Sandgate Community Garden

The clocks have gone back this Saturday.  Daylight hours are reducing fast as time goes on, but there is an abundance of free food out there if you are a forager, and apparently this year is a ‘mast year’ which is a superabundance that occurs every five to ten years.  The trees synchronise their most productive years, giving so much fruit and nuts that the animals can never eat them all, and there is the best chance for new saplings to establish themselves.   Apparently this is an evolutionary tactic that happens with some insects and animals too.  Nature is just amazing!  We are inundated by sycamore seeds again this autumn and are doing our best to pick up as many of them as we can with the leaves, or in the spring we will have a forest starting to grow.  We certainly had experience of that this year, and had to put the hoes to good use.  If any of the saplings get a hold, the roots go down very deep.

Exciting news of this week is that we have had a delivery of a couple of bottles of beer from the local Hythe brewery Hop Fuzz made with the hops from the Hythe Hops scheme, and so contains some of our own grown hops.  Both bottles were put into a lottery and were won by two of our gardeners, Julie and Rosie.  In the photograph below of the two bottles, you can read on the label that the brew is made with Hythe hops from ‘a team of interested people from the local community who together, want to grow hops and turn them into beer’.   Some of the proceeds also go towards supporting the local bumblebee conservation trust.   More brews from Hop Fuzz and Docker breweries will be happening before Christmas, and will be appearing in bottles and cans somewhere near you.

Docker brewery made another delivery of spent hops to our compost bins this week, and very glad we are to have them.  The smell coming from the bins was something wonderful for a change.  We are investing in another stacked wooden compost bin so that we can continue to make even more ‘black gold’, the most important bit of the garden that nourishes all the fruit and vegetables.

Rain was very much the feature of this week, which completely washed out our Wednesday meeting and half of Saturday too.  However we got broad beans and autumn peas sown, and the winter purslane got planted.  Winter purslane or claytonia is very rich in vitamin c and prefers to grow in the winter months.  We shall see if we like it enough to make it a regular feature.

What’s next?

• Finish the wood treatment on the new and old compost bins

• Sow a few more broad beans

• Are we going to net this pond?

• Order the fleece

• Dig up strawberry plants

• Move herbs to herb garden area

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Both the garlic and the elephant garlic got planted this week, and still time to plant more, as well as broad beans which could happen next week.  All the garlic had been saved from last year. 

The biggest job of the week was to turn out all of the compost bins, move and then repack them.  It is always a good opportunity to see if the compost is too dry or too wet, and to make adjustments.  Fallen leaves get collected every session, and it will take several months to fill the leaf mould compost bin.  We are thinking it would be a good idea to cover the pond surface with netting to catch falling leaves that will pollute the pond, but we have to think of the wildlife that use it and make it safe for them too.

The strawberry planters got planted up, and so we have many strawberry plants left, a few will go to some of the Incredible Edible projects in the area, and perhaps others will go to the Fremantle park project.  Nothing gets wasted, and even if things get delegated to the compost bin, it goes to make excellent compost. 

Below is a picture of one of the Fremantle Park planters being well looked after by locals.  Pleased to say, everything is currently looking lush and green there.

Now we have had plenty of rain, and beds are being cleared we can continue easily with the ‘big weed’ and work through the entire plot catching things before they have a chance to flower – again they get added to the compost bin.  Something is also making the most of the softer, pliable soil and trying to dig several holes up against the wall.  Perhaps they are trying to dig their way to the other side.  Always interesting to see and wonder at what the wildlife are up to, and the abandoned chewed up trainer left behind on the path leads you to imagine all sorts of things going on when we are not around!

What’s next?

• Sort out some netting for the pond

• Sow broad bean seeds

• Move the bench

• Re-arrange the herbs

• Start moving strawberry plants

• Order some fleece and another compost bin

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Surprisingly fine sunny weather for both of our gardening sessions this week, which meant we were able to start to get to grips with making our changes to the plot over the winter.  We are following the ‘rule of six’, and are taking it in turns to come along, with some taking a half shift so that somebody else can visit later.

