Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 29th January: life is very slowly starting to awaken in the garden at Enbrook.
Hooray! There has not been quite so much in the way of rain this week. Plenty of dull and freezing cold days but the sunshine has made an appearance once or twice.
Although the gardens are quiet this time of year, there is certainly plenty going on in the background with all sorts of new projects, events and garden growing plans, and not just in our gardens either. As a community group, one of our aims is to help and support other community groups, charities and individuals to grow food and flowers (to help the pollinators).
For a while now we have been working with the Nepalese community in Cheriton with a very exciting new project they are about to embark on, growing fruit and vegetables on a large piece of land just outside Hythe. Many of the Nepalese come from a farming background so there is no doubt they will make a great success of this project. Our role is to advise on growing in the UK, and what needs sowing and planting throughout the year. It will be very exciting to see if the community can grow many of their well-loved vegetable varieties here in the UK, and are sure we will pick up many interesting tips as well as delicious cooking ideas from them. It will be a fascinating experience and there will be so much for us to learn too.
In the meantime life is very slowly starting to awaken in the garden at Enbrook. The birds are certainly starting to perk up a little when the sun shines and our garden robin is singing loud and clear so it must be time to start those nests. We have been wrapping wool around branches and shrubs for the birds to take to line their nests. The daffodils are already up and showing flower heads, and happily our earliest rhubarb variety has already started to push some new growth through the compost mulch. Daylight hours are noticeably longer, and Spring will come eventually.
The raspberry patch got a good prune and lashings of new compost, the path to the bench weeded and mulched with wood chips. It is quite unbelievable how many new strawberry plants we still need to pot up and remove to other gardens. They multiplied all over the place and caught us by surprise. Just another session spent taking them out and potting them up should do the trick, and they will be ready to plant in some of the other gardens as soon as it is warm and dry enough to do so.
The countdown is on….. February begins next week, and that means just a couple more weeks to wait and the first sowings of the year begin!
What’s next?
- Compost to be moved from the lower to the upper wall
- Check on the plants under the netting
- What is going on in the pond if anything?
- Need to start making new signs for plots
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.