Sandgate Community Garden

It is difficult to believe that it will be May next week, so many of the plants are behind, all those we are bringing on and tender,  are bursting out of their pots but no way will they get planted until it warms up and that cold wind has gone, the fleeces are staying on!  More sessions spent peeling back the covers, watering and rolling them back on again – it will be worth it.  We read about the French government pledging 1 billion euros of aid to their farmers because of damage to crops from frosts, it has been the same here.  Now the lack of rain is adding to the situation, and we spend most of the time watering when it used to be the April showers doing that job.

The bee keepers seem to have been particularly busy of late and having to choose an appropriate time when the temperature is warm enough to be able to open the hives and have a look inside.  Below is a picture of one of our beekeepers, Ray, doing just that and wearing all his protective clothing.

It was sunny enough for many of you to visit us at Enbrook Park and take home some of our spare tomato plants for a small donation.  We managed to raise £94.05 which is brilliant for just a few tomato plants, and enough to buy more seeds for next year.  The squashes and courgettes are now starting to romp away and we are bound to have too many for us to keep so drop us a message via email or through our Instagram or Facebook page if you are interested in taking some of them home too.

There was a little spare time between the watering to plant more spring onions, the Charlotte potatoes, and sow the cucumbers as well as the sunflower seeds given to us by Morrison’s as part of their ‘Seeds of Hope’  campaign to ‘plant hope for a brighter future as lockdown restrictions start to ease’.  Our contribution of 120 sunflower plants in and around Sandgate is a small part of the 25 million seeds being distributed, but they will be most welcome, and supplement the flowers we are growing for Kent’s Plan Bee.  These are dwarf varieties which is just as well considering our giant sunflowers last year and the year before got blasted when a couple of summer storms charged through!

If you want to help make a difference in your community and would like to support the Community Gardens and Incredible Edible, we are looking for volunteers to help water the planters and small garden spaces, but if you cannot spare the time or would find the activity of watering too strenuous, we depend on donations to be able to buy more planters and all the things it takes to fill them with everything edible for humans as well as bees.  Come up to the Enbrook garden Wednesday or Saturday morning, or message us via our Instagram or Facebook page.  If everybody did just a little bit our neighbourhood could be more than simply fabulous.

What’s next?

• Start re-potting the squash and courgette plants

• Keep on watering – no rain in sight

• Make sure we are not watering the weeds

• Sow chard

• Pull up rogue potatoes from last year!

• First picking of lettuces?

• Encourage the hops to wind clockwise around the twine

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There were some lovely episodes of sunshine during this week and a very gradual rise in temperature.  The main preoccupation of the week was to water, water and water, with no rain, and none on the horizon.  The raspberry patch got staked, the sweet peas planted, along with more lettuces to fill any gaps.  Celery, celeriac, sweet corn and all the courgettes and squashes got sown.  Dozens of tomato plants have been handed out to our volunteer gardeners to grow at home, and lots of coriander and parsley got potted up to donate to the Incredible Edible seed swap and plant sale.

The sale held on Saturday was a resounding success, raising an amazing £302.17, all of which will go towards more plantings of fruit, vegetables and herbs in the locality.  Whilst contemplating raising funds, we are getting ready to release all our spare tomato plants on Wednesday 21^st April, this coming Wednesday, at the garden in Enbrook Park; we also have pots of mint, as well as some young plants of coriander and Parsley.  Please come along and support us if you can – any plants not taken on Wednesday will be available next Saturday, also at the garden.  All proceeds will go towards the various projects we have around Sandgate, with a ‘BIG plant up’ of all the areas we look after being planned for the first week or two in May IF the weather continues to improve.

Although it has been so cold, we did manage to pick our first radishes which were very welcome, and although the frost and snow finished off many of the flowering tender plants from last year, we can see evidence of their scattered seeds starting to come through; some of us are getting very good at identifying weeds to pull and what to leave.  In particular the self-sown violas are looking quite spectacular.

For some time now we have been in contact with the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch railway to get ourselves onto their list of causes to benefit from access to used railway sleepers at a much reduced rate.  Their yard has been closed during the Covid lockdown, but this week they have opened the yard, and we collected 100 of their small scale used railway sleepers which will be just perfect to edge paths and keep piles of compost and woodchip tidy.  It seemed that 100 sleepers would go a long way but we have already used over 50 at Fremantle Park without even trying! 

