Sandgate Community Garden

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 17th December: We would all like to wish you a very happy Christmas.

We are fast approaching the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year.  This gives plenty of hope to know that the days from then on will become longer as we make our way towards spring and the start of the growing season for the new year.  There have been some spectacular sunrises in Sandgate recently, mostly to warn us of bad weather to come – on Wednesday when we have one of our usual gardening sessions, there was no sign of rain on any weather apps, however it did rain significantly enough for us to abandon any thought of doing any work outside.  Happily Saturday was quite fair and we all commented on how good it was to get outside and get on with some worthwhile chores.

We are still occupied with clearing some beds and putting down more compost.  Some of the beds were treated to a sprinkling of bokashi bran and biochar just a week or so ago and this week we noticed that there is a white bloom that has appeared over the surface of the beds as they start to grow beneficial fungi and bacteria.  In general, with the cool temperatures and the shorter days, life in the garden has pretty much come to a standstill.  We were impressed to still be picking broccoli florets this week from plants that first cropped in mid to late summer.

Upon clearing the beds we came across a few hangers-on from the year such as the odd potato, a couple of turnips and a rather large winter radish.  Not much in the way of wildlife whilst we are in the garden except for our ever attentive and excited robin that you just catch in the corner of your eye as it flits about the plot looking to see what we have unearthed which might be edible for a robin.  We did find a fairly fat caterpillar amongst some of the broccoli leaves but put it back to fend for itself.

We have only been able to continue with our mulching of the beds because we had six volunteers come out from the Napier barracks to help wheelbarrow soaking wet and heavy compost all the way up the hill to the garden from where it has to be dropped off and stored.  With daylight fading fast, we just managed to fill the compost compound within the garden before most volunteers were worn out and ready to get back to the camp to dry out and warm up!

This will be our last newsletter of 2023, with our next edition being Sunday 7^th January 2024.  We would all like to wish you a very happy Christmas and look forward to relaying more garden news in the new year. 

What’s next?

• Clear the last of the beds and mulch with compost

• Sprinkle more bokashi and biochar

• Even up the hedge

• Clear some of the growth near the pond area

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 10th December: An invite to speak at the Canterbury Climate Action Partnership Climate Action Festival.

Still the weather continues to slow us down or keep us away from the garden with yet more rain.

We did enjoy a little sunshine on the Wednesday morning session where we were able to barrow some fresh compost onto the asparagus beds, clear some leaves out of the pond, and begin to check the brassica patches for yellowing lower leaves so that they can be removed.  We then picked some winter salad as well as a few leeks before packing away the tools for the day.  Unfortunately on Saturday it was raining quite hard and so the morning session was cancelled once again. 

Luckily we were not to be left idle that day as there was an invite to speak at the CCAP (Canterbury Climate Action Partnership) Climate Action Festival in Canterbury, about one of our very favourite topics – compost!  In particular, they were most interested in our new hot composter which came last week, and it seems that when it is finally up and running, producing plenty of compost, then we shall be getting visits from several organisations keen to find out how they work.

There were enquiries from community gardens as well as Parish councillors, keen to investigate if such composters could be useful to their locations.  In the meantime we might have to start thinking about how we can go about getting funds for another one!

What’s next?

• Empty out the compost bay onto empty beds or under the brassicas

• Clear the nasturtium plants affected by the frost

• Clear the flowered nicotiana plants

• Move any cerinthe seedlings creeping into the path

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 3rd December: The proud owners of a fantastic hot composter.

December has arrived and it certainly fells like it has too with a biting wind and freezing temperatures.  The rainfall for November was 183.6mm, so just as massive as it was for October.  The clay soil at Pent farm is swimming in water except for where there has been plenty of compost added, but happily Enbrook Park copes with it all very well. 

On Wednesday morning we managed to dodge the rain and get in an hour or two at the main Sandgate garden, sorting out some of the fleece over the beds, tidying and picking some green winter salad.   The rose hedge got a good pruning, as did the spent growth of the asparagus beds.  On Saturday it was decided that it was too cold for our usual gardening session, with temperatures below zero for most of the morning meaning that the ground would have been frozen and most of the plants would not have appreciated any disturbance either.  Cars were spotted in Sandgate with a covering of snow, so it was clear that the white stuff is not all that far away from us.

