Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 18th September: A sudden and unexpected flowering in the Queen’s Orchard.
It has been a long long time since we had to say that we were rained off one of our gardening sessions. It happened this Wednesday, with hours of the sort of useful rain that started to soak into the ground and begin to make a difference. We have gained so much time, not having to water most of the plot, and of course, lots of energy. The change in the weather has caused some confusion in the plant world. The Bramley apple tree planted in the Queen’s orchard at Sandgate Park has suddenly burst into flower. Apparently this can happen if there is a colder snap in the weather, and the tree is fooled into thinking that winter happened, and time to make flowers when the sun came out again, as if it were now spring. All advice states that it should not stop the tree from flowering again once the true spring comes around again – we hope not.
Last Sunday we collected the hops from the vines at Enbrook Park and took them to the Hythe Hops scheme collection point where they were weighed and put into sacks with all the other collected hops on that day. We could only contribute 1lb 6oz or 0.624 kg this year which is a sorry amount but all things considered, we are glad we were able to contribute something. The plants at Fremantle Park were in an even sorrier state than those at Enbrook, so we did not even bother to pick any there. Ah well, always next year to have another go.
Thinking about next year, now is the time to save seeds from your own plants if you have not been raiding the bargain seeds to be had at the end of season sales. Tomato seeds are easy to collect, and one of our varieties this year has been particularly good, called Indigo Cherry drops. It has great flavour, and has produced prolific amounts of large black and red cherry tomatoes. It is not an F1 variety, which means the seeds will grow true to the parent plant. F1 varieties can however be saved by rooting a side shoot from the plant late September/October, and overwintering to grow on in the spring. To save seeds from the Indigo Cherry drops, a couple of tomatoes were cut open and the seeds scooped out and dropped into a small jar of water. The jar is left at room temperature for a few days whilst a mould grows, breaking down the gelatinous coating surrounding the seeds. Then the seeds can we washed in a sieve and laid out to dry on some kitchen paper. It will be something to look forward to next year to grow this variety again as it can be very annoying when a particular variety cannot be sourced from a supplier. Such has been the fate of many of our fruit and vegetable varieties in the past.
Most of the list of tasks for the week got tackled, and a few more added! There were more winter lettuce seeds to prick out, a net was put over the remainder of the beetroot to hinder the badgers (we hope), we started to remove blanket upon blanket of fast growing duckweed from the pond, emptied the leaf compost bin, and planted up the first few crates of salad leaves to grow inside the cold frames just in case those growing outside get totally frozen and lost over the winter period. There has been plenty to cut back now that some things have finished flowering, and the rain has brought new useful and welcome seedlings to light around the garden for us to use as well as plenty of unwanted ‘weeds’ we are busy removing and composting not quite as fast as they are appearing.
What’s next?
- Keep an eye on the duckweed situation and remove as much as possible
- Keep up the weeding around the plot as more pop up
- Can any more plants be squeezed into any spaces around the plot?
- Start taking down the tomato plants and ripen green tomatoes indoors
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.