Sandgate Community Garden

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 10th July: Insufficient water, ants, bees and the incredible Cardoon.

It certainly has been a warm month and how very glad we are to receive a bowser full of water every week or we would surely be in trouble trying to keep the new plantings alive.  The trouble is, the courgettes are trying to swell as are the tomatoes and the beans, but with no rain such crops would suffer if we did not water.  We are now planting crops that mature in autumn through winter and into spring, such as kale, swede and purple sprouting broccoli, and of course, should they fail, then there will be nothing for later.  It makes you appreciate how fortunate we are not to have to rely on the success of what we grow, not so for many parts of the world.  We are not so sure about the outcome of many of our other sites in Sandgate which do have to rely on rain and the occasional can of water we try to bring which never is enough.  All we can do is hope things survive which is their instinct to do, and that this weather breaks soon.  In the meantime the grass has turned to yellow and the only good thing about that is it requires no cutting.

On Saturday morning, Jay, one of our new volunteers, got into the pond as the water has all but evaporated, to cut back some of the pond weed which had seriously grown since last year to create a huge spongy mat.  A few buckets of water were spared to put in the pond which we are sure the wildlife will appreciate.

Earlier in the week we were concerned to see a very young green woodpecker, looking vulnerable and not wary enough of dogs and people; we kept an eye on it until eventually it managed to fly up into the trees.  Green woodpeckers love to eat ants and there are certainly plenty of them around as we watched hundreds climbing up our fencing and marching along the top rail for some reason better known to them.  It was quite fascinating to watch and realise there is plenty of blackfly in the garden now and the ants must be on their way to ‘milk’ them for the honeydew they produce and to protect them from any predators. 

Ray, our site beekeeper, has been working hard this week to extract more honey from the garden bee hives.  Many of our gardeners and friends of the garden have put in their orders for the honey currently in the process of being put into jars.  Today (10^th July) is National ‘Don’t step on a bee day’, so to help mark the event, Saga has asked Ray to put some jars of his honey in the canteen at Enbrook for staff to purchase.  One of the messages about this important day is to support local bee keepers – 85% of the honey we consume is imported, and as we have been reporting, the quality of such imported honey is not always that good and cannot be compared to the local stuff.

Perhaps the largest flower in our garden is currently that of the cardoon.  One of our plants must be around 10 feet tall as it absolutely towers over everything.  The flower is quite spectacular and loved by insects but before it breaks into colour, the flowers can be picked and eaten just like globe artichokes.  The scales of the outer part of the flower are not as full as the artichoke, but the fleshy middle section of the flower is very tasty with more flavour than the globe artichoke.  We were originally sold our cardoons as being artichokes from a well-known DIY garden centre and since then have decided to grow artichokes from seed as they are easy to grow, you know what to expect, there are different varieties, and they look architectural as a plant within a garden.  They feature in the Lower Leas Park this year again, and certainly make a show although not sure as yet if they are actually cardoons!

What’s next?

• Continue the turning of the compost heaps
• Keep a close eye on the watering situation
• Prick out the cauliflower and broccoli seedlings later in the week
• Sow the autumn lettuces

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 3rd July: 100% real unadulterated local honey.

Where is the summer going?  Time seems to be passing at a rapid pace and we are working on planting and preparing for the autumn, winter and next spring harvests.  The kale has been planted, the spring purple sprouting and Romanesco pricked out and the winter purple sprouting in the pipeline to be sown.  The mange tout has finished, the frame removed and the bed prepared for something else.

We harvested some first carrots this week, and are eagerly waiting for the courgettes to be productive and for the beans to arrive.  Some of the tomatoes have the tiniest of fruits starting to emerge so we will have to be patient and hope that we will not be hit by blight this year before we get to see any tomatoes. 

Unfortunately the first cabbage white has been spotted actually in with the brassicas as they sat in the cold frame.  So we have just this Saturday started to spray the natural bacteria known as bacillus thuringiensis to thwart the cabbage white caterpillar from making mincemeat of the brassicas even, it seems, when they are netted. 

