Sandgate Community Garden

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 25th September: It really has started to feel autumnal.

It really has started to feel autumnal; the days are noticeably shorter which means that the plants need so much longer to grow.  A tray of lettuces pricked out just a week ago is struggling to get growing whereas in the height of the summer they would have grown twice as fast.  Most of the leafy vegetables are appreciating the cooler temperatures and the rain; the tomatoes, not used to so much water, expanded too fast for their skins to keep up and many of them started to split.  This can happen with many fruits and vegetables when they come out of a dry period to a time of plenty of water.

We cut down the tomato plants, and took the green tomatoes to either ripen at home or to make into green chutneys.  The squashes and courgettes will soon be following the tomato plants to the compost heap and make space for the last sowings of the year, the broad beans, later in October.  A few more mustard plants, some coriander and claytonia were planted out, or tucked up inside one of the cold frames which we now have to remember to water.  The duckweed is getting a regular going over to try to reduce their number, and this seems to be working, leaving the weed at the side of the pond just in case any pond creatures got caught up with it and have the chance to get back to the water. 

The weeds are making the most of the rain and cooler temperatures to suddenly spring to life and do something.  The dry heat of the summer had kept many things dormant, but now the race is on for them to get going as quickly as possible. If only the lettuce seedlings felt the same way!  A weed is just a plant in the wrong place of course, and we always try to recover anything useful that can be taken to another site.  At Fremantle Park, the orchard area has hundreds of cosmos seedlings surrounding the cosmos flowering there.  It is unlikely they will survive the winter, but you never know, if it turns out to be very mild.

The time has come for the overwintering purple sprouting broccoli to have cages constructed around them for their protection over the next few months.  When they were first planted out in early August, they were covered with a fine mesh netting to prevent the butterflies laying their eggs on the leaves and consequently the caterpillars emerging and finishing them off, leaving bare stems in a matter of a day or two.  The mesh is also protection against pigeons which will make a meal out of the tender leaves.  However now the plants are crammed inside the mesh and needing space to be able to stretch their leaves and grow taller stems.  With any luck the butterflies have given up their quest to lay eggs for this year, however pigeons carry on being pigeons and still enjoy stripping foliage.  The plan is to construct a frame around the plants so that the netting can be draped over the crowns of the plants, preventing the pigeons from landing on top of them to feast.  The lower part of the plants are left out in the open but being that much taller and tougher the birds are thwarted – well, that is the plan…

What’s next?

• Continue to search out useful weeds to pot up or weeds to compost

• Keep up the duckweed bashing

• Perhaps get the rest of the broccoli cages done

• Is it time to turn the compost again?

• Don’t forget to water the cold frames

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 18th September: A sudden and unexpected flowering in the Queen’s Orchard.

It has been a long long time since we had to say that we were rained off one of our gardening sessions.  It happened this Wednesday, with hours of the sort of useful rain that started to soak into the ground and begin to make a difference.  We have gained so much time, not having to water most of the plot, and of course, lots of energy. The change in the weather has caused some confusion in the plant world.  The Bramley apple tree planted in the Queen’s orchard at Sandgate Park has suddenly burst into flower.  Apparently this can happen if there is a colder snap in the weather, and the tree is fooled into thinking that winter happened, and time to make flowers when the sun came out again, as if it were now spring.  All advice states that it should not stop the tree from flowering again once the true spring comes around again – we hope not.

Last Sunday we collected the hops from the vines at Enbrook Park and took them to the Hythe Hops scheme collection point where they were weighed and put into sacks with all the other collected hops on that day.  We could only contribute 1lb 6oz or 0.624 kg this year which is a sorry amount but all things considered, we are glad we were able to contribute something.  The plants at Fremantle Park were in an even sorrier state than those at Enbrook, so we did not even bother to pick any there.  Ah well, always next year to have another go. 

Thinking about next year, now is the time to save seeds from your own plants if you have not been raiding the bargain seeds to be had at the end of season sales.  Tomato seeds are easy to collect, and one of our varieties this year has been particularly good, called Indigo Cherry drops.  It has great flavour, and has produced prolific amounts of large black and red cherry tomatoes.  It is not an F1 variety, which means the seeds will grow true to the parent plant.  F1 varieties can however be saved by rooting a side shoot from the plant late September/October, and overwintering to grow on in the spring.  To save seeds from the Indigo Cherry drops, a couple of tomatoes were cut open and the seeds scooped out and dropped into a small jar of water.  The jar is left at room temperature for a few days whilst a mould grows, breaking down the gelatinous coating surrounding the seeds.  Then the seeds can we washed in a sieve and laid out to dry on some kitchen paper.  It will be something to look forward to next year to grow this variety again as it can be very annoying when a particular variety cannot be sourced from a supplier.  Such has been the fate of many of our fruit and vegetable varieties in the past.

