Sandgate Community Garden

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.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 10th November: Time for tea and biscuits and a Mighty Mouse.

Where has the sunshine gone?  We have seen a fleeting glimpse of it this week, but it soon scuttled behind a cloud so that it has been gloomy and dull every day.  It seems we are stuck in this weather pattern but hopefully it will change soon.

It is easy to forget how quickly it gets dark now in the afternoon.  Plans get made to do things, but before you know it, the sun (wherever it is) goes down and it stops anything and everything.  Such was the case this week when some of the lads from Napier Barracks came out to help start to shift our delivery of compost from ‘The Friendly Farmers’ up to our compost compound in the garden.  They are unable to turn up until after 2pm, and before we knew it we were plunged into darkness!  The good news is they are fast and strong which meant the task got done and there was even time for a celebratory cup of tea and a biscuit.

Having the compost ready to hand it meant that we could continue to apply a good mulch of it to some of the other plots.  We also continued with laying some of the wood chip paths, clearing more of the rampaging nasturtiums and yet more weeding and general clearing.  The leaves are still falling, and so the task of collecting them will occupy us for a few more weeks yet.  The hedge got another cut, which we hope will now be the last for this year. 

All this activity and application of organic matter was getting our garden robin very excited as he would flit in and out of the plots, retire back to the trees and sing at the top of his voice which was a delight to see and hear although he is too shy to be able to photograph clearly.

Not all the wildlife is so welcome.  Having sowed some 300 broad bean seeds for The Community Garden and for Pent Farm, they were put inside one of the greenhouses at the farm.  On the next visit to the farm it was clear that a mouse had discovered the seeds and had dug up quite a few and had made short work of them right there and then.  The next idea was to cover the seed trays in a metal mesh to stop them being eaten, which usually works, but not in this case.  So having lost many more seeds the last resort was to upend some large and tall plastic pots to stand the seed trays on.  Fortunately for us this seems to have done the trick as no more damage has occurred, although it could only be a matter of time!  More seeds have had to be ordered…

What’s next?

• Sort out the potted bay trees
• Sow some more broad beans
• Move some more compost and wood chips
• Clear more leaves and add to the leaf compost bin

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 3rd November: Plenty of flowers but possibly not enough bees to fertilise them.

The rainfall for October was a substantial 82.3mm, but this week has continued to be mainly dry with mostly cloudy and dull days with the odd bit of sunshine.  However the temperatures are good enough for plants to continue to grow meaning that the grass needs cutting even though it is soggy underfoot.

We had meant to cut the hedge back again this week but it will be relisted as a job for next week as were preoccupied with bringing wood chips up to the garden and laying them down to replenish the old paths.  A large tray of broad beans got sown for planting out some time in November, and more will need to be started off this coming week.  The weeds along the hedge line were cleared as were wheelbarrow loads of nasturtiums which had started to take over the asparagus plots as well as amongst the radishes and spinach.

Both the winter and the French radishes were ready for picking, as well as plenty of spinach, some kale and the last of the summer sown spring onions.  We had a sit down session to tackle the spring onion seed heads which were grown at Pent farm in the hope of being able to sow them this coming spring.  It seems we had plenty of flowers but possibly not enough bees to fertilise them.  It was a struggle to retrieve what seeds there were and nobody is convinced that growing our own was a brilliant idea!  We will give it a chance in February when it is time to start the sowing season again.

As well as laying the wood chip paths, our other main consideration is to get any empty plots covered with a layer of new compost.  We have so far emptied our compost bays where it was stored, and having turned the main compost heap into a neighbouring bay, we were able to use a few barrow loads at the bottom of the heap which was usable.  The activity of revealing and turning the compost brought our garden robin right up close to swoop in and pick up anything that looked tasty enough.  We left the covers turned back so that he could continue to scavenge.

It will be a while before we have any more of our own compost and so we resorted to calling on the ‘Friendly Farmers’ in Densole to bring us a couple of ton bags full of great compost they make on the farm.  Now the issue is to get that compost up to the garden but with any luck, perhaps the lads at Napier barracks will be free sometime next week to give us a helping hand.

What’s next? 

• Get the compost moved
• Finish laying the wood chips
• Cut the hedge again
• Trim the bay trees and raise up in the pots

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 27th October: A fast downhill spiral towards the end of the year.

The clocks have gone back and now it begins to really feel that we are on a fast downhill spiral towards the end of the year and all that it brings.  The weather has continued as it has been for the past few weeks with lots of warm sunshine but less rain than we have had of late.

On Wednesday the overwintering onions got planted.  We sowed the seeds some weeks ago and they currently look just like young spring onions, but hopefully by next summer they will be fully grown brown onions.  Another tray of spring onions were planted as well as six more chive plants.