What’s next?

• Pot up all the tomato plants for the Enbrook garden

• Pot up plants for the sale

• Continue to water new seedlings

• Plant the potatoes

• Sow the cucumbers and chard

• Edge the compost and woodchip piles with sleepers!

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• Make new bed at Fremantle for flowering annuals

Great news!  The rhubarb eventually turned up in the post at the end of the week and was immediately planted, and we have had some substantial rain at last.  The start of the week was taken up with watering the plots, and planting out more lettuces, spring onions, coriander, dill, parsley and chervil.  The herbs make a great addition to the lettuce leaves when they are picked and add some great flavours and textures.  The radishes sown in mid-February are starting to swell and should be ready to start to pick in the next week or two – such an amazing quick crop which copes well with the cold and can be eaten within nine weeks from being sown.  Not all of the jobs on the list got done as it is still quite cold and it takes time to remove fleece covers to water, and then replace them.

The garden will take some years to mature, and for the small shrubs and trees to become established but we can already see changes to some of the fruit bushes with promises of actually bearing some fruit.  The Honey Berry is a relative of the Honeysuckle, and is currently in flower.  The berries are very similar to blueberries without half the fuss, and can be eaten raw, or made into jams and jellies.  There is a picture of the flowers below.  The Goji berries are putting on some lush growth and should produce some fruit later this year – time will tell.  The autumn raspberries also planted last year are appearing thick and fast so there should be much more to pick with any luck.   In the meantime we have been tantalised with a picture on our WhatsApp group of Rosie’s parsnip pie!  There were many offers to help with the eating as it apparently tastes similar to apple pie; however it was already too late, and the pie had not surprisingly, been quickly consumed by the family.

By the pond we have some Pulmonaria or Lungwort in full flower which has certainly been attracting the bees in the few times that the sun has come out enough for them to venture out.  Other wildlife noticed this week has been many ground beetles.  It seems they are mostly active from March until October and as part of a well-balanced garden ecosystem, they will be helping out by feeding on any slugs or other insects they can find.   Every now and then we come across random small rodent sized holes, going deep underground; always interesting to consider all the life that is going on under our feet, and perhaps it was about time we got the wildlife camera out again to get some insight as to what goes on when nobody is around.

This coming Saturday, 17^th April from 10 am to 12.30 pm, there is to be a plant sale and seed swap at the front of the Community Network in Cheriton High Street.  We are donating seeds and plants for this and all proceeds will go to our sister group Incredible Edible to support more planting and growing of fruit and vegetables in the community

Reminder – tomato plants will be available up at the garden from Wednesday 21^st April.  Courgette plants to follow from mid-May.

What’s next?

Get to grips with unfinished jobs from last week:

• Stake the raspberry patch

• Plant the sweet peas

• Continue the war on sycamore seedlings

• Fill any lettuce gaps

• Sow more celeriac and celery, plus start the sweet corn and courgettes

• Keep watering carrot and parsnip beds plus pot plants and new plantings

• Pot up herbs for the Incredible Edible sale

• Start to pot up the tomato plants

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Happy Easter!

It was great to be able to work on the plot with more people this week due to the relaxing of the Covid rules.  We had cake on both garden sessions in celebration which went down very well, particularly Theresa’s carrot cake on the Saturday morning as it was freezing cold out there.  We had a couple of beautiful warm days at the start of the week, and since then it has gradually become colder again with the threat of frost and possible snow to come in the next few days. 

We really could now do with a good amount of rain to finally fill that pond to enable us to finish tidying the edges.  We have only had 51.3mm of rain in March, and with all the new sowings and plantings, we have managed to empty our water bowser already.   We have sown leeks, carrots, parsnips, celeriac and nasturtiums, plus some tree spinach and a few more flowering annuals such as cosmos and French marigolds.  We checked the new plantings for any casualties due to damage and replaced them with spare plants, and planted the perennials given to us by Morrison’s last week. 

Two spinach beds got planted up, and three with lettuce.  We have a few different lettuce varieties in shape and colour to make that salad bowl as interesting as possible.  The broad beans got staked, and time will tell if there are enough bees around willing enough to visit their flowers.   Some blossom is out on the old plum trees, and the maiden pear trees are trying hard to flower but it would be better if they remained closed for just a few more days until the cold snap has gone.