Most of the list of tasks for the week got tackled, and a few more added!  There were more winter lettuce seeds to prick out, a net was put over the remainder of the beetroot to hinder the badgers (we hope), we started to remove blanket upon blanket of fast growing duckweed from the pond, emptied the leaf compost bin, and planted up the first few crates of salad leaves to grow inside the cold frames just in case those growing outside get totally frozen and lost over the winter period.  There has been plenty to cut back now that some things have finished flowering, and the rain has brought new useful and welcome seedlings to light around the garden for us to use as well as plenty of unwanted ‘weeds’ we are busy removing and composting not quite as fast as they are appearing.

What’s next?

• Keep an eye on the duckweed situation and remove as much as possible

• Keep up the weeding around the plot as more pop up

• Can any more plants be squeezed into any spaces around the plot?

• Start taking down the tomato plants and ripen green tomatoes indoors

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 11th September: Remembering the Queen, and life going on.

It was on that very morning, Thursday 8^th September that the Sandgate Society sent out an email to announce that the fabulous topper for the Sandgate letter box outside the Village Shop to mark the Queen’s Jubilee had been presented to the Society for posterity.  There is a photo of it below, and it can be seen at the Old Fire Station when open on Saturday mornings.  Although we all knew it was inevitable that the Queen would pass away in the not too distant future, it still came as a shock, and how pleased we are as a group to have planted the orchards for her Jubilee, and to be able to remember her and this year as we look after those areas.

Having had bone dry water butts for so many months, it just fills you with joy when the rain comes and there is water again.  The pond is being replenished at speed, the grass is coming back lush and green, the plants are standing to attention and we can give the water pump plus watering cans a rest.  We are lucky at Enbrook Park to be given a weekly bowser of water by Paul the grounds manager.  Many allotments and gardens rely on rain water collection for irrigation and have had to collect hundreds of thousands of litres of rainwater over the autumn and winter months to keep them going over this drought year.  That process starts over once more and there is great relief that the water collection tanks are filling once more.

With the rain come the inevitable garden molluscs.  The dry weather had kept them hidden away, but now they are on the march and it becomes important to remove old and dying leaves where they love to hunker down.  There were two large snails hiding under a yellowing rhubarb leaf, however they are now relocated to another part of the park.  It pays to keep a close eye on your plants because before you know it they can be munched and simply gone.  

We managed to get some of our list of jobs done for the week.  Shrubs were cut back and composted, spring onions planted and winter lettuces pricked out.  Until the tomatoes and squashes are finished there is little available space for planting new seedlings, however the badgers continue to try and make some for us by pillaging the beetroot and digging more holes.  Always interesting on our visits to the garden to spot what has happened since the last visit.  This week we have found a multitude of scrapings made in the wood chip paths, and so we hope whatever it was, found whatever they were looking for.

The Uchiki Kuri squashes did get taken up on Saturday as they had grown all they were going to.  Most of our squashes and courgettes really struggled with the water situation or lack of it this year.  The squashes have too little time to be able to catch up now, but the courgettes seem to be having a final fling once the rain came back.  The mildew stopped, new green leaves appeared and they gave more courgettes.  We will give them another week or two and then they will be removed along with the tomatoes to make way for the broad beans, winter salads and perhaps more spring onions.

Sunday 11^th September is the date of the first Hythe Hops harvesting.  Sandgate Community Garden will have some hops to offer, but the amount is very much less than last year, however there are more growers in the scheme so the hope is there will be plenty of hops to go to the brewers on Monday.

What’s next? 

• Start planting the crates for the cold frames

• Lots of weeds popping up near the raspberry plot

• Hoe under the hedge along the outside of the plot

• Pull out more duckweed from the pond

• Cover the beetroot

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 4th September: Oh, you’re going to rain NOW, are you?

We are delighted to report that the Sea Festival was a great success for us and we managed to raise a massive £422.27 profit.  We are very grateful to everyone who came along to the stall to spend some cash.  We sold practically all of the plants we are glad to say, and 26 jars of Sandgate honey!

