Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 27th October: A fast downhill spiral towards the end of the year.
The clocks have gone back and now it begins to really feel that we are on a fast downhill spiral towards the end of the year and all that it brings. The weather has continued as it has been for the past few weeks with lots of warm sunshine but less rain than we have had of late.
On Wednesday the overwintering onions got planted. We sowed the seeds some weeks ago and they currently look just like young spring onions, but hopefully by next summer they will be fully grown brown onions. Another tray of spring onions were planted as well as six more chive plants.
The brassicas were checked for caterpillars again, as last week they were smothered in them courtesy of the cabbage white butterflies, however it seems we did a good job of clearing them as only four were found this week. Just as we were thinking we were winning the battle with the wildlife for once, we got a reminder that nature will always come out on top when it was noticed that the Chinese cabbages were absolutely smothered in sawfly caterpillars and being rapidly shredded. We decided to cut our losses and scrap the lot because they were just too bad to try and rescue. In the past we did manage to pick off the sawflies and rescue the crop but time is not now on our side.
The weeding and bed preparation continues – with the weather being mild, the old potato beds where a few small potatoes got left behind, started to sprout again and random potato plants are popping up. It seems no matter how hard you try not to leave any behind, some always do and appear in the most awkward of places in the middle of another crop.
The shorter days and some cooler weather has started to turn the leaves to autumn colours and drop – so begins the task of collecting them all up and composting them, with of course as many sycamore seeds as we can find to save ourselves the trouble of having to pull up the growing seedlings next spring in their thousands!
The growth was cleared around the pond, and some pond weed removed as the water has been well and truly overtaken by lots of new growth. Some of the pond weed will find new homes in our gardeners’ ponds or to Pent Farm, to the pond there.
On Saturday we worked together to make a human chain, bringing trugs full of wood chips from the lower wall at the bottom of the hill, up to the garden and down on the ground to replenish the paths. A few more garden sessions and with any luck we should get all the paths done and the garden looking much smarter.
What’s next?
- Start sowing the broad beans
- Continue laying the wood chip paths
- Hoe under the hedge outside the garden
- Tidy the hedge again as it is still growing!
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.