At the crack of dawn on Thursday a couple of us took delivery of a fantastic hot composter at Folkestone College.  This particular day had been a long time coming, and was a result of speaking at the Folkestone and Hythe Sustainable Futures Forum way back in May, then putting in an application for funding to buy a composter.  We won the bid, and after lots of negotiating and organisation, the day finally came when it was in our possession.

Folkestone College has kindly offered us a composting space within their grounds, and once we are all satisfied with arrangements, we will be ready to get going and shall be busy making compost; not from green waste from the gardens which we already do, but from food waste.  It has to be remembered that cooked food cannot be composted in exactly the same way as waste from the garden or kitchen peelings, and this amazing composter is just the thing to be able to tackle it.  It requires no electricity, just a bit of muscle power to turn a handle, and the input of wood shavings/chips or sawdust, which Folkestone College has in quantity.  When the first of the food waste goes into the composter it will take a mere two to three weeks for it to appear at the other end in the form of raw compost.  Raw compost still needs to be matured before it can be used on the gardens, but by going through the composter it will have been mixed with the sawdust/wood shavings/wood chips and have naturally heated up to high enough temperatures to kill off any harmful pathogens.

There is a great deal of work for us to do, and much for us to learn before we can be confident we are making the sort of compost we are looking to be producing, but it is a start, and we will not be sure of the results for some months to come.  However we can now make a start and hopefully be able to encourage more people to compost with us, or maybe even to support us in securing more funding to build up a series of such composting devices.  Now that really would be something!

What’s next?

• Still need to turnout the conventional compost bins

• Put compost over the cleared asparagus beds

• Use fishing net to clear some leaves out of the pond

• Check brassicas for pigeon damage/ remove old leaves

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 26th November: How is it possible that we are into the last week of November already?

We have had a few dry days this last week, and a slight frost, so we are glad that the fleece is in place over the broad beans.  How is it possible that we are into the last week of November already?   A few more cold nights should see the last of the leaves dropping from the trees, and the task of raking them up can be put aside for yet another year.

During our Wednesday gardening session, time was spent raising the fleece over the broad beans by putting in a series of hoops.  If the fleece was left touching the plants, any frost could blacken and kill the leaves.  They are generally tough plants but being still very young they will need all the help they can get if they are to survive the winter, able to take temperatures of -8 to -10 degrees.

In the first photograph below you can see that some of our netting is suspended above our purple sprouting, this is to give them room to grow and deter any hungry pigeons from stripping all the leaves and destroying the new shoots of the coming broccoli heads.  Fingers crossed that we do not get any determined pigeons this year.

The rhubarb has taken its energy away from the leaves and stems which have now all but disappeared as the plant retreats below ground to sit and wait for the winter to come and pass.  The asparagus fern-like growth is now just starting to turn yellow which is a sign for the top growth to be cut right back, and for a good layer of compost to cover the surface of the bare earth.  Empty beds have been treated to a compost blanket already, and as more are cleared then they will get the same treatment. 

Not all of the plants are retreating as the weather gets colder.  It was surprising to see that the wild garlic leaves have already shown themselves in the garden, and true to their invasive nature, are appearing in even more places than they were last year and so we will have to start sharing those wild garlic recipes once more and remove a great deal more of the stuff again over the next few months.

What’s next?

• Cut back the asparagus top growth and mulch the beds

• Raise the netting over the last purple sprouting bed

• Take out more strawberry plants

• Rake up the wood chips under the tree to make space for compost

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 19th November: Noah weather for a community gardener.

The consensus is that surely we should be building an ark instead of trying to tend the gardens.  It has simply rained and rained and rained with little respite. 

Yet another planned compost run had to be cancelled due to the fact that the hired vehicle had apparently caught fire, so we ditched the company and found another that could provide us with the transport we needed.  Surely all of our transport issues must have been orchestrated so that we had fine weather when we needed it, as both cancelled days turned out to be seriously soggy, yet the rebooked days were fine, warm and sunny – being the only two days in the week which were!

