Tim Prater

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 1st May: Tomato down, fence up, bench built, but the rain is AWOL.

There is still no rain for Sandgate and very little promise of any on the horizon.  Apparently we had 21.1 mm of rain this month which must have come on the very first day or so, or crept in during one night! 

The plants have to really put down their roots to find any moisture in the soil and clearing any of the plots to make way for new plants is a fight.  Some of the roots and stems seem welded into the soil or set off in concrete, whilst others are sitting within a dust bowl; such is the difference between contrasting areas of the same garden.

The spinach from last autumn had gone to seed, and the parsley was trying to do the same, there are new plants of both and so the compost heap gained a deep new layer of vegetation.  The sweet peas got planted with two newly positioned wig-wams near the pond (where they are sheltered from the wind).  A liberal dollop of horse manure got added too, providing a mulch as well as fertiliser for such hungry plants.

An executive decision was made to plant the tomatoes this Saturday.  The temperatures are fine both day and night, but the wind can be a threat and so they have been netted just for a couple of weeks to get them settled in.  More will be planted this coming week, and we will start to plant in spaces along the wall.  The beans, courgettes and squashes are following along just a week or two behind them, so we have time to concentrate on one thing at a time. 

Concentration was certainly not happening when a complete idiot (me of course), managed to drop an entire tray of pots full of seedlings just on their way to be pricked out into larger pots.  Fortunately we had some patient and capable volunteer gardeners there, who carefully salvaged all they could from the situation, and seedlings were saved but many were lost.  Luckily, and on the very same day, Rosie turned up with donation plants she had grown and potted on at home for us.  Thank goodness for that. 

Thanks also go to Rosemary from the Romney Marsh community garden as she had even more seeds to share with us and a few plants for the Incredible Edible plant sale and seed swap which is next Saturday 7^th May from 10am to 2pm outside the United Response Community Network in Cheriton High Street.  If you are a keen gardener or looking to fill some spaces in the garden or house, then this is the event for you, and the place to get some terrific plants for a small donation.  We will be providing some potted herbs as well as spare tomato plants, courgettes and squashes if they hurry up and get a little bit bigger for the day.  We also have some garden plants and some of our very decorative tree spinach too. 

Always looking for recycled additions for our garden, Rita offered a beautiful slab of slate retrieved from a neighbour throwing it out from a house renovation.  We matched the slab up with some concrete blocks, hid them from view with strategically placed logs and we now have a new bench, just in front of the pond, a great place to have a sit and a chat, or a seat to work from.

We are indeed very fortunate at the garden for all the kind people who donate time, energy, or other gifts to make the garden what it is today.  A very special thank you to Paul for making such a fabulous job of the boundary fencing, now finished, it just looks terrific, and we are receiving many compliments on how good the Sandgate Community Garden is looking – now all we need is RAIN.

What’s next?

• Finish planting up the second tomato bed and start planting along the wall.

• Repot the winter squashes

• Clear some of the beds and prepare for replanting

• Check on the number of hop shoots per plant

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 24th April: Whatever happened to April showers?

There does not seem to have been any rain on the horizon for several weeks now, and any hint of rain on the weather forecast seems to pass over and come to nothing.  The ritual is on arrival at Enbrook garden, to poke a finger into the soil to determine if there is any moisture there, and if we have to water.  The new plantings have the priority along with plants in pots, then fast growers such as lettuces and pea shoots.  Everything else has to get on with it, and it is often surprising to find there is some moisture for more established plants to access deep down where their roots are encouraged to go to look for it.

This week we have had a major epiphany as regards watering at the Sandgate Community Garden in Enbrook.  Our water supply comes via a water bowser or tank and we hand water using watering cans which can take up to two hours to complete, what with all the trotting up and down plus waiting for the watering can to fill up if you are not fortunate enough that particular day to have a willing watering partner with you to load up the watering cans whilst you do all the trotting!  Not all our gardeners are capable of carrying heavy cans across the plot, so it comes down to a hardy few.  However, we have researched and invested in a battery operated water pump which is immersed into the bowser and pumps with decent water pressure some 25 meters up the plot.  It is now the best thing since sliced bread, although we still have a few things to iron out, such as getting the job done in half an hour before the battery runs out, and getting water to the rest of the plot beyond the hose/pump reach of 25 meters!  The trick might well be to position a small water butt at 25 meters and fill that using the pump which will then give us access to water at the other end of the plot and therefore makes for less trotting up and down.  Bingo!  We will get there, and work it all out eventually.

Paul, the Park grounds manager, has very kindly erected a stretch of fencing along the perimeter of the garden where we previously had put up (somewhat badly) fence posts and netting.  It is looking far superior to what we had before and it sets the garden off a treat.  All we can say is ‘thank you’ and very much appreciated.

We have also been very busy sowing beans, lots of flower seeds for the pollinators (well, and for us too), and repotting lots of tomato plants as well as courgettes and summer squashes.  Plants are being crammed into every available space in cold frames, and will have to be nurtured for another couple of weeks at least until it is deemed safe enough to put them outdoors to fend for themselves.  The temperatures are currently good, but the wind is still too strong for small tender plants and brings with it a chill factor.

The potatoes are earthed up every time we visit the plot, and as more tree spinach plants appear, they get moved into pots or left if they have appeared in the right place.  The hops are being trained to climb the strings and posts but we are pinching out some shoots if they have nowhere to go and restrict the number of hop bines. The autumn raspberries are doing their best to pop up as far as possible from the actual place they were originally planted, and have to be either cut down or repositioned.

