Tim Prater

After the great excitement of announcing the big plant up of several fruit trees in the Sandgate and Fremantle Parks, the bad news is we got let down on the readiness of the trees for this weekend, and so the planting had to be cancelled.  Apparently they should be ready this coming week and so we are hoping to plant the trees in Sandgate Park on Sunday morning at 10.30 am, and in Fremantle Park on Sunday afternoon at 2 pm.  Here is one of the pitfalls of buying bare rooted trees in that they have to be planted soon after collection or risk drying out the root system.  Let us hope there are no problems this week! 

Get in touch if you would like to help, through our Instagram or Facebook pages, via this email, or text Leonie on 07840138308.

The good news is that we have COMPOST from Hope Farm in Hawkinge!  You may recall we had a setback in being able to receive the compost as the tractors on the farm are simply too large to be able to access the dropping off site, so we had to hire a drop side truck for the day and go and collect it ourselves.  It was incredibly interesting at the farm especially if you are a compost nerd, and appreciate the processes required in the making.  Hope Farm takes in all the green waste from several council re-cycling centres, and processes the waste themselves into compost; 50% is spread on their own farm, and the rest is taken to several farms around Kent.  None of the compost is sold commercially; it only goes to Kent farms.

Hope Farm have been most kind in agreeing to support the garden and allow us to have compost free of charge, and we are indeed most grateful as although we make as much of our own compost as we can, we cannot make enough for our needs and have to buy supplies which have been spiralling in price over the past year or so.

The compost making farm is constantly busy, with huge trucks delivering garden waste where it starts the conversion process by being taken into a huge shed with a conveyor belt and large stones, plastics and metals are removed – basically everything that is not going to break down.  Large bits of wood are shredded, and the material, now made smaller, is laid out in a massive yard in long, mountainous lines where it gets turned by machinery, and the moisture content monitored.  It was a cool day when we visited the farm, and the heat given off by the compost could be seen in large plumes over the top of the buildings.  The finished product takes eight weeks, but it is still too active for our garden.  When we went to move and bag up some of the compost on Saturday morning, following collection, it felt very warm in the middle of the pile, and when bagged up, the bags were very warm to the touch.  We can use some of the compost now on older or mature plants, but not for young plants or seedlings.  We will need to leave the compost to mature over the winter and early spring in a pile, just to let it finish the natural chemical reaction of decomposition, and allow the bacteria and minibeasts to multiply there.

The drop side truck we hired for the day had a 1.5 ton limit, and so the farm workers had to calculate how much compost to drop into the back from a gigantic bulldozer.  Our truck was weighed on a weighing bridge before and after the collection to make sure we were not overloaded, and we were issued with a ticket, a requirement so that we can prove our load has been monitored.  We were able to make three collections until we ran out of muscle power back at Enbrook Park.  All very easy to collect the stuff, but back at the park it was a case of having to shovel and push the stuff off our truck.  There were six of us in total to help with this task, but special thanks go to Greg, Antony and Ed who answered the SOS from the Sandgate Society to lend a hand, which was very much appreciated.  We are now the proud owners of a rather large pile of lovely compost which will be put to use already this coming week for a couple of jobs!

All that only took a day to complete, but other things did get done too this week.  The alleyway between Chichester Road and Meadowbrook got cleared, more bulbs planted, particularly at Golden Valley; the last of the broad bean seedlings found themselves in a comfy bed, and just a few more sown in case of any casualties.  The last of the garlic and onions got planted, lots and lots of fallen leaves picked up and composted.   Weeds got weeded although this will be ongoing as now the hops and raspberries have diminished, those cheeky weeds hiding amongst their stems are suddenly in view and larger than life so will have to go before they take over!

Remember, plenty going on next weekend, 20^th and 21^st November – Disco Soup at the Bowls Club at Radnor Park, a great day out for all the family, and a fabulous, community orientated way to use excess food which might have ended up as landfill.  On Sunday we hope to be planting fruit trees subject to them being ready, get in touch if you are interested so we can keep you informed.

What’s next?

• Mulch the alleyway where the ground has now been cleared

• Bag up more compost for tree planting

• Few more bulbs to plant

• Cut back the hops and mulch

• Keep weeding and tidying

• Tree planting on Sunday..?

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This seems to be the first week we have started to feel the cold whilst working in the gardens, and late autumn is really upon us.  The rainfall for October was 106.6mm, a fair amount which mostly seemed to arrive just when you are busy outdoors!  So it was at the dismantling of the planter at the Re-rooting exhibition, and by the time we had transferred it to Cheriton we were soaked.  A big ‘thank you’ to Erica for using her car to transport the planter, and all the time she spent helping. 

The rain does come in handy when you are planting beds however, and the broad beans are in their new homes, as well as some of the garlic, with more to be planted out next week.  Some tulips and daffodils for spring colour got planted in some of our large pots, the hedge got a trimming, and we are starting to cut back many of the perennial plants in the flower garden.  One of our volunteers decided the banana tree should be wrapped up for the winter, and time will tell if it needed it or not! 