The kale has gone to flower and so they have been stripped and pulled up, the purple sprouting should be carrying on for a few more weeks as should the spinach from last year and the remains of the chard. 

We are waiting on several things to arrive in the post, which does not seem to have been very reliable of late.  Our new rhubarb plants have gone astray and we are told they could take up to a couple of weeks to arrive – always a worry when you have live plants in the postal system!  We are also waiting for our new tool box which has been on order for weeks!

The situation with the continual bombardment of sycamore seedlings continues.  Fortunately a few of our gardeners find pulling them out quite therapeutic and we probably have at least another couple of weeks of attacking them before the plague begins to subside.  Happily they make good compost but what a shame they are not edible too.

Incredible Edible news

The Incredible Edible team have been busy filling Cheriton High Street planters with new plants, and continuing work on the new herb garden.  The addition of a lovely new cherry tree to the garden is a reminder of the cherry tree orchards that apparently used to flourish in the area.

What’s next?

• Any sign of the missing rhubarb?

• Stake the raspberry patch

• Possible planting of the sweet peas if they are ready

• Continue the war on sycamore seedlings

• Fill any lettuce gaps

• Sow more celeriac and celery

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• Keep watering carrot and parsnip beds plus pot plants and new plantings

The slightly warmer weather has started to move some of the plants this week.  There was kale, purple sprouting, chard and spinach to pick, there is also wild garlic (popular for making into pesto), coriander, and a few mustard leaves which are now mature enough to make your eyes water they are that hot!  The broad beans were flowering underneath the fleece covers so we took them off or the pollinators will not be able to find them.  The fleece had been protecting the beans as well as the weeds so there was plenty to sort out.  As fast as we weed the sycamore seedlings all over the plot, they pop up again to make it look like nothing has been cleared.

There is a photo below showing the purple shoots of the Hythe Hops just poking through, totally surrounded by sycamore seedlings, and that is just in one small space!  So all the hops have survived their first winter and are all showing.  The hairy twine which the hops use to climb up has been fixed or replaced ready for them to romp away bigger and hopefully better than last year.

It seems that most of the plants have survived, and although we lost the annual flowers that seemed to come through the previous winter, they had time to seed, and we can see nasturtiums, violas and pot marigolds popping up making the weeding more challenging to identify what to keep and what to hoe.   The welsh onions are just starting to flower, which will be appreciated by the insects, and with any luck provide us with more seeds.  Welsh onions are a perennial which just keep dividing and making more onions.  We are still using the seeds from our chives to grow lots of new plants. 

We are all very excited that from next week we will be able to have six of us at a time back in the garden, no more shifts of working in ones and twos for just an hour at a time.  We welcomed back one of our gardeners who has been away for months recovering from Covid and the after symptoms.  Once she had managed to stagger up the hill to the garden, she could at least sit in the sunshine and sow some seeds and gather some energy to walk home again, armed with some spinach and kale to make a smoothie to help on the road to recovery.   In celebration we think that next week we should certainly indulge in some cake sharing to mark the start of spring, the chance to work together again and look forward to better times to come (like planting tomatoes perhaps!)

Reminder –From Wednesday 21^st April – Tomato plants are available

Last but not least a big THANK YOU to the supermarket Morrison’s for very kindly donating 10 plants, a mix of perennial flowering plants, herbs and a gooseberry bush.  Some of them are to be planted at Enbrook Park, whilst others will go to the garden at Fremantle Park.  We have an invitation to come back again for more plants when they have more stock with particular plants we have on our wish list.

What’s next?

• Stake the broad beans and run twine around

• Stake the edges of the raspberry patch

• Can the pond be put back together yet?

• Sow fancy nasturtiums, leeks and celeriac

• Plant gaps in onion beds

• Have the new rhubarb plants arrived?

• Plant more perennials in the flower garden area

• Keep pot plants watered and newly planted seedlings

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It is now officially spring with the arrival of the equinox, and we finished the week having caught up a little with ourselves after the lousy week before.   The current priority is to get plants that are ready into the ground as quickly as possible, releasing the sowing trays for more seeds and seedlings to be grown on.   We planted out the peas for shoots, spring onions, cabbages and broccoli, and two rows of parsnips got sown in-between the rows of radishes.  Radishes are a quick crop which will not be in the ground for many weeks whereas the parsnips are slow growers and will just be starting to do something when the radishes are being pulled up. 