Once again we would like to thank the staff of Hope Farm for their incredible generosity and help in the providing of compost for the gardens.  It is an amazing experience to be able to collect compost from the farm where it is processed, simply because the scale is quite staggering to behold.  The compost is not produced for the general public but is used on their and other local farms to fertilise the crops.  During the two whole days of compost collecting we came away with eight truckloads of compost, or about twelve tons.  Not all of the compost will be used on the Sandgate gardens, as most of it was destined for the Touchbase Care Kitchen Garden at Pent Farm where some of us also volunteer.  In partnership with each other, we combined resources, including labour so that we delivered to two sites.  We would never have achieved quite so much over the two days were it not for the help of some volunteers from the Napier Barracks and a fabulous lunch supplied by the kitchen at Touchbase Care in Tontine Street.  It certainly hit the spot when we were flagging on the second day and about to unload the very last collection, which had to be done by hand.  No doubt there are some sore muscles this week.

At the garden on Wednesday we managed to mulch a few beds with some of the new compost, and begin the work of raising the fleece covers over the broad beans.  Unfortunately Saturday morning was a complete wash out and the session had to be cancelled and most of our jobs for last week will be put forward into the next.

What’s next?

• Cut more wire lengths to make hoops

• Cut back the shrub

• Get the broad beans covered

• Pot up those cuttings

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 12th November: A full pond and shredded banana tree.

The rainy season continues, and nothing got done on the Wednesday morning session due to persistent rain, again!  We were due to go on a compost run that day too, which means co-ordinating the hire of a drop side truck, volunteers to help unload, as well as help from the composting farm to load us up with compost.  In spite of the weather it was decided to forge ahead, however, having taken the hired truck out of the yard it was soon clear there was something seriously wrong with it, making it impossible to drive safely, and it had to be returned.  Undoubtedly it was a case that compost collection was not meant to be happening that day.  We have rescheduled for the following Monday in the hope that the weather will be kind to us, although currently it is not looking too brilliant and it could turn into a massive mud bath.

Thank goodness Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, and we were able to get on with many tasks.  The broad beans were well and truly ready to go into the ground and so became the main priority for the morning, especially as the coming week is also promising yet more rain.  Other tasks included the collecting of fallen leaves and storm debris, harvesting the last of the winter radishes, the Jerusalem artichokes, and quite a few more broccoli side shoots.

Disappointing harvests are the Celeriac, leeks and Chinese cabbages.  We have been hoping for the celeriac and the leeks to be more than just spectacular leaves, and for the Chinese cabbages to have fewer holes and to have ‘hearted up’ by now, but alas, it seems the garden may possibly be too dry for them and they may not be suited to the site.  It is always a gamble when it comes to growing vegetables, but we have never succeeded with celeriac on this site so far!  Luckily, the leaves and stems can be harvested and eaten and so it seems we shall have to make the best of those instead. 

The banana tree had to have a good trim as it was battered by the recent winds, and the poor leaves were shredded to ribbons.  Happily it is continuing to thrive, and has many new stems growing at the base, which if they survive the winter, will be taken out and grown elsewhere, or brought on for our next plant sale.

Many thanks go out to two of our gardeners’ partners – to Stan for fixing new handles on our sad and sorry looking trugs, and to Peter for making some delicious marmalade and cherry jam and bringing some spare jars up to the garden to share.

On a positive note, the fact we have had so much rain, has totally refilled our dwindling pond, there is no need to water, and at Pent Farm the water is being harvested from all the building roof tops to be stored in large tanks in readiness to be used over the next spring and summer – Happy days!

What’s next?

• Repot the cuttings of sage and rosemary

• Get some compost up to the garden

• Raise the fleece up over the broad beans with hoops

• Cut back unruly shrubs

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 5th November: Babet, Ciaran and Debi.

Good grief!  It has to be said that we have had an abundance of interesting weather recently.  The total rainfall for October was 179.5mm, and it would not be at all surprising if we have had as much rain again during the first few days in November.

Since our last newsletter we have been battered by storm Babet, followed by storm Ciaran and now storm Debi.  Needless to say it has been near impossible to get much done in the gardens, and so we turn to taking stock of this year, in preparation for the next.

There is still plenty going on in the main garden at Enbrook Park, with many crops still in the ground either to be harvested soon such as parsnips and leeks, to be overwintered such as the purple sprouting, and the next to be planted broad beans which are currently in the greenhouse at Pent Farm, almost big enough to go in the ground.   Rosie, one of our gardeners, has to take the prize for managing to keep hold of her tomato plants the longest this year.  All the garden tomato plants and most of the homegrown have long since been affected by blight and been removed, but Rosie is still picking tomatoes!

We have been working on preparing any empty beds for the winter by mulching with a good layer of compost.  We have used all of our own made compost and will now have to source a supply to finish the job and take us into the first plantings for next spring. 