Trying to guess the weight of the fruit and vegetable hamper was a popular activity, and we could have sold the bundle of runner beans in the hamper dozens of times. 

Being obsessed with the rain situation, or lack of it; the only day we were praying for none of the wet stuff was Festival day, and with none scheduled to arrive, imagine the surprise and curses when it actually did rain, just as we were trying to get our stall set up in the morning.  Unbelievable.   However it was a great day all round, and lovely to see so many friends of the garden all at once.

Having recovered from the Festival, the rest of the week went by reasonably uneventfully, and yet again no rain to help us along so every session starts with watering and more watering.  Apparently the rainfall for the month of August was 33.3mm which probably fell on Sandgate the day that one of our gardener’s High Street residence got flooded and he lost many belongings.  It will surely take some time for the ground to become saturated again, and in the meantime any rain that does fall will continue to run off and away.

Now we are into September already and the days are certainly starting to become noticeably shorter.  The seeds we are sowing are becoming fewer, and once most of the winter salads are on the way, that only leaves the hardy broad beans, onions and garlic to make room for once the tomatoes, courgettes and squashes are finished.  We cut back many of the tomato leaves, just leaving a few at the top of the plant, making space around the last of the tomatoes to ripen and allow air to circulate.  The dill got planted as did some of the first winter mustards.  More spring onions got sown along with some winter lettuces.  Now is a great time to think about what to sow and grow next year as many of the shops are selling off seasonal items to include this year’s seed packets.  Most seeds will be absolutely fine to buy and keep for next year, and with discounts of 70% and more, being able to get hold of seeds at 10 – 15 pence a packet is a real bargain.  We have managed to get much of what we need for next year already, and in late November will review what we still need and buy more then.

Now that the school holiday period is over we will be starting to settle into the season of the coming autumn, and more familiar faces will swing by the garden, where the visitors have returned home.  We were treated to our own very special guest of a fabulous hummingbird moth paying attention to one of our salvias in full flower.  Up to now we only dreamt of seeing one in our garden but knew they were around in other gardens in the vicinity.  It certainly made our morning, although unfortunately any photographs we took did it little justice. 

What’s next?

• Still not planted the coriander

• Still not pricked out the pak choi

• Is there somewhere to plant the above?

• Cut back growth around bases of the trees and back of the compost area

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 28th August: Sea Festival preparations, the approach of autumn and why you should never attack wasps.

This newsletter is being written on the eve of the Sandgate Festival, so when you get to read it, the event will probably be all over.  We will be reporting back on how well we did at our stall in next week’s news with some photographs.  Not to be outdone by all the other professional stalls, we got ourselves a banner printed, and very smart it looks too.  Even though we have been asking for rain and on the odd occasion dancing the rain dance, we will be happier if it stays warm and dry, and so far it looks like it will be fine.

It has been an eventful week one way or another, and you can just begin to feel the summer starting to dwindle and the very earliest signs of the oncoming autumn.  We of course spent time sorting out our plants for the sale so they will look their best; the rest of the Chinese cabbages got planted as well as the winter radishes.  Once again the badger found the newly planted cabbage bed too inviting and dug great holes, sending some of the cabbages out of the bed and to their doom, so on Saturday morning we replanted the space with a few random lettuces needing a home, and netted the whole bed to see if that will solve the issue.

On occasion, we plant up a bed of brassicas such as cabbage or broccoli, and find that after a few days one or two of the plants are drooping and fail to thrive; this is usually because there is something lurking in the soil (wire worms) which love eating through the roots of plants and that is the end of the plant.  Putting another plant in the same space is usually a waste of time as it can happen again and so this week we have been replanting replacements in other spaces, close but hopefully safer!

One of the important jobs to get done last week was the turning of the rather large compost bins.  Bin number one is always the bin that gets the fresh materials from kitchen scraps to discarded or finished plant material from the garden as well as weeds and hedge material.  In order to be able to turn and empty bin number one, bin number two has to be emptied into bin three, so it is quite a long task.  Most of the time the job is uneventful, a little smelly at times, hot work in the summer, and might cause discomfort later from muscle pain which always seems to find the muscles you did not know you even had. 