We think that we may have fixed the pond.  We found that we had a small leak where the repair patches were overlapped.  Chris and Alistair, two of our able volunteers, worked out what the problem was.  Chris is the only one who comes prepared with a pair of wellies so more often than not ends up in the pond checking it out, that is dedication for you. 

We took some veg plants and compost to the nursery at the Saga Pavilion for the children to help plant in their playground planters.  We were sad not to be able to work with the children last year, and hope that we will get the opportunity to do so this year if the pandemic allows it.  In the meantime we will be forwarding plants so that they can at least grow something alongside their usual herbs and flowers.

We had a visit on Saturday from Dennis, who came all the way up to the garden bearing gifts.  There were seeds, new dibbers, irrigation timers (if only we had a mains water supply), a garden sign, and most touching were two clocks which apparently Dennis had put together himself and were community garden themed.  Just amazing and most kind!

Mid-week the planter outside the Ship got a good top mulch of compost, it is looking a little empty and sad at the moment but tidy, and it will not be too long before we can start filling it up again.  Opposite at the planters outside the Riviera Court, the phormiums were stripped of dead leaves and topped with a good few handfuls of pelleted chicken manure to give them a boost.  Permanent potted plants need a feed at least once a year, depending on what they are, how big and how much they grow.

Tomato plant news

Make a note in your diaries that it is hoped that our own grown tomato plants will start to become available from Wednesday 21^st April.  Be warned that this is too early to safely plant out tomatoes and they will still need protection for a while depending on the weather.  Last year we lost some seedlings to a storm that came through whilst under protection, and we had to make new sowings.  We have seven varieties, Tumbling Tom and Minibel (Cherry bush varieties) Moneymaker, Marmande, Crimson Crush, Tigerella and Yellow Delight.  We will make a further sowing just in case! 

News of the Incredible Edibles

Our sister group have started work on a new herb and vegetable garden in Cheriton outside the All Souls Church Hall.  The traditional design will also include a cherry tree and a lavender/pollinator border.  Like our planter outside the Ship in Sandgate, the containers in Cheriton High Street will gradually be filled with plants over the spring.  A new planter has been taken on at the Three Hills Sports Centre, and of course, there are lots of plans for more projects in the pipeline.

What’s next?

• There are a few new raspberry canes to plant

• Plant the artichoke plants

• Plant the lettuces and sugar snap peas

• Plant up plot 1 at Fremantle Park with available vegetables

• Check the Golden Valley for spaces to plant veg, check for weeds and if new trees need watering

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• Sow more seeds!

More interesting weather this week with it being so cold and wet that it was challenging to find the enthusiasm to get to Enbrook Park for our usual Wednesday and Saturday morning sessions, so not many of the jobs on the list got done at all!  The seedlings are coming along fast now at nearly four weeks, and some will be ready next week to be planted.  Just the peas for pea shoots made it into the ground to be followed by beetroot, cabbage, broccoli, spring onions and possibly some lettuces if the weather improves. 

This time last year we were picking up our four hop roots from the Hythe Hops Scheme to plant along the wall.  Not wanting the garden at Fremantle to miss out on the whole hop growing,  beer making and tasting experience, we ordered three more hop plants which were planted at the end of the plot beside the fruit trees and bushes.  The plants are known as ‘Prima Donna’, a dwarf hop, and we are looking forward to being able to combine all the hops from the total of seven plants we now have.  The Enbrook hops are now in their second year and so it will be interesting to compare how prolific they are compared to last year, and also with the new batch at Fremantle.

This year we are sowing and growing much more in the way of flowering annuals as our contribution to Kent’s Plan Bee.  In view of the fact we have various pockets of land around Sandgate as well as planters to fill up and look after, growing from seed is all important.  We are excited about a new area of the Enbrook garden being prepared for butterfly and moth attracting flowers which are bound to appeal to the bees and hoverflies too.  