We have started to use our own compost made in our own compost bins.  It looks pretty good for homemade stuff although it would be a challenge to get it through a sieve!  Whilst working in the compost area we were delighted to spot a slow worm lurking under one of the covers.  What a treat it is to see such amazing creatures in our locality – we were also sent a video of a hummingbird hawk-moth taken in one of our Sandgate gardeners back garden, the reward for having many flowering plants and being vigilant to spot it.

Talking of flowers and insects, Ray, our beekeeper at Enbrook Park is proud to announce that the hives there have done well this year and he has extracted quite a bit of honey.  We cannot wait to give it a try, it looks really dark in the jar pictured below, and we know the bees have been foraging all over the area collecting from a diverse range of flowers from trees, shrubs and annuals.  Unlike the honey mentioned in my newsletter a few weeks ago from well-known supermarkets that fail to mention the jars contain a high percentage of sugar syrup, this is proper 100% real unadulterated local honey which cannot be compared. You will be delighted to know that Ray is prepared to sell some of it, if you are interested, at £6 a jar with a 20p discount on the next order if you return the jar.  A bargain when you consider all the work Ray puts into his hives as well as all the gear he has to buy to do the job properly.  I am collecting orders, so text me on 078 401 38308 or email sandgatecg@gmail.com and treat yourself to something special this summer.

Rainfall for the month of June was 19.8mm, for which we are grateful, and gave a little respite from hand watering.  We are delighted still with our past purchase of an electric water pump to help with the chore, and on reflection are concluding that it may actually be saving us water as the constant water flow prevents having to keep filling up and remembering where you last were and possibly watering again or just from using up what is left in the can.  Who knows, but so far so good.

We are excited to announce that we will be at the Sandgate Sea Festival at the end of August where we hope to be raising funds for all our projects.  We will be selling plants which we are currently busy collecting and nurturing for the occasion.  This is a big fundraising event for us so please write it in the diary now to be there and support us.

What’s next?

• Sow more sprouting broccoli and rainbow chard

• Continue to turn the compost bins

• Check on the gooseberries not picked

• Looks like a warm week so keep watering the pots

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 26th June: The skills of managing tomatoes.

It has been a challenge this week to keep up with the tomatoes and the growth they are putting on.  Every week our list of jobs includes checking all the tomato plants for side shoots, and every week those side shoots sneak up on us and start taking over.  Keeping tomato plants as a cordon or single stemmed plant is quite a skill, you really do need to know your stuff when it comes to identifying a side shoot and nipping it out before it saps too much energy from the plant and goes off at a tangent.  Of course, in the wild a tomato plant would naturally be a bush, but in the short time we have in our summer to grow a decent crop of tomatoes outside, then it pays to be vigilant and train them.  It has to be said that last year (and the year before) we somewhat lost the plot when keeping our eyes on the growth and they went out of control in a busy time when so much is going on anyway.  However this year the determination is to plug away at it……… all we need now is some tomatoes!

Any promised rain this week is up to its usual trick of appearing on the weather apps and then completely passing us by, or even being so localised that we can have a short shower at one end of Sandgate, yet not at the other.  The yellow warning of thunderstorms and heavy showers faded to nothing and many a water butt at gardener’s homes remain empty.

However, we get on with what needs doing, and there is always plenty.  The kale seedlings all got pricked out into modules, the broccoli seeds sown, and the swedes planted, along with the second batch of lettuces.  One of the red potato patches were pulled up and more onions.  Sadly the mange tout is starting to dwindle but soon we hope the courgettes will start to come thick and fast.  The gooseberries are thinking about ripening but as you can see in a picture below, we had another volunteer turn up, in the shape of a squirrel, with a keen eye on what we were doing, and what he could glean. 

Over by the asparagus beds a mole is having a wonderful time making mole hills all over the place and we are rather hoping he will be making his way under the fence and out.  With the imminent arrival of many brassica plants (swede, kales and broccolis) we will have to think about their protection from the dreaded cabbage white butterfly.  Sadly, we have not seen many butterflies or insects, well not as many as we should.

