Tim Prater

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 8th December: Now you can see just how handsome our resident robin is.

We are rapidly hurtling towards the end of the year.  The rainfall for November was a healthy but surprisingly low 55.3 mm.  We have had so many rainy days of late, however the rain is mostly drizzle and not torrential.  Without a doubt the main topic for the weather is the constant battering from storms.  They seem to be coming one after another and so we must truly be in the stormy season.  This weekend brought storm Darragh which stopped us coming out on Saturday morning.  Yet again we shall have to wait for it to pass before checking on the damage on top of the storm we had last week. 

Fortunately Wednesday was fine and dry, giving us an opportunity at last to get the broad beans planted.  The fact that we have any beans to plant at all is a minor miracle because of the ravenous rodents we seem to have in the greenhouse, so it was something of a relief to get them in the ground at last.  Now all they have to do is to be able ride through the weather and the winter and hopefully survive.  To help them along we got out the sad and sorry looking fleece to give them a little protection from the winds and any future frosts.  We had hoped to be able to cover them with some new and hole less fleece, however the Christmas post has been slow and it had still not turned up for the great plant out.  We shall now have to hope and pray that the fleece is not on its way to Folkestone already as Darragh continues to howl and rage, although at the very least it will probably have gained a few more holes.

As usual the resident robin was curious to know what we were up to this week and posed just long enough for one of our speedy gardeners to catch its likeness with her phone camera – we had been trying to do that for some weeks – now you can see just how handsome he is.

Happy with our work, we packed away just as it was about to start drizzling again, so most of our other tasks remain unfinished and are to be carried forward into next week.

What’s next?

• Remove goji berry
• Order some wood chips
• Clear any suckers coming up in the middle of plots
• Keep putting down compost on any uncovered areas

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 1st December: Prime time for the pigeons to strip many of our plants.

We are now in December.  The time is flying by and before we know it we will be in February and time to start the whole year of growing all over again.  There is plenty to be getting on with before then.  Hoping for some quieter weather after storm Bert last weekend, our wish was not to be granted as storm Conall followed quickly afterwards.

The Wednesday morning session was cancelled once again as there was rain followed by more rain.  Luckily Saturday was dry and we were able to assess the storm damage.  Fortunately one of our gardeners had already been up to the garden shortly after the storms to report back how the garden had fared and saved lots of plants by retrieving netting and tying or weighing them down.

This is prime time for the pigeons to strip many of our plants back to the bare stems. Whilst some suffered this fate, we are hopeful they may recover depending on how harsh the winter is as technically it is still autumn.

The winds had the effect of stripping most of the leaves from the trees, whipping them all around the garden and leaving them in great piles particularly in and around the pond.  Our first task was to begin to collect them and compost them.  Looking around, it was clear that many of our plants had suffered from salt burn where the edges of the leaves turn dry and brown, and the poor banana tree was simply shredded although still trying to unfurl a brand new undamaged leaf.

Thought has to go out to the creatures having to brave these storms. Happily our resident robin was pleased to see us again and particularly glad we were working on the plots.  In spite of all the difficult weather we still have to feed the hot composter at Folkestone College. Nicknamed ‘the beast’, it resembles a smoking dragon as upon lifting the lid it spews out plumes of hot steam from its ‘belly’. All around the rim of the lid are many different ladybirds, all taking advantage of the warmth.

What’s next?

• Might be time to plant the broad beans
• Remove goji berry
• Order some wood chips
• Clear any suckers coming up in the middle of plots

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 24th November: One hour of working for the entire week.

Good grief!  There is much to say about the weather this week for sure.

It started off being very cold and icy.  Our Wednesday morning session at Enbrook Park was in sunshine but so cold that our fingers and toes soon suffered if we did not keep moving, so it has to be said that we gave up after an hour or so.  At Pent Farm it was even colder and everything was frozen solid which made it difficult to do very much at all.  However it seems we got away lighter than much of the rest of the country which has had snow.

On the Saturday, storm Bert started to roll in which changed the whole weather pattern.  It started to get warmer, blew a hooli and brought rain.  We stayed indoors for our Saturday morning garden session too, but once the storm has passed we shall have to check on the netting and see if there has been any damage.

The temperature has ranged from minus 2 to plus 13 degrees in the middle of the night and it will be interesting to see what will happen next.  Should the pattern go back to freezing temperatures, it will be impossible to plant any of the broad beans and we will have to hope that it calms down in the near future.

In our one hour of working for the entire week, we just about managed to lay a little more compost on the beds, clear up more fallen leaves and cut back some nettles.  We were very much aware of our friendly robin taking advantage of the fresh compost to find any worms as we were trying hard to get a good picture of him.  However every time a camera was pointed his way he flitted off or turned his back.  The best we managed was a rear view in the distance on our tool box. We shall persevere! 

The only other picture we got was of some Jerusalem artichokes we pulled.  Not everyone is all that sure what to do with them and so we shall be on the lookout for some good recipes.

What’s next?

• Clear up after the storm
• Rake up last of the Hope Farm compost
• Order more wood chips
• Keep clearing beds

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 17th November: An executive decision was taken to lift the dahlias.

Happily there was a bit more sunshine this week and a couple of lovely warm spells, although it was not to last and we are to experience close to frost temperatures this coming week.  Not really surprising for mid-November.

Warm weather has an effect on the clearing of the plots before the winter sets in.  For example the asparagus ferns have only just started to turn yellow which means they can now be cut right down to the ground and compost added to help feed the fat juicy shoots we are expecting next spring.    If we had some hard frosts, then many of the plants would have been affected and subsequently cleared away by us already.  There are still many leaves on the trees which means we have work to do to collect them when they fall.

An executive decision was taken to lift the dahlias.  At Pent Farm they were in danger of rotting before the top growth was frosted, and at Enbrook we have never had to lift them as they have always survived the winters however the space they took up will now be given to growing food.

The good news of the week is that some of the broad beans seem to have survived the hungry mice and are just starting to appear through the soil.  Still not sure if we will have enough but another tray of around 120 cells was sown in the week which is hoped will mean there will be plenty to plant in the coming weeks.

Something else was finding their dinner in the garden, as we noticed there was a huge amount of what looked like pigeon feathers.  We can only imagine that the owner is no more and perhaps a local fox got lucky.

What’s Next?

• Clear leaves if any more have fallen
• Clear the growth to the back of the purple sprouting bed
• Raise the netting over the purple sprouting
• Continue to put down more compost and wood chips

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.