The recently planted beautifully formed cabbages were discovered by pesky pigeons and had to be recovered, and the three newly planted rhubarb plants have been dug up and chewed, presumably by a foraging badger and had to be replanted and covered in the hope they might possibly re-sprout and not get bothered again.  We can only hope.

What’s next?

• Hundreds of seedlings to prick out and pot on

• Keep an eye on the mares tails pushing through

• Weed around the orchard areas

• Maybe set up a water butt half way along the plot?

• Keep pinching out the hop shoots not required.

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 17th April: As the weather improves, the planting gets going in earnest. Cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes, summer squashes and more.

The weather has remained considerably warmer, even at night, which has meant that the tomato plants can at last go outside into the cold frames where they will enjoy basking in the sunshine and really begin to put on some growth.  Some of them need repotting once again as they have started to climb out of their pots.  The courgettes and summer squashes sown last week have already popped up and are also outside in the frames.  This has meant we can start on the next phase of sowing the cucumbers and winter squashes which happened on our Saturday morning session along with some of the flowering annuals such as zinnias, cosmos and French marigolds.

The purple sprouting broccoli is coming to an end, with all the first broccoli spears picked, it may have time to produce a few more smaller offerings, but it is soon to be replaced by the tomatoes or perhaps the courgettes.  Last year there was not enough space given over to the tomatoes, squashes and courgettes, so they ended up being squeezed into other beds and in any available pocket of soil.  This year will be different and they will take pride of place – which in turn will make it so much easier to water them when you know where they are!  Always a juggling act to plan and consider what is popular to grow and what needs space.

The last of the spring onions got pulled to make room for more beetroot, some slug chewed cabbages replaced by spares (always useful to keep a few by), more radishes, pea shoots, chard and spinach picked.  The potatoes were only earthed up for the first time on Wednesday as they had appeared above ground, yet had to be earthed up once more on Saturday they had started to romp away and show through the soil again.

Last year we grew some tree spinach for the first time with startling electric pink new leaves just great for brightening any salad.  When you grow this spinach, and let it flower, then you have to accept it will remain with you from then on, and pop up all over the plot.  It is now starting to do just that and will need coaxing into the right spots to grow them on.  Not to be outdone, the parsnips have also just started to show under a sheet of fleece, they can take several weeks to make an appearance.

Rosemary (from New Romney community garden and prolific seed saver) got in contact with us again offering more seeds which we might be interested in growing.  We are looking forward to visiting the Romney Marsh garden sometime soon!

We have some new labels around the garden for some of the beds as pictured below.  Before now we have used large pebbles and slate found in the locality, but now wooden cut offs, rescued from the bin have been painted and brought into use; and we hope it will make it a little easier to identify what we have growing.

What’s next?

• Repot some of the tomatoes we are keeping as they have more weeks to grow in them

• Keep watering the newly planted plant plugs as well as the fast growing salad leaves

• Pot up some tree spinach for other areas

• Plant some tree spinach where we want them

• Guide the hops up the strings and pinch out the spares

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 10th April: Our helpers are unstoppable by weather, lorries and fuel shortages.

The changing weather continued to bring challenges this week.  We had to cancel a working party from the Napier Barracks as the weather was just simply too wet and cold.  The following day we were being joined by a working party from Saga.  Saga are keen for their work force to volunteer to support and work with local groups, so we made plans a couple of weeks ago to organise a compost collection from Hope Farm, and for the Saga volunteers to help us unload.

It was not the weather that caused issues, but the ongoing problems we are experiencing on our roads, affected by the thousands of lorries stuck at the crossings.  Ever optimistic that all would be fine and we could continue with our plans, in reality it was not going to happen. Once it also became clear there was no fuel either locally, it was game over!  In the meantime, our enthusiastic team from Saga had battled their way to the meeting point and raring to go so we changed tack and resorted to plan B.

Plan B happened to be plan A from the soggy day before, so all was not lost.  Thank goodness the weather was fine, sunny but breezy, not too cold.  We started by mulching part of the new orchard at Sandgate Park, then moved on to Fremantle Park where we planted perennial flowering plants and fruit bushes in the orchard and in the sloped flower border on the other side of the park.  We had a most delicious lunch made in the kitchens of Touchbase Care in Tontine Street, which we ate outside at the park making good use of the lovely new picnic benches recently installed there…….. brilliant.  After that outstanding lunch we made our way to the Golden Valley shopping car park to weed all around the planters and in them too.  In the autumn we had planted some bulbs which are now flowering, the most popular being the sweetest and tiniest narcissi ever seen, certainly by all of us.  We are grateful to Saga for their hardworking volunteers, and look forward to working with more of them sometime soon.

Some of our ‘to do’ list from last week did get done, but several other tasks came along which needed tackling.  The first compost bin was full to bursting and needed to be turned into bin number two in order to make some room; however to be able to do that, bin number two had to be turned into bin three.  Another pressing task was the fact that we have many plants waiting to be large enough to be planted out, and needing potting on into larger pots to enable them to be able to get larger.  However we did manage to make a start on sowing the courgettes and summer squashes.  More spring onions got planted as did parsley, and more new rhubarb roots in a new bed.  The carrot seedlings have made an appearance at last but we are still to welcome the parsnips.

What’s next?

• Rebook another compost run

• Make new signs for Fremantle and Golden Valley

• Transfer tomato plants to the cold frames when it is warm and sunny, but keep indoors at night still.

• Sow annual flowers

• Start sowing cucumbers and winter squashes.

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.