The memories of ‘fly soup’ or being able to look across an open space and see hundreds of flying insects, is now in the distant past, along with having to clean the car windscreen due to all the casualties encountered on a journey.  It seems a wonder that any of the flowers are fertilised and the fruits form at all, but fortunately they still do and long may it continue.  Where last year there was just one pyramid orchid in a spot near the Enbrook garden, this year there are two, and the fact we are surrounded by a diverse range of flowers, grasses and trees will help support the much needed insect population.

Just as the insects need support, so do we at times, with various projects.  Saga has a fantastic scheme to encourage employees to spend a day volunteering for local charities and projects.  This week a dozen came out to support Touchbase Care at Pent Farm, along with some of our gardeners, to unload several truckloads of compost, varnish the inside of the summer house, weed, water, construct compost bins from recycled pallets and with great enthusiasm, roll massive tractor tyres down the lane to make raised beds.  They were a fabulous hardworking bunch, but suspect that after a day of hard physical graft in the great, hot and sunny outdoors, they were suffering for it the day after when back in the office! 

What’s next?

• Prick out the broccoli seedlings, the smaller the better

• Check on the gooseberries

• The woodchip paths need another layer
• Keep watering the new plantings

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 19th June: Completing the Enbrook Valley planters, and Don’t Step on a Bee.

A busy week where the temperatures rose, the sun shone and we had to start watering again. 

The two planters outside the Golden Arrow in the Golden Valley have been under review for some time but we now think that a plan of action has been finalised and can at last be implemented.  The pub landlords had been thinking long and hard about what they wanted to have there in terms of planting, and there had been conversations around perhaps making the planters taller.  The issue was that because the planters were so close to the outside benches and tables they often got stood on or walked over by customers, and plants therefore failed to thrive and the beds looked sad and sorry compared to the others.  After much deliberation, the decision was to cover the beds in shingle and to put some half barrels on top with flowering plants – therefore the plants will no longer be stepped on.  The work is all but completed, and it is looking great.

The green outside the chip shop got a long overdue tidy up and some plants put in.  The Council has added the hanging baskets already and the space is therefore looking very colourful.

At the Enbrook garden, the last of the broad beans have been harvested and the beds prepared and ready to be replanted, one was quickly filled with new lettuce plants.  Spring onions were planted in the space where some of the potatoes were, and a few of the kale seedlings got pricked out into modules to grow on for another few weeks.  We also planted a new rhubarb root and two Yacon plants bought last week at Stream Walk community garden in Whitstable.  Yacon root is very similar to a water chestnut and needs to be harvested every late autumn and some saved for the following year.

Enbrook Garden was visited during the week by a film crew, where they interviewed and filmed the bee hives and keepers in preparation for highlighting the national ‘don’t step on a bee day’ on July 10^th.

I (Leonie) had the honour of being invited to give a talk to the Hythe WI, on our community garden spaces as well as an introduction to ‘No dig’ gardening.  It was a delight to meet the ladies and to tell them all about the work of our volunteers and how far we have come in three short years highlighted with a pandemic!  For me it was interesting to be able to sequence and put together the creation of all the growing areas here in Sandgate, plus our connection with other groups.  Of course, the real treat was the tea and cake afterwards!

What’s next?

• Finish pricking out the kales

• Sow purple sprouting

• Plant the swedes

• Keep watering the small planters if the heat continues.

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 12th June: Potatoes, Brockhill School, Stream Walk Community Garden and the Golden Arrow.

It seems the temperatures are beginning to rise, and the cucumbers are not looking quite so sickly, even the dwarf beans have started to perk up a bit and the courgettes are just starting to show the first fruits.  We seem to have managed to keep up with the removal of the side shoots on the tomatoes this year, and are doing the same with the hop plants too.  One of the beds of broad beans got stripped and uprooted to make way for a new planting of lettuces.  It made an entire trug full of bean pods, and we were able to let any visitors take some, and have plenty enough to take home too. 