The rain has filled up the pond in no time at all, and with the pond plants, is looking pretty good.  We cut back some of the sides so that not so much of the plastic liner is showing, always a very dodgy exercise, and one of us nearly ended up head first in it.

Before we can cover the plots with new compost, or replant we have been getting out the hoes and clearing weeds that have a habit of turning into a monster as soon as your back is turned.  We did not get time to plant the elephant garlic, but there is still time.  We are concentrating on sorting out our compost area to make it look neater, and creating an area for the herbs to be together instead of spread out around the plot, and the bench is to be moved.  The disappointment of not getting any strawberries, probably mostly due to the visiting foxes and badgers has led us to change tack and try another way of growing them.  We have moved the salad boxes and have used them to make two high strawberry boxes with the hope that unless the mammals are good at climbing we might actually get a crop next year.  We can but hope that this might do the trick.

We have been exchanging many recipes for tomatoes, both green and red, from soups to chutneys.  Pesto making is also popular, and we are looking forward to a promised recipe that uses nasturtiums.  One of our gardeners photographed a fabulous still life with some of the produce, many of us thought it was an old painting until we looked closer – the banana squash probably gave it away (pictured below).  We are hoping to persuade her to keep taking these pictures as the seasons go on, as they would be works of art in themselves.

What’s next?

• Plant up that elephant garlic, and perhaps the ordinary garlic now sprouted in the modules.

• Keep working on the compost and strawberry areas

• Does the Chinese cabbage netting need to be removed?

• More weeding along the fence line and wall areas.

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The Folkestone Docker Brewers, having made the ‘green’ brew from the Hythe scheme hops, thought to complete the hop cycle of life by bringing the spent hops back to the garden and putting them on one of our compost heaps.  When having aged appropriately, the compost will be applied back onto the garden, perhaps onto the hops themselves. 

This week we were able to work on the garden Wednesday morning, but Saturday was a complete wash out, with persistent rain, which although most welcome, put a halt to any proceedings!   We managed to get the sprouted onions (spring and bulb) planted.  The garlic, saved from the summer, was sown into modules, and will be planted up as soon as a space is ready and given a thick covering of compost.  The strong winds, apart from battering the raspberries, has turned our mini greenhouse over once again, although luckily the seedlings were quite far on, and could be easily rescued and put back into the modules with no harm done.  Not so lucky was our Folkestone Mayor who kindly grows some plants for the Incredible Edible projects, alongside her allotment plants.  Unfortunately her greenhouse was  tipped over, and the plants were sadly lost.  We certainly know how she feels.

Fortunately the Incredible Edible team has had good news this week, as a High Street Fund has been granted, for more planters to be planted up with edibles in Cheriton High Street.  Our Incredible Edible planter outside the ship in Sandgate has been cleared and planted up with some spinach and Onion seedlings.  Some kale may get planted at some point, but most of the kale has been ravaged by the cabbage white caterpillars, and they look too sorry to be on show. 

As a group we have been discussing the likes and dislikes of the year as regards what we have grown.  So far it has been conclusive that we need more green leaves such as spinach and chard, more dwarf and broad beans, courgettes, potatoes and cucumbers, more rhubarb, onions throughout the year, and about the same amount of beetroot.  The turnips and kohlrabi will be ditched, as will a high percentage of the endives.  The early crops of radish and pea shoots were greatly appreciated, and we need to be smarter with the space used by the tomatoes, strawberries and the squashes.   We would like to try sorrel and salsify again which failed for some reason this year.  Some areas of the garden are working well, and some need to be reorganised this winter – so we have plenty to work on.

Bee News

With the sudden change in the temperature and the weather, there is evidence of dead bees sprawled around the entrances to the hives.  It seems that the victims are the only male bees of the hives, the drones.  Well known for their ‘layabout’ lifestyle (their only purpose in life is to mate with queen bees), they are quickly ejected from the hive at this time of year when surplus to requirements and no longer useful – as a result they die.  A sad ending, however the girls of the hive now have to consider the survival of the basic colony in the hard months to come.  The beekeepers have been setting traps around the hive to attract wasps and hornets, well known for attacking and raiding hives, killing the bees.  So far so good, but with tales of enormous Asian hornets on their way to the UK, the keepers need to be vigilant.