This week the green outside the chip shop in the High Street was weeded and cleared then given a mulch of compost ready for some flowering annuals as soon as they can go outside.  We hope you will be able to notice our contribution in the way of herbs, vegetables and flowers popping up all over Sandgate in the summer months.

What’s next?

• All the jobs listed last week still need doing.

• Plant veg seedlings and cover with fleece

• Prick out the lettuce seedlings and flowering annuals

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More trays of seeds got sown in the warmth of the Saturday sunshine in the garden, so we now have hundreds of seeds and seedlings on the go.  However, all of them are pretty hardy and early varieties that can cope with some cold.  First thing in the morning the trays of seedlings get put out into cold frames and mini greenhouses, and are taken indoors at night time when the temperature drops.  That way, the plants make some good steady growth and when they are around four weeks old, should be able to be planted out in the garden, covered with fleece, as long as the temperatures in the local weather forecast are not too low. 

We have some plants ready and waiting to go out now, but this weekend says the nights are too cold and they will have to wait a little longer.  It is all about being patient, keeping an eye on the weather, as well as making judgements about how strong the plants are.  Patience being the operative word!  So many citizens of Sandgate have been telling us about how well they are doing with getting all the seeds in the ground, outside, with no protection, expecting them to oblige by growing.

Sometimes you get lucky, but we can still get heavy frosts and even snow as late as Easter, and plants can catch up and overtake earlier sowings because their growth has not been checked by the cold.  We have also had tales of annuals romping away in the greenhouse, growing well, but when we are asked when the plants can safely go outside (probably not until at least May), there is then the realisation that these plants will have to be kept under glass, watered, and moved on into much larger pots to be able to survive in good condition until then, by which time they resemble triffids.  Patience!

The temperature this winter has made a difference to the garden.  Last year we had annuals such as nasturtiums and nicotiana coming into flower – all have been lost as well as the autumn peas, even the broad beans have taken a battering.  However many gardens have lost their broad beans altogether so we count ourselves lucky there.  The temperatures were low, but not as low as in other parts of the country or even county.  There were concerns about the goji berries to see if they survived but you can see from one of the pictures below that they are sending out good strong shoots.  There is also a picture showing the new shoots of the autumn raspberries coming through.  We will have to be careful not to hoe them off!  Autumn raspberries are different to summer in that they fruit on the new stems which grow fresh in the spring, and may not need support, whereas summer raspberries fruit on the stems which grew in the previous summer and usually need to be tied into a frame.

Not enough rain to fill the pond so we cannot report back on if the repair has worked yet!  Happily all the jobs on the list for this week did get done, to include the turning of the compost bins, the planting of more fruit trees at Fremantle Park, and the application of a good amount of fresh compost at Golden Valley shops and more weeding.  There was even time to help out with a big tidy and litter pick behind the shops, as well as revamp the Meadowbrook and Chichester Road alleyway with a generous dollop of compost and some new plantings of some soft fruit bushes.  Phew!

What’s next?

• Keep checking on the pond for a repair status

• More sowings of herbs, lettuce, spinach and spring onions

• Keep looking for pesky infestations of sycamore seedlings!

• Water the new planting at the alleyway – label

• Finish the wiring of the posts along the wall

• Find slates/stones for making new signs

• Keep all plant pots watered if dry

• Divide hostas if they are growing

• Start work on one of the greens in the High Street.

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What a spectacular week as regards the beautiful sunny weather.  It has been lovely to be able to spend some time in the garden and not be wet, or blasted from one end to the other!  The pond will have to wait to be filled from rainwater and to see if the repair has worked. 

Warm enough to sit down and sow seeds, we have started off more pea shoots, as well as spinach, spring onions, parsley, dill and fennel.  We planted out two plots with radishes that were only sown on 19^th February, and at 8 days old were bursting out of the modules.  They have a cover of fleece to help them along, but last year we did not plant enough of them and they got enthusiastically eaten in no time at all. So many trays of seedlings coming along, it is quite a juggling act to get them out in the sunshine during the day, and back in the warm at night time.  Still too early for many seeds that are tender and cannot be planted out until at least mid-May, such as tomatoes.  We have had many enquiries about availability of tomato plants this year, and they will not be available until at least mid-April which is still early.  It is so difficult to be patient and to wait to get plants going, but that is exactly why the shops get them out there too soon as they often end up being murdered because of a cold snap, and then more plants get bought to replace them!