Having inspected the first plot of early potatoes, we took an executive decision to pull them up as they looked large enough on having an initial rummage around in the soil, and anyway we do need the room.  Our gardeners working towards their Duke of Edinburgh Award had planted them back in March, and they were delighted to now be harvesting them, so we left them to it, listening to all the squeals of delight when they found more buried ‘treasure’.

Our young volunteers are at Brockhill School in Hythe, and we were invited to go and have a look at an amazing walled garden the school has on site.  It has been out of use for some time, and the fantastic greenhouses need lots of restoration, but what a fabulous resource to have.  The master plan is to get the garden up and running again for the children to start learning about horticulture.  Such an exciting project, and so looking forward to seeing the progress as it happens.  We hope to keep you informed on that.

We also had an invite to go and visit Stream Walk Community Garden in Whitstable.  We had visited the garden some time ago, but during the pandemic, the garden had a change of committee and new blood to carry the project on and indeed upwards to yet another level.  Much larger than any of our spaces, the garden is right in the community and so gets plenty of people using the space.  The gardeners made us feel so very welcome, and spent much of their time with us telling us about the project.  We always like to analyse such trips to consider our practices and if we can take anything learnt on board, and usually come to the conclusion we are different in several ways – however who knows what the future may bring.

One thing we do really appreciate is that we are also quite visible in our community, in lots of different areas, and fortunate enough to have local support to keep us up and running.  After the jubilee weekend, we were invited to go to the Golden Arrow to pick up the takings from the various events that went on such as the tombola and raffle.  Richard and Shona the landlords handed over a massive £570.  They wanted any money they made to go to the Sandgate Community Garden team as we are always out and about in the Golden Valley and Fremantle Park, and we are all working towards community in the Golden Valley.  We are most grateful and humbled.

This week in the Golden Valley at Fremantle Park, some of the lads from the Shorncliffe Barracks came out to help us plant the globe artichokes, some gooseberry and currant bushes, as well as more flowering annuals.  Next week they are going to be helping one of our other contacts, Rosemary at the Romney Marsh Community Garden with several chores she has lined up.  They are certainly keeping busy.

Finally: Advance Notice – next week’s newsletter will be a day later, because of a family wedding in East Sussex (that is if the groom has recovered from covid which appeared in the last couple of days!).

What’s next?

• Prick out the kale, swede and basil seedlings.

• Plant the next batch of lettuces and spring onions

• Sow the purple sprouting

• Order more seeds

• Take up the next bed of broad beans

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 5th June: Planty Jubes.

Happy Jubilee weekend!

We hope you are enjoying the celebrations this weekend, and that the weather is not spoiling things going on wherever you are.  In the garden we have been rejoicing over the appearance of some decent rain, which lightens the load as regards watering, and saves us much time, however now some of the more tender plants, especially the cucumbers are complaining about too much water and cooler temperatures – still, that is British weather for you.

The Parish Council have had the signs put up in Sandgate and Fremantle Park in the new orchards as part of the ‘Queens Green Canopy’ for the Platinum Jubilee, and very smart they look too.  We are still working on the orchards, adding herbs and bee friendly self-sown flowers in Sandgate Park, and more of the same plus fruit bushes and globe artichokes in Fremantle Park.  As we are working we have several people stopping to say hello, which is always welcome, and to comment on how well cared for the parks are looking, and how lovely it all is.  Sometimes when it is cold, damp and blowing a ‘hoolli’, you begin to wonder as a volunteer, exactly why it is you are there, but just one positive comment from a passer-by makes it all worthwhile.  We always try to pass on the thanks to the Parish Council too, as the improvements are not just about that ‘cherry on the top’ that we are doing.

