Sandgate Community Garden: Update 6 August 2023

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 6th August: Finding where the Asian hornets are nesting, destroying them.

There are times when you wonder if you should be careful what you wish for, having spent so long over the past few years going on about how little rain we have here in Sandgate. We now seem to have a plentiful amount and the hope is that the sunshine will be returning anytime soon! The rainfall for July was a massive 90 mm, and we certainly do not remember recording that much for a summer month before. There has now been 27.9 mm of rain in the initial days of August! It is the first time we have ever seen the pond full during the summer, or so much fungi around in the beds.

We are keeping a very close eye on the tomato plants as blight creeps nearer to us. Just this week we heard from Steve, the community gardener at Napier Barracks, that blight has appeared there, and so we will be removing lots of the lower leaves next week to try and get the air circulating around the plants in an attempt to keep it at bay.

The Wednesday gardening session was fine, but the wind was blowing hard, making seed sowing an interesting affair, involving huddling behind taller plants or anything that made a wind break, to prevent the seeds from blowing away. The Saturday session was a complete washout. Just a couple of us braved the elements to pick a few items, as many things during the summer benefit from being picked regularly (for example the beans) and will then respond by producing even more. The more you pick, the more they grow! Not so for the tomatoes, the concern being to pick ripe fruits before the slugs get to them, or the birds, or the badgers. Fortunately only the gardeners appreciate the prickly cucumbers, and we picked the first three this week.

Last week we had planted two beds of late flowering purple sprouting broccoli which we covered with lovely new horticultural netting. However this week we find that something has been making holes and tears in the netting, which must have been quite hard work, so we can only assume that the badgers are responsible. We did manage to harvest a pot of chokeberries, or Aronia berries from our two plants this week before they did, and very good they were too. It has to be said it is the first time we have managed to pick them in a ripe state and still on the bush. They are sweeter the riper they are, and do not ripen at the same time so the race is on to see who gets the next batch, wildlife, or gardeners.

You may have noticed a ‘welfare unit’ in the car park near the garden all this week. At 9am on Monday morning, a team arrived from APHA (Animal and Plant Health Agency). They are an ‘executive agency’ sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government. They are here in response to our beekeepers sightings of the Asian Hornet in Sandgate. Their focus is on finding where the Asian hornets are nesting and to destroy them. They have to catch a hornet, mark it and observe which direction they fly in and how long it takes them to return, and so work out where the nest is, or indeed nests. It is encouraging to know that the sightings are being taken so seriously, however the fact they have been here all week must mean there is much work to do. A successful Asian hornet nest can have up to 6,000 individuals, producing 350 queens and 900 males. If they were allowed to take hold in the area, it would be the end of honey bees. So be vigilant and acquaint yourself with what they look like, and the differences between them and our native hornet species.

Another thing to acquaint you with is the date for the Sea Festival. We are really looking forward to seeing you there on Sunday 27^th August. We will have amongst other things, a whole range of plants. This is a major fundraising event for us, so bring sunshine and a whole lot of cash and the willingness to part with it all for a good cause. If you have any plants going spare, then please do get in touch.

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