This week I (Leonie) decided that it would be a wonderful addition to the compost heap if I was to retrieve some cow manure near to where I was working.  The manure pile is based on a farm and quite large.  However the long hot summer has meant that much of it has dried up so that the cow shed bedding of hay/straw and wood shavings is mostly all that seems to be left.  With a shovel I was digging to find a good section to start bagging up, when I stuck the shovel into what seemed a promising area only to unfortunately cut into a wasps nest.  All I can say is that it was certainly an experience for the volunteers I had with me to witness the squealing and unimaginable sight of me stripping off my outer clothing where the wasps had aimed for anything fleshy.  Uncountable stings later from head to ankles I can confirm it was an excruciating and memorable experience I would never wish to repeat.

Of course the wasps are very efficiently defending their territory and I was a threat.  The point being that doing something as simple and enjoyable as gardening can at times bring the odd rose thorn or head bump from the rake you left on the ground and consequently trod on; but sometimes you can get more than you bargained for.  Lesson learnt, I will henceforth be more careful around compost/dirt piles and be more observant. 

What’s next?

• Prick out some of the pak choi plants

• Find a space for some of the dill and coriander plants

• Keep up with removing more leaves from the tomato plants and brassicas

• Do we need to sow any more salads for the winter?

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 21st August: final reminder of our appearance at the Sandgate Sea Festival next Sunday 28^th August on the seafront!

What a difference a week has made!  We got a little bit of rain at the very start of the week which was enough to freshen the garden but certainly not enough to make an impression when suddenly on Wednesday we were treated to a torrential downpour which, looking at the weather app was not expected. Having spent lots of time watering the garden in the morning, which is no mean feat, one of our gardeners, Chris, was slightly peeved at having earlier wasted that time and of course water.  Such is the random nature of the English weather.  As soon as it started to pour down, my phone began to ‘ping’ with messages from all the different gardening WhatsApp groups, all ecstatic that after all this time we had significant rain.  It certainly made many folk happy that day, although of course it caused flash flooding and in equal measure probably caused great distress too.  We could see that the paths had washed their way down the slopes within the park, and even our wood chip paths had gone astray too.  They had to be raked back and more added to make amends.

It had paid off to go ahead with the planting last week thank goodness, the critical time being the first week during warm weather as the plants need plenty of water to get their roots down into the soil and start to find water for themselves.  The rain gave them that boost and a little reprieve from the constant sunshine and heat, and now they are starting to look most perky.

We were delighted to see how quickly the pond had begun to fill, as before it was looking really sad and we had to keep adding a bucket of water each time we visited.  On Saturday morning the pond was surrounded once more by curious visiting dragonflies, all sorts of insects and lots of bathing birds; it was then we noticed that one of our winter squashes had marched its way through the undergrowth and directly into the pond.  Had we not fished it out and encouraged it to grow in another direction, it would be in danger of drowning.  It will be interesting to see how long it will take to return to a full pond once more.

It was clear that the nocturnal mammals that frequently visit were equally delighted by the rain. It meant they could more easily dig some rather large holes in the beds, probably in search of some deeply hidden worms.  This can cause great problems in a newly planted bed where the poor plants loose the surrounding soil, and once stranded, dry out and shrivel up in a matter of a couple of hours.

The winter radish had grown large enough to be planted out and we made a start on that this week along with the Chinese cabbages.  More winter mustards got sown as did two trays of spring onions.  The rain will start to bring new growth, and so we have started to cut back plants past their best and in need of a ‘haircut’ to smarten them up.  The tough job of tackling the cutting down of the globe artichokes / cardoons got tackled, and as you can see in one of the pictures below, they grew mighty tall!

This week’s newsletter is our final reminder of our appearance at the Sandgate Sea Festival next Sunday 28^th August on the seafront.  As you can see from some of the pictures, we have been busy nurturing many plants for the occasion for some time, and this event will be an opportunity for us to raise some funds to keep us going.  So bring pockets and wallets full of cash and make sure you stop and talk to us.  We would like to say many thanks to Terry for the kind donation of some beautiful healthy plants. 

We are all looking forward to seeing you at the festival, and our fingers are crossed for fine weather in particular for the day, so far it is looking good, but after this week, can we trust that weather app?

What’s next?

• Finish planting the radishes and Chinese cabbages

• Do any of the brassica plants need replacing?

• Continue to sort out plants for the Sea Festival

• Continue to remove unwanted leaves from tomato plants and all squashes

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 14th August: Great weather for growing figs, and amaranth amongst the asparagus.