The brassicas were checked for caterpillars again, as last week they were smothered in them courtesy of the cabbage white butterflies, however it seems we did a good job of clearing them as only four were found this week.  Just as we were thinking we were winning the battle with the wildlife for once, we got a reminder that nature will always come out on top when it was noticed that the Chinese cabbages were absolutely smothered in sawfly caterpillars and being rapidly shredded.  We decided to cut our losses and scrap the lot because they were just too bad to try and rescue.  In the past we did manage to pick off the sawflies and rescue the crop but time is not now on our side.

The weeding and bed preparation continues – with the weather being mild, the old potato beds where a few small potatoes got left behind, started to sprout again and random potato plants are popping up.  It seems no matter how hard you try not to leave any behind, some always do and appear in the most awkward of places in the middle of another crop.

The shorter days and some cooler weather has started to turn the leaves to autumn colours and drop – so begins the task of collecting them all up and composting them, with of course as many sycamore seeds as we can find to save ourselves the trouble of having to pull up the growing seedlings next spring in their thousands!

The growth was cleared around the pond, and some pond weed removed as the water has been well and truly overtaken by lots of new growth.  Some of the pond weed will find new homes in our gardeners’ ponds or to Pent Farm, to the pond there.

On Saturday we worked together to make a human chain, bringing trugs full of wood chips from the lower wall at the bottom of the hill, up to the garden and down on the ground to replenish the paths.  A few more garden sessions and with any luck we should get all the paths done and the garden looking much smarter.

What’s next?

• Start sowing the broad beans
• Continue laying the wood chip paths
• Hoe under the hedge outside the garden
• Tidy the hedge again as it is still growing!

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 20th October: Collecting food and storing it for the long cold winter months ahead.

The weather was very much like it was last week with periods of beautiful warm sunshine and lots and lots of the wet stuff in-between.  It was even the same on Saturday as it was last week in that we had to cancel the morning garden session because of the rain, but there was wall to wall sunshine in the afternoon. 

There was a spectacular Hunter’s moon on Thursday, so called because it is ‘the time of year when historically hunters began collecting food and storing it for the long cold winter months ahead’.

On our Wednesday morning garden session we got cracking with clearing more of the strawberry plants trying to take over a vast area, and lots of mint which also needed cutting back.  It revealed our little lemon tree hugging the wall and bearing lots of beautiful pink and white flowers.  Having picked a lemon from the tree a few weeks ago we are keeping our fingers crossed that it might grow one or two more next year. 

The wall has many flowers growing in front of it, and down the other end there is currently a spectacular show of nasturtiums with lush green leaves and numerous flowers from pale yellow through to deep orange.  We sometimes forget that the nasturtium is very edible and makes a great addition to a salad.  Talking of salads, we planted one of our favourite winter salad leaves – Claytonia, or winter purslane.  It is well worth growing as it is extremely hardy, not much liked by slugs and snails, and keeps on producing edible leaves and flowers well into late spring. 

One of our gardeners confessed after the session that the claytonia had not been ‘watered in’ which helps new plants to get established quickly, however we need not have worried as by Wednesday evening the heavens opened along with a great show of thunder and lightning – it was fabulous to watch, and helped our new plants settle in at the same time.

What’s next?

• Plant some overwintering onions near the banana tree
• Keep checking for more caterpillars on the brassicas
• Continue to lay woodchip paths and put down compost
• Clear the area behind the pond

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 13th October: A spectacular show of colour.

There was no sitting about enjoying the sunshine this week, although there were plenty of opportunities, just not when it was our formal gardening sessions on a Wednesday and Saturday morning.  Unfortunately we had to cancel our session on Saturday because it just rained all morning even though the weather apps kept promising it would brighten up any time soon. 

The clear night skies gave the chance for many of us to see the Northern Lights again this week and there have been many photographs of the locality on social media bathed in a spectacular show of colour for the past couple of nights.  Some people pay a small fortune to travel northwards to catch the Northern Lights, and here they were in our own backyard!

We did manage to start the job of laying down more wood chip paths, and continued the work of clearing some of the finished summer crops such as the dwarf beans and summer squashes.  However we still have plenty of ground work to be getting on with and it will be keeping us busy for a few weeks yet.

The few strawberry plants we left under the soft fruit shrubs have had a great time spreading out and invading other parts of the plot, so their removal was started, although it will take some time to take out the lot. 

The purple sprouting broccoli has been slowly growing under the netting but we noticed that they were starting to look a bit chewed to say the least and on inspection it was clear the netting was protecting vast quantities of cabbage white caterpillars from being picked off by any predators, and so it was our job to lift the netting and remove as many as we could to be relocated to the sacrificial nasturtiums where they could continue to develop. 

