Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 6th November: Keeping our cabbage white butterfly caterpillars well-fed, fat and healthy.
Are you interested in your local neighbourhood, the environment and how we as residents as well as visitors, interact with our facilities and businesses? Are you interested in the impact of globalisation on us all and how the growing worldwide movement of localisation and sustainability is fighting back to become more self-sufficient, resilient and stable in an uncertain world? Then you need to come along to the Reading Room at the Old Fire Station in Sandgate, on 17th November at 7pm where the Sandgate Society will be starting work on ‘Sustainability in Sandgate’. If you are interested in looking at how localisation and sustainability has helped in many villages, towns and cities around the world then check out this website:
This fascinating collection of videos and articles cannot fail to inspire, and at the very least make you think about what is happening around the world to the environment, nature and people. It can be depressing viewing some of the videos, but there are solutions if you are prepared to get involved in your locality and join the movement. Hope to see you there.
There has certainly been some rain in Sandgate these past few days. The rainfall for all of October was 43.9 mm however by 4th November the rainfall within just a couple of days was 45.4 mm. At the Touchbase garden where some of our volunteers lend a hand, a massive 1000 litres of rainwater was saved in those two torrential days from just one large shed roof – incredible.
Below is a photo of a rather bedraggled looking Heron standing on top of the moorhen house in Enbrook Park, spotted following the downpours. All very well for us tucked up inside our cosy homes, but for nature, this week of high winds and rain must have its toll.
As for the community garden in Enbrook Park, we kept a watchful eye over how the plants fared with the battering. There was a gathering of volunteers on Wednesday, however the session on Saturday was cancelled and we all opted for the comforts of home instead.
It has to be said that we have not been quite so vigilant at looking after our plants as we might have thought, with the issue being netting over the plants concealing all that is going on underneath. Netting is a wonderful thing to keep off marauding pests of all shapes and sizes, fob off the high winds and lull you into a false sense of security that all is well. One day the cauliflower plants were looking sturdy enough and growing well, and what seems like the next day, all the leaves seem to have disappeared, leaving a straggly excuse of a plant loaded with well-fed fat and healthy cabbage white butterfly caterpillars happily feasting away obviously safe from marauding predators and high winds, all cosy under that net.
In another area of the Sandgate Community Garden, some purple sprouting broccoli had sent up a broccoli head which was missed, probably because of the netting, and was now starting to evolve into the yellow flower head. It just goes to show that out of sight is out of mind and netting over a crop can complicate matters.
One plant we do not need to net which has performed well this year is the sea buckthorn. We have used sea buckthorn as a barrier against the winds, and is a plant that can cope with the sea salt. We are trying to keep it tight against the fence so that it will thicken up with time and not take up too much space. The downside of a hedge is that it will take moisture from the ground which you need for growing vegetables, and this hedge is prickly! In this third year of growth it has rewarded us with bright orange berries, which some of our volunteers have collected to be dried and crushed into a powder, or simply used fresh in recipes. Sea buckthorn is a superfood, but is an acquired taste with a most intense flavour. We often pot up some of the runners from the hedge which are making their way either across the plot or outside, so do get in touch if you would like a plant as we will certainly be able to oblige.
We were recently contacted by a Saga employee with a gift of five seed trays complete with clear covers and reservoir trays. We will certainly be able to make good use of them; and although seed sowing is finished for 2022, it will not be too long until we reach mid-February, and the seed sowing season starts all over again.
What’s next?
- Get ready to plant the broad bean seedlings
- Keep checking cold frames
- Cut back the amaranth plants and compost them
- Thin out some of the nasturtium plants
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.