Fremantle Park to help start to clear the small orchard there.  It has been so very wet at the park this winter that it is still impossible to cut the grass there and our growing areas are also saturated making it difficult to do much there.  However the plants and especially the weeds are taking over.  We have our work cut out to make it presentable, but we have made a start.

We pricked out yet more seedlings this week so that the two greenhouses at Pent farm are full to bursting!  More courgettes and squashes got sown to replace those eaten by a rogue mouse, and we even decided to sow some sweetcorn, thinking that we might well give it a try again this year despite the badgers.  It was feared that some of the seeds not eaten by rodents might have rotted in their pots before they had a chance to sprout but we were pleased to see just this past couple of days that many have indeed survived and are just starting to appear.

Most of the rhubarb has been growing well, but a couple of them have started to produce flowers already which is not a good thing when it comes to the production of rhubarb stalks, and so they were quickly removed before they got any bigger.  Most of the flowers we are of course delighted to see within the garden however it seems we are inundated by bluebells this year, many of which we shall have to remove just as soon as they are finished.  Happily they are not English bluebells but of the Spanish variety.  Nice to see them but they are taking up precious space.  Other flowers in full bloom this week are the calendulas, honeywort or cerinthe, and borage.  The lovely bright green of the oregano leaves makes for a good display too, and we are amazed at how fast the hops are starting to romp their way up the strings and supports.

What’s next?

• There are still beds to clear and compost to put down

• There is lots of lemon balm to remove

• Last push to get out all the sycamore seedlings

• Might be time to take out the purple sprouting

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 21st April: We must have pricked out more than three hundred marigold seedlings this week.

We were all feeling quite optimistic last week that the weather had taken a turn for the better and it was going to get warmer.  Unfortunately that did not last too long before we were back to showers and biting cold winds again, with no respite on the horizon for at least a week!

We have the luxury of sheltering our tender plants such as the tomatoes in a greenhouse on Pent Farm, however the growing pace has slowed down and some of them are showing signs of being too cold as there is no heating.  At times the temperature has gone down to four degrees during the night.  You can see from a picture below that the indigo tomatoes (a black variety) on the left, are showing their true colour, which they would not do ordinarily.  Our fingers are crossed that they can survive and perhaps pick up again soon.  It makes you realise how precarious it can be growing food at times because to lose all of our tomato stock at this stage would be not quite disastrous, because we do not have to rely on the food we grow, but a real shame.  There is nothing finer than home grown tomatoes picked fresh from the plant.

Another issue with greenhouse growing is that mice have an amazing ability to be able to get inside somehow, and find the more substantial seeds such as squashes and courgettes.  So it is that we shall have to sow more seeds found and eaten in this way.  There is always something that wants to eat whatever you are growing.  Remember this fact when buying fruit or vegetables from the supermarket how much in the way of chemicals have gone into producing that perfect product and the cost to wildlife and the soil.

We must have pricked out more than three hundred marigold seedlings this week for both Pent Farm and Enbrook.  Used as a companion plant, they add great colour to a site and can be as tough as old boots once they get going, able to flower until the first frosts.  There were also lots of zinnias and cosmos to tackle too and still plenty more that need potting on later next week.  One of the pictures below shows a nasturtium plant growing merrily away at the end of one of our compost bins.  The seed must have been composted but had the conditions to sprout and grow on probably because of all the rain.

What’s next?

• Still jobs carried over from last week such as lemon balm removal and repotting the pot plants.

• Prick out more seedlings

• Take out the last of the celeriac

• Put some compost on a couple of beds

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.