The decision to start planting again last week was a good one at the time but we had to work pretty hard to keep the seedlings alive, watering every other day for the week until they started to get a few roots into the ground and stand upright for more time than they flopped over.  However, with the return of the higher temperatures at the weekend, planting was put off again until next week with the promise of it being cooler, and even dare we say, rain, although we know those promises often mean nothing when it comes to Sandgate.

We sowed both flat and curled parsley, mizuna mustard, and pak choi.  The dill, coriander, Florence fennel and Chinese cabbages got planted on into larger modules.  The tomato plants were checked again for side shoots and the tops pinched out.  There will not be enough time left in the season for any new flowers and then tomatoes to mature, so might as well limit the stress on the plants, and also cut off more of the lower leaves to expose the fruits and allow the air and sunshine to get around them.  Some of our outdoor tomato plants are growing some massive beefsteak tomatoes; the weight of the fruits has snapped or bent some of the canes supporting them so we have had to add extra stakes to help hold them upright.  We are removing tomatoes as soon as they are starting to turn colour and ripening them at home, also to help out the tomato plant, which is fine as long as you can realise what colour the tomato should be when it is ripe.  This year has been a master class in the study of all the different tomato colours, shapes and sizes to ascertain mostly by observation and squeeze test where it is in the ripening process, and that there is little point in waiting for a yellow tomato to turn red if it was never meant to in the first place.  Quite often the yellow or orange tomatoes get left on the vine when they are ripe.

It has to be said that not everything is suffering in this drought.  We have been watching closely the development of the figs on the fig tree which has performed very well this year with plenty of fruits.  Unfortunately we are not the only ones keeping an eye on them as the birds soon found the ripe fruits followed by the ants, but we have to remember that their need is always greater than our own.  We also have some randomly grown amaranth which just appears around the plot, taking up splendid residence with the asparagus,

Happily, the hop plants in the Sandgate Community Garden are established enough to be surviving, although we are not expecting a great harvest.  The results so far in the Hythe Hop scheme are very mixed with some plants having expired whilst others are thriving, most it seems will probably not do as well as previous years.  We have started to water them now as the cones, or fruits have started to appear and need to be able to swell and mature.  The word is that the first harvest date could be 11^th September but we are waiting for confirmation on this.  All plants will need to be stripped of their hops on the harvest first or second dates so that they are presented to the breweries in as fresh a state as possible.

We are now starting to turn our thoughts to our great fundraising event of the year, the Sandgate Sea Festival where we will be with our stall on Sunday 28^th August, ready to persuade you to buy a plant from us or simply part with some cash to help us keep planting and looking after various parts of Sandgate.  We have been nurturing as many plants as we can for the occasion which you can imagine, under the circumstances, has not been too easy, and invite you to get in contact if you have any plants you might care to donate to the cause – all will be gratefully received and can be collected and looked after until the event.  Make sure to put the date in your diary and to come along and chat to us at the stall, we are looking forward to seeing you there.

What’s next?

• Keep watering the brassicas in particular

• Sow more winter mustards

• Keep an eye on the winter radish plants and the cabbage white butterfly situation

• Sort out more plants for the plant sale

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 8th August: sometimes, you just can’t hold back any more.

Crikey!  It is August already!  We are into the summer holiday period with some of our volunteers going away, and new volunteers turning up whilst they are holidaying in Sandgate.  We are getting reports of how much greener parts of the country are looking compared with scorched earth Sandgate, and accounts of rain falling when there is none here.  On the last day of July up to about 10pm, the rainfall for all of July was just 2.1mm in Sandgate.  However it then started to rain, and by midnight the gauge had jumped to 4.9mm.  Well, not enough to solve all the problems caused by the drought, but enough to freshen things up a little.  It was interesting to read on social media that we are not to have a hosepipe ban inflicted upon us contrary to what we keep seeing on the news.  It seems that Affinity Water does not rely on reservoirs but on groundwater aquifers and supply should not be a problem this year, subject to there being enough rain later. Parts of Kent not covered by Affinity Water will be under a hosepipe ban.  However many people wisely continue to be most careful with using water, and have taken to collecting bath and even shower water to use in the garden as plants do not mind soapy water.

The strawberry farm has released their spent grow bags for the season, and left them to be taken free of charge to be used as a soil improver.  Happy to oblige we made a few journeys and collected as much as possible.  Where new areas have been mulched, the lack of rain has meant that where the cardboard layer is under the compost, some of it has remained dry and not therefore been able to start decomposing, and then in places starts to become exposed.  This has happened in a few places at Fremantle Park, so with the help of some volunteers from Napier Barracks, some of the foraged/recycled fruit farm compost was used to cover the gaps and generally add a deeper layer around the trees.  Some of the strawberry grow bags smell quite strongly of strawberries, attracting many wasps and making it hazardous to collect more compost, however we shall persevere!