What’s next?

• Hoe and weed any cleared spaces, cover with a thick layer of compost

• Rain has brought on the weeds, so plenty of weeding to do

• Plant the elephant garlic

• Begin to draw up plans of parts of the garden needing changes.

• Maybe start on the reformation of the pond now it is full again

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This week has certainly seen a significant change in the weather which has also triggered a clearing of some of the summer planting and in with more winter and spring veg.  The watering can did not get a look in this week as the showers and drop in temperature took a hold, and will do for much of the foreseeable weather charts.  The tomatoes would struggle to ripen, and the winter squashes would not benefit from the cold and damp and so an executive decision was taken to lift them all.  The green tomatoes will ripen eventually indoors, and do not have to be used unripe.  The squashes could be stored for several months but with only enough for each volunteer to take a squash, it is unlikely they will be around for long!  So ends another season, and the spaces created were quickly planted up with onion seedlings sown in early September, as well as cabbages and coriander.   As we now have some history to the garden it was interesting to look back to this time last year to see that we were doing the very same thing, and that the weather had followed the same pattern.

Many seedlings have been self-sown, and as we cleared finished plants, there are numerous surprise flowers that simply appear, as well as unwelcome weeds that hide and mature unnoticed until now.

Our RHS certificate as part of ‘Britain in bloom’ arrived this week, and we will be putting it on display in the garden.  With October fast approaching, we will be considering how we will be going into next year, what was successful and what was not, which crops we would like to grow more of, and those which we might perhaps not bother with again.  It looks like there are many things for us to think about.

It is always easier to contemplate such things in good company and with a pint of local brew in the hand.  This week we had notification that the first ‘green’ brew of our hops had been finished and delivered to certain drinking establishments.  If you would like to try it you may have to move fast, as it disappeared at speed last year.  Below is a summary from Hythe Hops organisation about the use of all the hops this year –

“A burning question which I suspect is on everyone’s mind is “what about the beer” and I’m pleased to share the following exciting news about our green hop Hop Buzz brew:

Already being served at:

• The Doghouse in Smeeth (Evegate Barn)

Already taken delivery at: 

• The Bouverie Tap, Folkestone

• Unit One, West Hythe

Delivery due today:

• Chambers, Folkestone

• The Fountain in Seabrook,

• The Hidden Treasure, Dymchurch

• The Potting Shed, Hythe,

• The Ship Inn, Sandgate,

• The Smugglers, New Romney.

• The White Hart, Hythe

Delivery due next week:

• The Gatekeeper, Etchinghill

Please remember that beer needs to settle so may not be available straight away so please check with venues to avoid any disappointment.

HopFuzz have also bottled Hop Buzz exclusively for us and this will be available soon as follows:

• Every member (including non-growers) will receive 2 bottles free of charge regardless of how successful their hops have been

• We have a surplus (but not enough for everyone) which we intend to share by means of a lottery

Canned Docker beers (from dried hops)

• We are discussing with Docker how members can benefit from the donation of our hops – watch out for future announcements

• Docker is planning for 5 brews throughout the year with the first 2 available by Christmas

So now you are up to date with all the hop information, our tired hop plants will soon be put to bed for the winter and rested, in preparation for another year of serious hop growing in 2021.

What’s next?

• More onion seedlings to plant

• Start sowing garlic and maybe broad beans

• Keep up with the weeding as the rain has brought weeds on

• Clear the plants outside the garden against the wall

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Now that the days are getting shorter, it is beginning to feel a little autumnal, and thoughts are turning to the last sowings of the year, harvesting and clearing away the summer crops, then getting all set for the winter months.  However the weather keeps trying to hang on to the summer and we are still watering and watering when you might hope we would get some respite.  It has been noted that the next time we plant the squashes and equally wandering courgettes, it would be a good idea to mark exactly where they are placed as it is notoriously difficult if next to impossible, to find where a plant begins in order to water the roots.  We often end up just watering the leaves and hoping for the best! 

