Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 25th June: An incredibly busy week eating.
What an unbelievably busy week it has been, and most of it seemed to be all about food and lots of it!
It was refugee week, and on Monday we had a large group come down from the barracks to help us move lots of compost from the top end of the garden to the new composting area at the other end. It was hot, heavy work, but they completed the task in what seemed like no time at all, and were rewarded with lots of tea and amazing cake, which all seemed to go down very well. The old composting boxes were dismantled, and there will be a write up in a future newsletter all about what is happening with our new composting area, as there is so much to say about it.
On Wednesday evening there was an invite to a meal as part of the refugee week, hosted by the ‘Friends of Napier Barracks’ with food cooked by some of the men at the barracks – it was traditional food from their home countries, and very delicious it all was too.
On Saturday, the Disco Soup event took place, using food which could not be sold by supermarkets, for being ‘too wonky’, damaged, or at sell by date. With the help of a chef from Folkestone College, and lots of willing hands, the food was prepared and made into all sorts of wonderful dishes, from soup, to risotto, delicious salads and pizza. Several boxes of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers were donated by Thanet Earth, and what a truly awesome experience it was to collect the food from them in Birchington. It was a mile from the entrance to the main reception, driving past huge greenhouses where the produce is grown. It was food production on a massive scale and so very different from our way of food growing, but fascinating to see if only from a distance.
In-between all the feasting, there were plenty of other things going on. Some of us went along to visit Brockhill School to see how they were getting on with their lovely walled kitchen garden. They have put up a rabbit fence as it seems that as soon as something was planted, it got eaten. However something has worked out how to bypass the netting and has attacked the carrots. It seemed such a familiar story to us! The school also had one of the beautiful old greenhouses renovated, and it was looking truly splendid. What a fantastic resource, and how amazing it will be for the children to be able to learn about horticulture as part of their education in such a great setting.
We did actually manage to get quite a few tasks done at the community gardens! The planters at Golden Valley had a makeover, with some compost and new plants added. The alley way at Meadowbrook got weeded and flowering plants added. The hedge at Enbrook Park got another trim, more spring onions and beetroot sown, the bay trees tidied, the cucumbers planted, and any soft fruit we had left was netted. It seems we are back to watering again, with the refreshing rain we had becoming a distant memory again, oh well, we are now into summer after all.
What’s next?
- Prick out the purple sprouting broccoli
- Plant out some of the kale
- Find space to create a windrow for the newly made compost
- Check on the potatoes
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.