There comes a point where we just have to plant some things in the ground and not hold them back any longer, in the hope that there may surely be some rain as we get nearer to September.  The executive decision was taken to plant the beetroot, and other things will have to follow as they outgrow the larger pots.  The sweet peas struggled this year and we have decided to stop watering them and let finish flowering and go to seed as the flower stems are so short they are difficult to pick and make into bunches; so we shall just have to enjoy them for this final week before they get pulled up.

The lettuce seedlings got pricked out into single modules to grow on, dill and coriander got sown but the parsley forgotten.  The chard moved on into larger modules.  The alleyway in Meadowbrook had a cut back and tidy.  It has produced many artichokes this year, and continues to bring a smile to travellers as they pass through.

This year we have been feeling quite smug that we had not allowed the tomato plants to run away from us, producing side shoots and flopping over – oh no!  This year we have been in control studiously pinching out the unwanted growth and making sure the plants are properly staked.  However a new phenomenon has been noticed which I certainly had not seen before, where some tomato plants not only send out side shoots between the joint where a leaf meets the main stem but also from the leaves themselves as shown in a photo below.  My goodness, as if the task was not already tough enough! 

What’s next?

• Sow trays of flat and curled parsley

• Keep up the watering, but only the plants that need it

• Repot purple sprouting and Chinese cabbages

• Probably a good idea to pinch out all tomato tops now if not done already

• Check on the plants for the plant sale at the Sea Festival end of this month

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 24th July: the absence of water.

So it is that the drought continues here in sunny Sandgate with perhaps a millimetre or two of rain just to tantalise, whilst the north and west of the country are treated to torrential downpours.  The grass is more yellow, and any growth is stunted and slow.  Having finished the carrots and had a good go at the beetroot, the badgers have turned their attention to the courgettes and probably been eating those as we have seen very few and what is left has teeth marks all over them. 

We have left a couple of bowls of water around the garden for any visiting wildlife, as the pond is fast evaporating.  On Saturday one of our gardeners noticed there was something lurking in the mud and last remaining water of the deepest section.  All we could ascertain is that the creature was quite large and had legs and as our knowledge of the Ukrainian language is worse than our gardeners grasp of English, we had to be satisfied with the information we had been given and just imagine what it could have been. 

During the same morning, the kind elderly gentleman who gave us a lemon tree came along armed with a container filled with water and ‘special feed’ for the tree.  We have now discovered his name is Abdul, and we hope he will visit again even though we did not manage to find out what the ‘secret’ ingredient was in the container.

The garden honey has literally been selling like ‘hot cakes’, and Ray the beekeeper kindly gave us two jars, so all our names were put into a lottery to win them.  Just by coincidence the winners were a volunteer at Fremantle and a volunteer at Enbrook Park.  There will be some of the garden’s honey on our stall at the Sandgate Sea Festival on 28^th August, so put the date in your diary and come and visit us there.  We are busy sowing seeds and potting up plants in preparation for the Sea festival, which is a great fund raising event for us, so our fingers are crossed that we can manage to keep the plants alive until then, and that the sun still shines on the day.

This week our list of jobs did get completed.  The fennel, lettuce and Chinese cabbage seeds got sown, and we spent a great deal of time watering which is unsurprising.  Basil, chives and mint got repotted into larger pots to grow them on for the sale.  In the meantime the tomatoes are looking pretty good with many of them now reaching six feet, however the object being to grow tomatoes not stems and leaves, we are hoping they will get to produce something bearing in mind that we will soon be approaching the time to be on the lookout for blight.  In preparation we have removed all the leaves below the first truss which should help when we are watering.  We have now stopped watering the rhubarb as it will have to fend for itself.  The time to stop picking rhubarb is the end of June so that the roots can put on plenty of growth ready to produce more stems next year. 