The Goji berry plants, although still young and having put on plenty of growth seemed as if they would come to nothing.  This week they have suddenly come into flower and may yet surprise us with a berry or two – time will tell.  A photo of the flowers have been added below, they are quite delicate and interesting.  On the theme of flowers, the African marigolds have been superb (also shown below) and have given us so much colour.  Perhaps it was the flowers that attracted the nursery children from the Saga nursery, back to the garden this week.  We are pleased to welcome the children again into the garden with their teachers, so that they can collect flowers, graze on some of the fruits and vegetables and find out about where food comes from.  We cannot work with the children as we did before Covid for now, but we are delighted they have the garden as a resource for their learning.  Since the Covid rules for socialising have changed and we may be on the brink of further restrictions, we are going to have to ask all visitors to the garden to stay outside the fence whilst we are working on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.  We will position all available produce close to the gate for anybody coming to collect, and hope you will all understand we have to be careful and protect our gardeners.

The onion seeds have been sown; the last spinach plugs for the year have been planted, as has the coriander, leaving a few more pak choi, extra spinach plants and some spring cabbages to go in next week.  The last of the leaf mould has been removed from the leaf cage and added to the compost pile waiting to be spread on the beds, and newly fallen leaves are gradually being collected and starting to fill the leaf cage once more.  The brassicas liberated from the net cloches have certainly still been attacked by the cabbage white butterflies, and we have promised ourselves that next year we will be resorting to plan B as regards dealing with such brassica pests and investing in a tried and tested organic method which will be revealed as we get into spring next year.  The method of suspending a mesh above the purple sprouting is so far proving interesting, as they have suffered very little pest damage from either caterpillars or birds, but time will tell if they will fare better than the crop did last winter/spring.

Early on in the year, we applied to the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) to register the garden as part of the Community Gardening Awards.  At that time, the garden had been up and running for less than a year, and it was touch and go as to whether the awards would still go ahead with Covid happening.  Happily and surprisingly, we were given an ‘Advancing’ award, the categories being, ‘Establishing, Improving, Advancing, Thriving, and Outstanding’.  We still have a way to go for that ‘Outstanding’ award, and will be looking to how we can get there in the future.  In the meantime, we are considering the possibility of opening the garden for the National Garden Scheme – now there is another possibility, and plenty for us to be working on!

What’s next?

• Plant out last of spinach, and pak choi

• Plant out the first of the onion sowings – cover

• Continue to get strawberry compost out of the bags for adding to compost pile

• Keep watering

• Lay down fresh compost on beds being planted up with overwintering crops.

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Below is a summary from Ray, our resident beekeeper, of the two hives we have in the Community Garden.

“A memorable year! As for the bees in the SAGA garden – a good year now comprising of 2 new honeybee colonies, a new local beekeeper now with a colony (Chris) but not one that has yielded any honey from our garden!

In summary – a small colony overwintered in Whittersham near Rye and right near the lead singer of Keane’s abode made its way to the SAGA garden in March this year.  The colony was poorly & needed to build in numbers to fill the main box where the queen resides which called the brood box.  This colony was rescued from a field over in Lenham in March 2019 and has been building nicely through the season and has filled the main brood box nicely and with the same queen. 

An additional colony was introduced in May of a package of imported bees from Tuscany, Italy.  SO, bring on the honey one may ask! 

At this point – it is worth highlighting the fact that the beekeeper’s role is limited to the quantity of making honey produced.  In short – bees produce honey for their survival and make surplus honey for the winter of which some can be extracted for sale as we know it. 

Now back to the garden – both colonies have been busy foraging locally and are currently busy with the main last forage of the season which is ivy.