It has been a week of gifts too – thank you to Freddie for buying us a grabbing device for the pond to get out any debris.  Who knew such things existed and that our lives would not be complete until we had one?  We were also contacted by Peter and Isobel with the kind gifts of some packets of flower seeds which will be put to good use, and some amazing clay pots which certainly will look good in the summer, filled with the flowers grown from the donated seeds – perfect!

Fremantle Park and the Golden Valley shops

We now have enough volunteers at Fremantle to start a WhatsApp group to enable us to list the jobs that need doing, and keep up the communication.  This week the fruit trees and soft fruit shrubs got planted, and with any luck, three more trees should get planted next week.  The five vegetable plots are being allocated to local families to be looked after by them; but the herb planters and the new garden to be created at the other end of the park by the slope to the alleyway, are to be planted up with all kinds of things that anybody will be able to help themselves to in ‘Incredible Edible’ fashion.

After some cajoling and pleading, the Folkestone and Hythe parks department very kindly took out four Phormiums from the brick planters at the Golden Valley shops.  They are great plants for filling a huge amount of space and able to look after themselves, but this summer we are hoping to make this area a riot of colour with flowering perennials and annuals.  We have been weeding both inside and outside the planters, and will be adding a layer of compost to improve the soil and fill in the Phormium craters!  We met the new landlords of the Pub, The Golden Arrow, who are keen to work with us to help make the shopping area look something this year.  They are busy making great improvements to both the inside and outside of the pub with a view to making it a family orientated hub of the Enbrook Valley community in Sandgate.  We welcome them and wish them well with their plans as soon as restrictions are lifted.

What’s next?

• Any rain on the horizon and get the pond back together again?

• Get the large clay pots on site at Enbrook Park, and filled ready for planting

• More seed sowings of peas, radishes, spring onions

• Prick out the lettuces

• Continue to turn the compost bins

• Finish weeding at the shops and put down the new compost

• Plant three more fruit trees at Fremantle.

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We had quite a setback this week.  It should have been an omen to read that it is not always necessary to break the ice on a frozen pond, when it was discovered that some over enthusiastic ice breaking had resulted in eleven puncture holes in the pond liner and the water had leaked out.  Always best to get to grips with the situation quickly and get it sorted, so we excavated the liner around the edges to find those punctures and fix them with a pond liner repair kit.  We will not know if we have managed to find all the holes, or if the repair is a success until we get some rain and with any luck the pond fills up.  We will keep you updated.

We spent some time checking up on the plants to see how they had fared after the snow.  The Cardoon in a photo last week has perked up, as have the cabbages, which even had some caterpillars hiding in their leaves on closer inspection – unbelievable!  The autumn peas and broad beans look decidedly sad under the fleece covers, but they have established root systems and with any luck they should recover in time.  The goji berries only survive up to minus five, but they seem to be sending out some new leaves so we are optimistic they will be fine too.

The warmer weather and longer daylight hours have meant that it is time to make the first sowings of the year.  Just in time, our new plant trays from Charles Dowding, the no dig guru, arrived, and they are perfect for us.  They are longer than an A4 size piece of paper, there are sixty planting cells for seedlings, and so when multi sowing beetroot for example, at four seeds per cell, you have a potential two hundred and forty plants in a small space.  They will transform the seedling growing process this year. 

We had a bonus in the form of some lost parsnips.  It was thought that the entire crop had been harvested, the plot they had been growing in looked very empty until there were some tell-tale signs of new growth from parsnip tops, poking through the soil.  They are quite happy to be left in the soil for a few weeks yet, but they will not be lasting that long!

Fremantle Park: At last the soil is starting to dry, good enough to be able to walk on.  More paths have been put down in the form of trusty wood chips, and after a topping of some fine bagged compost, they will be ready to be planted into.  We have some fruit trees, fruit bushes and more herbs ready and waiting to be planted, so if the weather stays dry they might get planted.

What’s next?

• If there is any rain this week, check on the pond water level

• Continue to weed plots covered in fleece and nets

• Make more sowings on Wednesday, of the vegetables mentioned last week

• Make a start on emptying compost bin number three

• Remove old plant growth from hops – careful not to cut strings

• Weed outside wall and clear debris

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