A couple of us were helping out at the Golden Valley family fun afternoon hosted by the Golden Arrow on Friday.  It was a fabulous afternoon, and a great time was had by all with Face painting, tombola, children’s games, cake competition, barbecue, a talented singer to entertain, and Pimms tent.  Not sure who had the idea to hand out water pistols to all the children at one point, but we all really enjoyed the event.  The highlight for us was being asked to judge the cake baking competition, probably based on the fact that I in particular, really like cake, so it was a match made in heaven.  Many thanks go to Sandqate Parish Council for being kind enough to donate three prizes which were given out to the winners.

Lots of seeds got sown this week such as swede and beetroot, a few more spring onions, and more basil.  The pea shoots were taken up on Saturday as they were getting tired of having their shoots removed twice every week, making way for the leeks sown in April, and a few celeriac plants.  In spite of the weather, the tomatoes have managed to put on a little growth and needed tying in again to their stakes; then the carrot bed got a good sort out as it was thoroughly overcrowded and needed thinning, this involved crawling around on hands and knees or just sitting right in the patch itself to get done properly.

Our Saturday morning session brought many visitors again, including a new young family to Sandgate finding us for the first time, a lady from Canada from growing zone three, (where there is literally only three growing months in the entire year before it gets simply too cold), and our delightful Ukrainian ladies came again to sow more seeds and admire the beauty of the mares tails before finding out how much of a nightmare they are in the garden and to ruthlessly pull them up instead!  In contrast, the Ukrainian ladies were saying just how cold is the English summer compared to the Ukraine, where our temperatures feel more like their winter, therefore the jumpers and cardigans were out in force, whilst we were sporting shorts and T shirts!

What’s next?

• Still got lots of annuals to plant in various areas.

• Keep checking for mares tails coming through at Golden Valley planters.

• We need some more beetroot and spring onion seeds

• Keep checking new plantings for moisture levels and all pots watered.

• Plant the globe artichokes

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 29th May: When life gives you lemon trees, and a world of guerrilla gardening.

It was a week of cancellations due to the fact we had even more rain, bringing the total so far for this month to a whopping 47.2 mm!

Anyone who has not seen the garden for a couple of weeks is amazed by the lush green growth and how quickly everything has shot up and matured.  Very little watering to do, just some of the pots, and a few new plantings, but otherwise everything seems quite happy.  We have been eyeing up the fig trees as they seem to be doing particularly well and quite laden with fruit this year.

The cucumbers got planted, as well as some of the flowering annuals, new coriander plants got planted, and a few celery plants.  The garlic had to be lifted as it had rust again and will fail to thrive.  It made small bulbs, but very edible and much appreciated.  We had this problem with garlic last year so it may be a good idea to see if we want to tackle the situation next year or give up the garlic.

The compost bins 1 and 2 got turned, and bin 1 which was empty, is half full already.  We just seem to have got out all the tender plants and made room in the cold frames and before we know it, we have to start thinking about sowing the seeds for autumn, winter and even next spring.  More spring onions got sown into modules as did basil and swedes.  The next planting of lettuces in June got pricked out into modules as soon as two leaves had come through.

We had several visitors on Saturday.  The elderly gentleman who presented us with a lemon tree two weeks ago, came to see if it doing alright and was delighted to see it has three flower buds already, so seemed satisfied that the tree was indeed quite happy there.  We were also visited by two Ukrainian ladies currently staying with our lovely Ukrainian gardener, Tatiana.  We were delighted to welcome them to the garden, and they got stuck in watering, sowing seeds and generally browsing and chatting to everyone.  They took back with them some salad leaves, pea shoots and broad beans.  We hope they will visit again.

As usual, a busy week is ahead of us, and lots to sort out and tidy before the Jubilee weekend so that all is looking its best.  The guerrilla garden in Golden Valley is being planted up and starting to fill out and look so much better than it ever did before.  It has been noticed that the tree pits in Augusta Gardens, Folkestone West, have been beautifully planted with all manner of gorgeous flowering plants and this year edged with a wooden border perhaps to highlight to the council weed sprayer that the planting is deliberate by locals, and can be bypassed – our fingers are crossed.

What’s next?

• Catch up with rained off jobs such as weeding of Golden Valley and Fremantle Park

• Sow more seeds!