The new colony arrived with a Buckfast mated queen from Tuscany and so the colony was set to go from strength to strength and stock of jars checked in June.  The bees collectively have a plan which on occasions differs from the plan of the beekeeper!  The indication being that the Buckfast bees were not happy with their queen and were making signs that meant that she would be replaced by them.  This is called supercedure and occurs with aged queens, poorly mated or damaged queens.  It ensures that a healthy queen head-up the colony by producing new cells that will produce a new queen – in fact two queens can happily cohabite in this case or swarm.  They chose the option to swarm but left us with a new queen cell which has subsequently hatched and is now busy laying eggs to become the winter workforce.  The colony has recovered nicely from this diversion and so back on track but not sufficiently to fill the honey jars ready at the CT20 bee-base!.

Both are being checked for required winter honey stores and treatment of varroa mite where seen necessary.

So, the aim has been achieved to end this beekeeping year with 2 healthy colonies in the SAGA garden site and strong enough to hopefully ensure our winter period and plan to get off to a bright 2021.

Chris has greatly enhanced her knowledge this season and with a little encouragement now a wonderful colony of Buckfast bees in a Beehause hive which has developed well and ready for the 2021 season.

Thank you from the SAGA Community Bee Team… we’ll BEE in touch!”

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We really appreciate having the bees resident in the garden as it just seems to make it complete. 

Below are some photographs taken by Ray of the bees foraging.

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Very excited this week to be picking our hops for the great Hythe Hops weigh in.  The first of the ripe hops had to be picked on the same day and taken to a collection point.  The next hop picking day for any hop plants in the scheme that were not ready, are to be picked in two weeks.  We started late morning once the hops were dry from any morning dew, and it took three of us two hours to collect all the cones.  We seriously underestimated quite how many there were and how long it would take to pick them.  There were 2.120kgs which does not seem like very much until you remember that hops are just paper thin and very light.  The hops or cones were sticky, which is quite normal when ripe, and they had an amazing smell.

It has turned dry again in our Sandgate micro climate, where the rain clouds seem to bypass us and pour down elsewhere!  The greenhouse tragedy and lost plants has left us with a lull in the planting until, we hope, the new sowings can get going.  It is already starting to feel quite autumnal, and our thoughts are turning to the final plantings of 2020 in October, before the winter sets in.  We are keeping an eye on the long term weather forecast with a view to getting together as a group for an end of season outdoor picnic to reflect on how the year has gone and consider what changes we would like to make for next year, what to grow more of and perhaps less of something else not so popular.  The most beneficial thing we can do for the garden during the winter months is to take time to put down all the compost we have been making and collecting, currently piled up in every available space.  The woodchip paths will also be put down fresh again.

The leaf compost pile has been partially emptied.  Just made from collected fallen leaves last autumn, they have turned into the most amazing rich dark compost; perfect raspberry bed mulch.  So barrow after barrow was turned out onto our raspberry beds, and being woodland plants, they will just love it! The rest of the leaf compost is to be mixed with the other composts, leaving the leaf  cage empty, ready and waiting to be filled again with this year’s leaf fall in the park.

What’s next?

• Finish emptying the leaf cage, ready to start collecting newly fallen leaves.

• Still a few more onion seeds to be sown

• Keep an eye on the brassicas as they have been liberated from the mesh and may be attacked by cabbage whites.

• What is attacking some of the Chinese cabbages?

• Pick some sea buckthorn berries?

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The high winds continued to run their course at the start of this week, and so we have found the answer to our question about the viability of growing runner beans on the site – a big fat no, when for the second summer they were destroyed by the high winds in spite of all measures to protect them.  So it will be dwarf beans or nothing from now on.  A few beans are still standing, but looking very sad and sorry.  The sunflowers suffered the same fate, but happily the tomatoes are made of stronger stuff, and although the sweet corn was partially blown over and looked tattered and torn, they were on the whole still alright.  Considering we did not expect to be able to collect any corn after finding out there were badgers running amuck, the now ripe cobs were a bonus.

The planter outside the ship suffered the same fate, and was battered mercilessly, but the foliage is dense, and after a bit of a trim to remove the blackened areas, the plants looked in fine fettle.  The planter also had ripe corn cobs, but certainly not for sharing as corn relies on being pollinated by the wind ironically, but with only three plants, were not enough to make for a good example of a corn cob, being sparse and not worth bothering with; and so it has in effect been ornamental .  The space cleared will be planted again this week with something yet to be decided.  We are pleased at how the planter has fared being in such a position, both outside a pub and practically right on the seafront, and it still has plenty to offer.  We have heard tales of how locals are nipping out to collect a few herbs when they suddenly realise they are missing an ingredient in the cupboard which the planter can provide – perfect!