The autumnal days have brought out the spiders in our houses and gardens as this is the mating season when the males in particular will go on the search for a mate before they die.  Female spiders, usually larger, can live longer, and the photo below is of a particularly huge garden specimen which has been hanging about making a massive new web every day suspended between a fence post and a fruit tree for about a week now.  As much as such a beautiful creature can be admired for the patterns both on her body and those she creates with her web, it would indeed be terrifying to be that much smaller and caught up in the sticky trap – what a way to go!

What’s next?

• Continue laying wood chip paths
• Put fresh compost in the top of the potted plants
• Put down fresh compost on the cleared beds
• Clear the rest of the strawberries

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 6th October: Admire the flowers, watch the bees and butterflies, and listen to the birds singing.

This week we have said hello to October and some fine sunny, warm weather.  The rainfall for September was 98.5mm, which is quite something for late summer and the start of autumn. 

The path to the bench was cleared so that it could be seen again, and the winter squash plants taken up and composted as were the bolted lettuces.  Wednesday was our busiest day when lots of volunteers came out to give a hand, however Saturday was quieter, and so beautifully warm and sunny that it has to be said we just sat and took time to admire the flowers, watch the bees and butterflies, and listen to the birds singing.  It was a piece of heaven for just that moment in time in that place.

True to form and bang on time, the Michaelmas daisies are in full flower (how do they do that with such regularity and perfect timing?)  The bees have certainly been enjoying their blooms as well as the red sedum situated around the pond.  There is always something in bloom throughout the year, and each season has its real gems. 

We took a good look at the fig tree, however it seems that the birds managed to beat us to most of the fruits; but it appears the fig has more it can give as apparently the leaves have many health benefits, has been used in the past to treat lots of ailments and makes a great fig leaf tea.  The other thing we discovered this week whilst admiring the large rose hips is that the outer flesh is edible and very soft and sweet it tasted too – who would have known?

We had an invite to the Nepalese community open farm day at Pent Farm.  It was a real pleasure to walk amongst the vegetable plots finding out about some traditional crops, and tasting delicious food grown on the farm and prepared in true Nepalese style.  It was a perfect end to the week.  The home brewed rice wine was flowing by the gallon, very similar to Japanese Sake, unfortunately had to be avoided or it was likely that the remainder of the day would have been lost in an alcoholic haze!

What’s Next

• Put down some wood chip paths where needed

• Still have radishes to plant

• Keep putting down more compost

• Take up the summer squash plants

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 29th September: Limboing squash eating cows alert.

The predictions for the weather this week were spot on – cooler, and plenty of rain giving localised showers.  Parts of the country are flooded, so we have come off lightly so far; however it has had an effect on the tasks.  We were rained off on our Wednesday session, and although it was just showery and windy, a decision had to be made to cancel or get wet, and with no shelter for us, we decided to cancel.  A quick check was made of the netting and plants, to ensure all was well until the next session.

One of our tasks was to collect the squashes just in case anything happened to them, although not sure quite what, and suspect it was a reaction to the fact that the other plot some of us work on at Pent Farm had a visit from the cows in the field next door.  Having ‘limboed’ under their electric fence they took a shine to the squash patch and proceeded to trample and eat the plants until the farmer spotted them – somewhat too late.  So we collected up the squashes at Enbrook Park, grateful that there is little we have to worry about as regards marauding animals really.

During the Saturday morning session, the weather was absolutely beautiful, starting off cold and crisp but warming up quickly with wall to wall sunshine.  However we were short of gardeners for various reasons, so the two of us that did turn up decided to simply pull up a chair in the sunshine and enjoy being in the garden and just chat.

The change in the season has meant that with the shorter days, the growth is slowing right down, and with most of our autumn and winter crops already planted, the pace can slow down too.  We have a few more French radish plugs to plant next week, but not much else will follow until we sow and plant the broad beans sometime in October/November.  With the urgency gone, taking time out to simply sit is a luxury we can afford – and very good it was too!

Most things seems to be growing reasonably well, however the leeks have hardly shifted at all these past few weeks and are still quite small, but the mustard plants are looking good as are the winter radishes and the purple sprouting now desperately trying to get out of their netting.

With all the tomatoes removed last week, there has been a great flurry of activity from some members being creative with the green fruits, making chutneys and sharing recipes for other dishes.  Unused green tomatoes have been left to ripen by themselves in various bowls and trays around our houses and shared out or made into all sorts of culinary delights.  The tomato season is now at an end and it will be many months before we get to sample them again fresh from the vine.

What’s Next?

We still have all the tasks from last week to complete:

• Clear the path to the bench
• Clear the squash plants and bolted lettuces away
• Put fresh compost down on the empty plots
• Plant out the French radish plugs

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.