• Plant more flowering annuals in available spaces

• Keep checking on the tomatoes for side shoots which need removing

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 22nd May: Calling All Supermarkets – please, water your plants.

Thank goodness at last for a substantial downpour.  There was enough to start to refill the much reduced level of the pond, and to bring on the broad beans so that the pods are starting to develop.  Apparently we had 23mm in the last few days, which is more than we sometimes get in an entire month. The bulb onions are swelling and we have to keep an eye on them to make sure they are not able to develop any flowers.  The garden feels fresh and given a revitalising boost.  Even after rain it is important to monitor new plantings until they get a chance to get their roots down into the soil as they can dry out quickly on a warm day in direct sun. 

Not pointing a finger at any supermarket or store in particular that have plants for sale, but it is actually distressing for a passionate gardener to witness plants left to dry out and die when the simple act of giving some water would be enough to let them survive.  The waste by allowing that to happen is just phenomenal.  The plastic containers, the compost, the plant that had all that time and energy spent on getting it to a certain point – all gets thrown away!  It is a skill to be able to ‘see’ if a plant is properly hydrated, and some of our plants growing in containers may need to be watered well twice on a very warm day, depending on the size of the root system plus the amount and type of compost they are in.   

The mange tout is starting to climb the net fence, the courgettes, dwarf beans and tomatoes putting down some roots and making new leaves.  All the winter squashes got planted this week in separate beds from the summer squashes this year because it can be confusing as they grow to know which is which.  We have planted out many of the tender summer plants and are now evaluating how much space is left for all the cucumbers and the annual flowers.

Waitrose got in contact to hand over some plants that were desperate to be planted.  We had only a little space for one or two donations at the Sandgate Community Garden, so most got passed on to other community spaces in the area, Locavore at Martello Primary School, Napier Barracks, the Harbour Church on Canterbury Road and Touchbase Care.   By linking up with other groups we can all make sure that nothing goes to waste and share what comes along.  

On Monday we had a group of volunteers from the Napier Barracks come out to Sandgate Park to help weed the mulched areas around the fruit trees planted for the Queen’s Green Canopy as part of the Jubilee.  After making it tidy and adding a bit more compost, we also planted a few herbs which might become useful to anybody having a barbecue in the park, and will be appreciated by the bees when in flower.

This coming week we will be working on tidying and planting in the Golden Valley, again in preparation for the Jubilee weekend coming up.  The Golden Arrow pub will be helping the Valley to celebrate by hosting many events, so keep an eye on their Facebook page or call in to see the posters advertising everything that will be going on.

What’s next?

• Weed and tidy Golden Valley shop planters

• If time, start on the orchard at Fremantle Park

• Start planting out the flowering annuals

• Start planting the cucumbers at Enbrook Park

• If feeling strong, turn compost bins 1 and 2

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 15th May: I’m sorry, I’ll read that again, Honey and the Moon.

Oh dear, oh dear!  It seems I made a very optimistic reading last week of the rainfall, and mistook the temperature of 17.8 as being the actual amount, when it was in fact just 4mm.  A little bit of overenthusiastic statistic reading to say the least.  How fortuitous it would have been to have rained 17.8 mm.  It is still extremely dry for this time of year, and we have to water every session.  Looking at the satellite prediction for the weather this weekend on the television, we are being promised great downpours, but look at any weather apps and there is only a 40% chance of anything happening – so confusing, but by the time you read this newsletter we will know what was right.

It has been another week of kind thoughts and deeds.  The Meadowbrook alley garden got a mention last week, and this week a neighbour of the garden installed a water butt in the alley, fed by their shed roof; such a kind act.  We have received gifts of plant pots from various people, and even Waitrose got in touch to say they have several plants just going over their best-selling condition and can we use them.  We certainly can, if not at any of our gardens, we have contacts with many other local projects and can pass them on.  A lovely elderly gentleman has recently discovered our garden at Enbrook, and brought us a lemon tree he had grown himself from a cutting.  He found a perfect spot to plant it close to the wall in a sunny situation and it will be most interesting to see how it gets on there.