Now is the time to consider which seeds we will need for next year and how we are to source them.  We have a preference for small independent seed suppliers, but are gradually starting to save some seeds of our own.  In the last newsletter we mentioned shelling the borlotti bean pods, and the beans have now been dried keeping some for seed and the rest put into jars to be used as and when over the winter months as an addition to soups and stews.  Other seeds saved this year are tomatoes, and a few annual flowers.  Seed saving can be very satisfying, but some are easier to save than others, so you do have to know your stuff to be 100% successful.

We did succeed with taking some cuttings a few weeks ago of rosemary, sage and lemon verbena.  Most of the cuttings have taken although only one of the lemon verbena cuttings remains and has rooted.  We will look forward to trying again next year and making many new plants at no extra cost!

All the squashes have now been taken indoors to store and to share.  As a community group we have been sharing pictures and recipes of tried and tested meals using squash – they certainly are very versatile.

What’s next?

• Compost collection day on Wednesday

• Repot some sage and rosemary cuttings for the greenhouse

• Plant out the broad beans

• Tidy the plot of the last storm debris

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 15th October: Red/Green Hop and Greenstar.

At last the weather has broken and is feeling a little bit more like it should in October.  We have had a serious downpour of water in the latter half of the week and perhaps it will be the end of having to water the garden for this year.  We can at least hope!  However one chore has been surpassed by another as we now seem to be in full swing leaf collecting, and being under so many trees it looks as though we shall be kept busy for several weeks to come.  Not to forget all the sycamore seeds also adding to the work if we are not to be forever pulling sycamore seedlings for most of the spring.

This week, the plants around the pond got a tidy, and blanket and duck weed removed from the pond.  More claytonia lettuces were planted along with a few extra parsley plugs.  The broad bean seeds were sown, and the search was on for marauding cabbage white caterpillars ravaging the purple sprouting.  We had a bucket of bean pods from the plot at Pent Farm, which had been picked in order to dry them, either for eating and/or for planting next year.

We must mention the Eternal Style Event last Sunday with the Sandgate Environmental Action Group.  Some of us were involved either manning the stall and/or baking cakes for the amazing café.  What a fantastic day, great people and fabulous tea and cake.  Well done to Gemma and Heidi for their hard work.

Early in the week a group of volunteers from Napier barracks came out to help clear a lot of growth at Fremantle Park again – fighting with the brambles and ivy as well as planting more rhubarb in two separate spaces.

The hops we contributed for the Hythe Hops scheme have now been dried or made into the ‘Red/Green Hop’ ale by Docker Brewery, or into ‘Greenstar’ by HopFuzz Brewery, both now on sale at Unit 1 in Hythe, or from the Sandgate Village Shop, but be quick as it will not be around for too long!

Sorry to have to say that the newsletter will be taking a two week break and the next edition will be on Sunday 5^th November.  Apologies for the inconvenience however normal service will soon be resumed!

What’s next?

• Keep picking up the fallen leaves and sycamore seeds

• No watering the plots required this week but maybe the small pots

• More tidying of plots in Sandgate required

• Keep an eye out for more caterpillars

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 8th October: We would certainly recommend eating vegetables from the Garden if you can.

It continues to be dry again and many things such as celeriac, leeks, radishes, and salad leaves are trying hard to swell or put on growth but have to make do with their rations of water.  The rainfall for all of September was a mere 28.8 mm and there has been nothing so far in October.  There seems a small chance that we may see some rain towards the end of next week but we shall see.

This week we took down the cucumber structure, always sad when a crop has finished and you know it will be many months until you get to taste that particular crop once more from the garden. 

We had the honour this week of providing a few salads for the Sandgate Society’s wine tasting event at the John Dory.  We sent a few tomatoes, spring onions, salad leaves, cucumber and radishes.  You can tell from the photos of the event and the subsequent reporting, that a great time was had by all, and we received a lovely mention:

‘Accompanying the cheese & meat platters was a salad garnish provided by our Sandgate Community Garden – and goodness, the taste of the leaves, tomatoes, radishes (that big?) and herbs reminded us of how food USED to taste – and still can.   We would certainly recommend eating vegetables from the Garden if you can.‘

As a group we have often commented on the great flavour of the fruit and vegetables grown in the garden.  We put it down to slow grow, real soil, organic methods and no digging.  So many of our fruit and vegetables these days are grown hydroponically, under cover, and bombarded with chemicals of one kind of another.  Whereas ours gets hit by all weathers, and we have to share with most of the wildlife which like them too – we just have to get used to a few holes.  However we know it is the soil which really makes the difference, and we strive to make great compost. 