We put in some winter mustards this week and a few more pak choi, there will be sowings of spring onions and bulb onions to overwinter and be ready to harvest in the spring or through to high summer 2021. 

We are still continuing to collect more of the strawberry compost from the strawberry farm and stockpile it for using in November/December to cover the beds.  The compost heaps were all turned again and we found two slow worms tucked up in them – they were carefully moved to safety. 

You might have thought that the rain we had was enough to refill the pond but it is still only about a third to half full.  We are pleased to notice dragonfly larvae in the pond, and on a recent sunny afternoon, the pond was host to many bright red dragonflies, and a picture of one is included below.

There comes a time when you have to be brave and remove the mesh protecting the brassicas from the dreaded cabbage white butterflies eager to lay their eggs, simply because the plants need staking and have outgrown their enclosure.  We will still have to keep a close eye on the plants and continue to remove eggs, and we have positioned some mesh hanging over the broccoli as they were plagued by pigeons last year, but pigeons do not like to be under structures apparently, and so we hope this arrangement will work.  Soon find out!

We heard from the Hythe Hops scheme that the first harvest date for the hops will be this Thursday 3^rd September.  We will be collecting our hops this day as they are certainly ready now, a little wind scorched but generally fine.  These fresh hops will be used to make a ‘green brew’ by Docker brewery.  Any hops collected at a later date by other growers in the scheme, are hopefully to be dried and used to make ales that can be bottled or canned over the months to come.

What’s next?

• Plant out the mooli radishes

• Harvest the hops

• Continue to collect compost

• Sow spring and bulb onion seeds

• Find plants for the Ship planter

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It has been a week of highs and lows. 

We are able to harvest quite a range of things each week, and are now fortunate to have regular visitors coming by to pick up seasonal and local veg, or just to see what is going on.  We had the first of the celery this week.  Most of the vegetables you grow yourself are a world away from commercially grown crops.  They have real flavour, but where growing conditions are not always perfect, reflect those imperfections.  For example our celery looks ok, but due to the recent dry conditions is probably more ‘stringy’ than your supermarket version, but my goodness, what a delicious soup it made!

We have an amazing team of volunteers who come along on a regular basis, and we have all made new friends and acquaintances as a result.  We are fortunate.  For us, this is something we enjoy doing, for lots of different reasons, and not because we have to rely on growing enough food to feed the family… that would be difficult.  The high winds we had this weekend turned over our mini greenhouse, with hundreds of seedlings inside, and they were all lost.  Weeks of growing and nurturing lost in the blink of an eye, so no spinach to plant out this coming week, and no coriander, chervil, dill, and no extra pak choi.  We sowed more seeds on Saturday, and we hope they might be able to grow big enough before the cooler weather and shorter days set in.  In the whole scheme of things this set back is frustrating and annoying, but imagine if your whole life had to depend on the crops you are able to grow because it was not possible to go to a supermarket and buy what you want.  It puts such things into perspective.  Here is another reflection on how fragile our environment is, there is a photo below showing various fruits and vegetables pollinated by bees, a reminder of how important these insects are to our food. 

One of our contacts told us about a supply of spent compost from a local strawberry farm, no longer required, that we could go and collect, to add to our winter mulch of compost.  Compost seems to have greatly increased in price just this year, so this is a welcome bonus, and will help to improve the soil.  We used some to partially fill another planter in Cheriton High Street, outside the barbers, as part of the Incredible Edible project.  It saved a great deal of money which can go towards other projects, and goes to show that one person’s rubbish is treasure to someone else. 

What’s next?

• Can any of the dwarf beans be cleared, or salad boxes?

• Keep looking for weeds hiding at the base of established plants

• Repair wind damage to various plants and structures.

• Continue to move compost and store for later use.

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