The hops did get thinned out but will need constant reviewing for a few weeks yet.  Most of the bolting chard and finished purple sprouting got removed making some space to plant out the rest of the French beans, the summer squashes and courgettes plus a few spring onions.  At Fremantle Park, some of the radishes had bolted and gone to flower but were left as the flowers are great for the bees and the seed pods are excellent to put in a salad or even a stir fry – all was not lost.

Our bees at the garden seem to be doing well.  It was interesting to note that some of them took a great interest in one of our gardeners this week and took to buzzing around him as soon as he came within a 20m radius of the hives.  We will have to find out why they were fascinated by him.  One of our beekeeper friends sent an article about honey fraud which seems to be rampant at present and getting worse.  If you had ever wondered why certain supermarkets can sell a jar of ‘honey’ for as little as 69p yet a local beekeeper has to charge in the region of £5 for all the hard work they put into producing a jar of honey – well it seems that the cheap supermarket version is mostly a sugar syrup that has never seen a bee, yet can be described as ‘honey’.  It seems disgraceful that this can happen and is yet another example of adulterated food which we buy in good faith and are none the wiser about where it came from and how.  However the clue is probably there in the price, same with many other processed products that are cheap for a reason and many of us choose to turn a blind eye to and not question.

Last but not least, it seems that scientists have successfully managed to grow some plants in soil from the moon.  However we are not anticipating having to start up a Sandgate community garden there any time soon…

What’s next?

• Finish staking and tying in all the tomato plants

• Are the winter squashes ready to plant out yet?

• Plant out some of the flowers

• Finish removing the purple sprouting and compost

• Maybe turn compost bin 1

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 8th May: Moths and moles, golden oregano and the need for more space!

Yippee!  We have had a drop or two of rain this week, some 17.8 mm apparently, which has freshened up the gardens beautifully – still not enough of course, but it has helped.

The tomatoes have now all been planted in two beds with a few along the wall.  By the end of the week the courgettes and summer squashes got planted too with space for just a few more.  Some of the French beans got planted, but there are more.

We have winter squashes, and outdoor cucumbers coming along fast, and they all got re-potted and put back into the cold frames to come on for another couple of weeks.  We need to clear more space for these things first, and with winter leeks, spring onions and chard coming along, goodness knows where they are going to go as there are no more beds available for a while yet and we shall have to try to keep them in their modules for a few more weeks.

The alleyway between Meadowbrook and Chichester Road seemed to be growing some fabulous forget-me-nots and dandelions in gigantic proportions which needed clearing to let the plants we want to keep a chance to breathe.  It is hard to imagine the small area had twelve bags of compost spread about at the end of last autumn; however the growth is looking lush.  There were some queries on Facebook about one of our plants looking particularly good there, a golden oregano (pictured below) which has made large cushions of growth and is fabulous.  It will probably need splitting up later in the year so we shall have to spread more of that around the area.

Always keen to look out for insects and creatures not noticed before in the garden; what we believe is a mint moth (photo below) was spotted on a gooseberry bush.  We do not think it is interested in gooseberries but probably making its way to the herb bed.  A cheeky mole has made its way under the wall it seems and popped up all over the place along the back of the garden.  Much as we love wildlife, the hope is it will either stay in that direction or go back under the wall again; however we probably will not be that lucky.

The Incredible Edible plant sale and seed swap happened on Saturday in Cheriton High Street where a massive £406 was raised!!  We took ten crates or boxes of plants to the sale.  It was wonderful to be able to clear space from having to look after these plants, however the saving of plants begins all again as we work towards our own community garden sale later on in the year at the Sandgate Sea Festival. Just time to breathe for a little while and make the most of the temporary space.

What’s next?

• Those hops did not get any attention this week – check for new shoots

• Finish planting out the last summer squashes and French beans

• Think about sowing next batch of lettuces

• Make more space – take out purple sprouting

• Take out the last chard bed

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.