Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 30th April: An enormous surge in slug and snail numbers hiding amongst the leaves and potted plants.
It is quite difficult to describe exactly what is going on with the weather this past week. Oodles more rain, longer daylight hours of course, but a sharp cold wind; a surprising few hours of brilliant sunshine when you least expect it and certainly not appearing on the weather apps. We are now coming into May when all the fleece covers would and should have been removed by now from some of the growing beds, but the cold wind makes for a reluctance to do so. The wet conditions have created an enormous surge in slug and snail numbers hiding amongst the leaves and potted plants at Enbrook Park and we have had to search them out and relocate them to pastures new! In drier conditions we would have planted out much more by now, but know that small plants would have perished in the mollusc onslaught and are giving them more of a chance of survival by allowing them to get much bigger before planting out.
However all the perennial plants are getting on with life due to the lengthening daylight hours and in spite of the weather; and we have been surprised to see the strawberry plants flowering as well as the chives and some of the globe artichokes.
As for our list of ‘to do jobs’ this week, we did manage to get most of them done. The spinach bed was treated to some replacement plants probably to the delight of the lurking slugs, but having just said we are repotting many plants for later planting, there comes a point when we have simply run out of space to keep them and are prioritising other seedlings. Some of the earlier purple sprouting plants have given up their last viable broccoli sprouting and been removed to make more space, but the chard bed is trying to recover from being attacked by the pigeons and so they were interplanted with the cauliflower plants so that they can be removed at a later date without being in competition. More radish plugs were planted in the radish bed where mature radishes had been harvested and to maintain the momentum.
On our list was the tackling of the weeds around the bases of the brick planters at the Golden Valley shops. This is an epic task as the weeds have a habit of clinging fast between the tarmac and the paving slabs, but we were delighted to be joined by some volunteers from the Napier Barracks who made short work of the job, leaving enough time for us to move on to Fremantle Park and plant out a van full of mature herbs and seedlings waiting for homes.
On Saturday afternoon, several of the community gardeners and Incredible Edible team went along to the Folkestone and Hythe Sustainable Futures Forum at the Burlington Hotel where we were treated to inspirational talks and information regarding many of the great initiatives already happening in the locality. It was awesome to soak in the creative energy of so many interesting and interested people and we have come away with many links to businesses and community groups we hope to be able to engage with and support in the future.
What’s next?
- Sort out the hop strings at Fremantle park
- Check on the hops at Enbrook Park and cut out excess shoots
- May have to reseed the small carrot bed
- Repot the coriander plants
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.