On Monday, which was a very warm day, we had an afternoon booked for some volunteers to come out from Napier Barracks to help us with some tasks in the Golden Valley.  The weeds all around the planters at the shops, and in the pavement crevices were removed, the beds were thoroughly watered, and a thick mulch of compost was put down.  We decided to do this now as we should have added more plants to this area, following on from the spring and early summer flowers, but it being so dry and hot we decided against that idea for now until the weather changes, as new plants would struggle to survive.  At the same time, most of us were struggling to survive too in the hot sun, however we were well looked after by the shop staff, being offered drinks.  The landlord of the Golden Arrow, Richard, gave us pint glasses of iced water which was most welcome.  Even a passing local took pity and bought us all a soft drink in the grocery store. 

Afterwards we moved on to weed at Fremantle Park, clearing the orchard area and park edges where the brambles encroach on the planted areas.  It is hard to believe that the planting there is looking good considering, with the plants still alive.  We probably have to thank Harmers, the tree watering contractors for that, and the fact that Fremantle Park is usually much wetter underfoot than Enbrook Park.  One of the trees in the orchard is a Pomegranate and it currently has several flowers which with any luck could produce a pomegranate or two this year.  It did grow one last year whilst it was living in a pot, but now that it is planted in the ground it might go berserk and make even more!   The flowers are very attractive, long waxy trumpet shaped and bright red.  The small family plots and the herb planters are really struggling, with most folk deciding not to plant anything just yet and to wait for the rain.  In the meantime we all have plants, plants, plants all over the place in pots just sitting and waiting.

What’s next?

• Water, water and more water to keep the smaller plants alive in particular

• May have to repot the chard as it cannot be planted yet

• Prick out the lettuce seedlings

• Watch out for blight and remove plant affected

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 17th July: Badgers, weeding, water and guerilla gardening.

Oh dear!  It is grumbling all round in the gardening communities, where the water butts have dried up and now resorting to having to use the washing up water and bath water or shower water!  Luckily the plants do not mind soft soap; in fact we have started to use a spray of soapy water on some of the dwarf beans that have been affected by blackfly.  Never like to use it if there are ladybirds around in numbers as they will usually tackle the job, but sometimes we need other help, and the soft soap spray will do the job. 

The only other spray we have had to get out is the bacillus thuringiensis, natural bacteria that targets caterpillars.  We only use this on the brassica plants such as kale, cabbages, swede, broccoli and cauliflowers as the cabbage white butterflies are now around in large numbers trying to lay their eggs.  As soon as any netting is removed to take a look at the plants, they make their move, dive in, and then have to be driven away before the netting can be replaced.  The cold frames always have to be checked as they manage to find their way into them but fail to find their way out again.

Talking about nets and plant protection, we have had several visits recently from what we believe is probably the badger population.  We put netting over the carrots mainly to deter carrot fly, however the badgers decided they would care to make short work of our carrots, tore through the netting and ate the whole lot, creating several holes in the ground and generally making a mess.  Last year it was our beetroot patch that suffered the same fate but this year we grew less beetroot and managed to get most of it up a couple of weeks ago, so it seems next to beetroot they also like carrots; guessing that these root vegetables are sweet and contain more calories that green vegetables, which is just as well or perhaps the entire garden would be stripped in no time!

Not surprisingly this week has mostly been about keeping things alive.  No new plantings will be attempted until the weather breaks, and therefore to keep the seedlings alive that should have been planted by now, we have had to resort to repotting them into larger pots and stock piling them where a close eye can be kept.  As soon as the weather does change it will be all hands on deck getting them in the ground, but until then some beds will have to remain empty.  We are just about managing to keep what we did plant a couple of weeks ago alive, but they are struggling and not growing perhaps as well as they should be.  However, the cauliflower and broccoli seedlings did get pricked out into separate pots, all the compost heaps got turned and we are in full flow of sweet pea picking.  We have to make sure all the flowers get picked every time we visit the garden or else they will quickly go to seed and stop producing any more.

The planter outside the Ship in the High Street got a makeover as did the two seafront planters, with a dressing of new compost and plenty of water, hopefully they should be alright.  The new orchard at Sandgate Park was looking a little crowded by weeds which will be competing with the trees and herbs for water, so they got removed.  Next week we will turn our attention to Fremantle Park and the orchard there. 

Last but by no means least, the guerrilla planted verge in Golden Valley is looking quite spectacular thanks to Rita’s watering.  The picture below does it little justice, and a local commented that her children like to walk past that way as they go to school and look at the flowers, I would think that is reward enough for us. 

What’s next?

• Weed at Golden Valley and Fremantle Park

• Mulch Golden valley planters

• Maybe sow some lettuce, bulb fennel, and Chinese cabbage

• Keep up the watering

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.