Even though we are into November, we are seeing the brassicas still being eaten by new hatchings of caterpillars – unbelievable!  The kale bed was looking somewhat diminished and it became clear that it was under attack from pigeons as the leaves were showing the tell-tale signs where the flesh of the leaves is stripped leaving the main veins behind, and so it will be sensible to start netting all the brassicas before they disappear.  On Saturday it was noticed that there were a great many ladybirds around too, possibly making their last searches for food before they find suitable crevices to hibernate for the winter.

Some of our volunteers love the community garden WhatsApp groups, and have been sharing pictures of what they have made using some of our produce, as well as recipe ideas.  A couple of the pictures are featured below.  It is always interesting to see what different people come up with.

It is with great excitement that we can now mention a project initiated by the Sandgate Parish Council for the Sandgate Park off Military Road, and Fremantle Park, in Fremantle Road.  To commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, as part of The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) our community is being asked to help plant an orchard of 12 trees within each park mentioned, on Saturday 13^th November at 2pm in Sandgate Park, and Sunday 14^th November at 2pm in Fremantle Park. * We will be planting apple trees, pear, cherry, plum, and cob nut, so if you would like to come along and be a part of this community event, then contact us, Sandgate Community Garden, through our social media platforms, via email sandgatecg@gmail.com or text Leonie on 07840138308.

[ * UPDATE 11/11/2021: The Fruit trees will not be available from the supplier for this weekend, so the planting is postponed until further notice. Thanks to all those that said they would help, and we’ll update again when we have the trees!]

Many hands make light work, and before we know it we will be enjoying and sharing the fruit from the trees hopefully for several years to come, so get in touch and be involved.

What’s next?

• Finish planting the beans, garlic and onions

• Continue the bulb planting

• Net the brassicas

• Weed along the wall

• Plant the orchards!

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We have always agreed in our garden WhatsApp group that should it be blowing a hooly or tipping down with rain on one of our designated gardening days then we would throw in the towel and not turn up.  On Saturday it was blowing and tipping at the same time, so that was that.  The site being rather exposed, at the far end of the park with no shelter or even anywhere nearby to take cover and wait until the worst passes, means you have to take the plunge and make a decision when the weather is dodgy.  All the same, the garden is always open for anybody to access from dawn till dusk and so if the gardening urge is too great to resist, then some of our gardeners can be found therapeutically weeding or deadheading whenever they feel compelled to do so.

Happily, the Wednesday session was reasonably fair, and there was a great number of volunteers making short work of our ‘to do’ list. We picked kale, salad leaves, chard, spinach, winter radishes and leeks, moved compost around to prepare some of the empty beds for re-planting, and the leaf compost bin got emptied.  The leaf compost was collected last autumn – fallen leaves were raked up from the grass and picked up from the plot and the pond, to be left to rot down for the year in the assigned compost area. 

This seems to be the first week that the autumn colours have started to show on the trees, that is the leaves that are left, as there are few leaves to compost so far, most seem to have been blown away!  Someone somewhere must be piled high with our leaves wherever they have been blown to, and we may not have many to compost this year.

The climate is quite different at Fremantle Park, with shelter from the wind, and the ground seems to collect more moisture sitting within a dip.  All the gardeners that volunteer there met up last Sunday to weed and tidy the plots and pathways, put fresh compost down and share which crops did well for them.  It was interesting to find we have a phantom planter, as nobody confessed to establishing a line of fabulously flowering osteospernum plants along the outer path edge.  So obviously we have a secret and shy gardener who would be welcome to join us if they made themselves known!

We are still establishing the slope within Fremantle Park, and gradually removing brambles and shrub runners as they try to reappear, with the view to putting some fruit bushes and more flowering plants there in 2022.  The strip of annuals we planted in the spring have made a lovely display and on looking to see if it needed cutting back and removing, although a trifle battered, was still full of flower and alive with bees, so we have left it and probably will not remove anything now until the first frost or the plants give up the ghost themselves, whichever comes first.  Rita, our queen of plant propagation and flower seed sowing, planted some donated iris roots and perennial wallflower plants she had grown from cuttings – something the bees just love!

Talking of donations, the Hyth Hops group got in touch with offerings of free beer from Hopfuzz and Docker brewery, a can or bottle from each brewer to all hop growers to say thank you for the donated hops grown within the collective.  In true community spirit, all the gardener names were entered into a lucky dip, and two were chosen to be the lucky recipients.  There are cans of ‘red-green hop’ available in the Sandgate village shop if you are still yet to sample some of the fresh ‘green hop’ brews.

Still on the subject of donations and especially community spirit, we are pleased to advertise and take part in an event on Saturday 20^th November 11am to 3pm at the Radnor Park Bowls Club, called ‘Disco Soup’.  The idea is to take part in transforming surplus food into a community feast, and activities will include apple pressing, learning how to fement food in jars, and various craft stalls.  A great day for the family, and a wonderful way of using food which may otherwise have gone to landfill.  See the poster below for more information and how to take part.

What’s next?

• Dismantle the fringe exhibition

• Start planting the broad beans

• See if there is space available for other things

• We have bulbs to plant for the spring

• Keep checking on the plants in the cold frames Still weeding and cutting back to be done

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