Since embarking on our latest compost making adventures, we have come across a new addition – Bokashi bran.  The Bokashi method is used for composting all organic waste.  It was developed in Japan and used in Asia to ferment food prior to composting.  The process uses lactobacillus bacteria to predigest waste matter, which eliminates odours and decreases composting time.   As you walk through the garden, you might be mistaken in thinking that you were within a brewery as the Bokashi bran is being added to all our compost piles, and onto the beds.  The smell is quite delicious, if you like that sort of thing of course!  The last ingredient we are looking to source for our compost is biochar – so if you are reading this and you know of someone who makes the stuff, then we would be delighted to hear from you.

During the week we were joined by some of the men from Napier Barracks to help us clear some of the growth at Fremantle Park.  Things have certainly been growing in leaps and bounds and it was a matter of trying to cut our way through the jungle, however we made a good start and will be returning once more this coming week to tackle it again.

On Friday a couple of us went to Canterbury University to attend the Kent Food Partnership and University of Kent Right to Food Summit.  The event was ‘to plan how we can create a sustainable food system in Kent that provides healthy and affordable food for all’.  This is a massive project as you can well imagine, however we are proud to be included within this partnership and be able to contribute to the conversations.

What’s next?

• Finish adding the Bokashi

• Make sure the last of the celery is out

• Keep watering

• More seedlings to pot up

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 1st October: Sorrel Soup and Hot Composters.

How can it possibly be October already?  Before we know it, the clocks will be changing again and the nights are drawing in even more than they are already. 

We have been lucky enough to have some fine days this week which look to continue into the next.  Some plants are responding well to that; however, it means that the ground is dry again and some of the kale and purple sprouting plants have been pestered by white fly.  The celeriac and leeks should be putting on plenty of growth at this time too, but of course being dry it will affect how much they can.  The celery is also not looking too happy for the same reason and so we have been taking it out as it will not continue into a cold spell, and can make a decent soup. 

There has been some busy sharing on our WhatsApp group of sorrel soup recipes and memories of food from childhood.  One of our lovely gardeners is Ukrainian, and was delighted to be reminded of a recipe her mother used to make which was very similar to the French version of sorrel soup.

Our sea buckthorn hedge we put around the garden as part of a wind break is now providing us with some bright orange berries.  Not all of our gardeners enjoy them as they have possibly an acquired taste, but as a superfood they can be mixed in with a cereal and are great thrown into a salad too.

We took out the cucumber plants as they are not producing any more flowers and seemed tired of life.  They will of course go to give life to the compost heap, but not before a massive cucumber was found hiding, and obviously missed by several of us when picking.

We used some of the compost we made over the spring and summer to help enrich some of the beds.  It was full of worms which caused a great commotion amongst the local birds, in particular the resident robin which constantly kept flying in to pick up as many worms as it could and rewarded us with some delightful singing as it waited to pick up more.

We are pleased to be able to announce that we have been given a grant from the Folkestone and Hythe council (as part of the Folkestone and Hythe Sustainable Futures Forum) to buy a hot composter to enable us to process cooked food and work towards starting up a composting club in Folkestone.  It is very early days but we are in talks with Folkestone College for a composting site within their grounds.  We will of course keep you up to date with our progress, but we are excited at the prospect of being able to process waste food and to make the most amazing biologically complete compost to go back on our gardens and to support other food growing initiatives in the area.

We had a few more lettuces, claytonia, mizuna, parsley and coriander plants to put in for autumn and winter salads.  Happily we were also able to provide a few of the same to the Incredible Edible group in Cheriton to replenish the planters on the station platform at Folkestone West. 

There was an invite to visit the vegetable and flower plots at Napier Barracks this week.  The men often come out to help us with heavy work, and having heard about their own garden, it was great to be able to finally get to see it, although as you might imagine, getting in to see it was not an easy task!

What’s next?

• Finish using the compost from our compost making on some beds

• Finish taking out the celery

• Water the celeriac and leeks plus the seedlings and salads

• Take out the cucumber structure

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.