Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 19th November: Noah weather for a community gardener.
The consensus is that surely we should be building an ark instead of trying to tend the gardens. It has simply rained and rained and rained with little respite.
Yet another planned compost run had to be cancelled due to the fact that the hired vehicle had apparently caught fire, so we ditched the company and found another that could provide us with the transport we needed. Surely all of our transport issues must have been orchestrated so that we had fine weather when we needed it, as both cancelled days turned out to be seriously soggy, yet the rebooked days were fine, warm and sunny – being the only two days in the week which were!
Once again we would like to thank the staff of Hope Farm for their incredible generosity and help in the providing of compost for the gardens. It is an amazing experience to be able to collect compost from the farm where it is processed, simply because the scale is quite staggering to behold. The compost is not produced for the general public but is used on their and other local farms to fertilise the crops. During the two whole days of compost collecting we came away with eight truckloads of compost, or about twelve tons. Not all of the compost will be used on the Sandgate gardens, as most of it was destined for the Touchbase Care Kitchen Garden at Pent Farm where some of us also volunteer. In partnership with each other, we combined resources, including labour so that we delivered to two sites. We would never have achieved quite so much over the two days were it not for the help of some volunteers from the Napier Barracks and a fabulous lunch supplied by the kitchen at Touchbase Care in Tontine Street. It certainly hit the spot when we were flagging on the second day and about to unload the very last collection, which had to be done by hand. No doubt there are some sore muscles this week.
At the garden on Wednesday we managed to mulch a few beds with some of the new compost, and begin the work of raising the fleece covers over the broad beans. Unfortunately Saturday morning was a complete wash out and the session had to be cancelled and most of our jobs for last week will be put forward into the next.
What’s next?
- Cut more wire lengths to make hoops
- Cut back the shrub
- Get the broad beans covered
- Pot up those cuttings
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.