Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 20th October: Collecting food and storing it for the long cold winter months ahead.
The weather was very much like it was last week with periods of beautiful warm sunshine and lots and lots of the wet stuff in-between. It was even the same on Saturday as it was last week in that we had to cancel the morning garden session because of the rain, but there was wall to wall sunshine in the afternoon.
There was a spectacular Hunter’s moon on Thursday, so called because it is ‘the time of year when historically hunters began collecting food and storing it for the long cold winter months ahead’.
On our Wednesday morning garden session we got cracking with clearing more of the strawberry plants trying to take over a vast area, and lots of mint which also needed cutting back. It revealed our little lemon tree hugging the wall and bearing lots of beautiful pink and white flowers. Having picked a lemon from the tree a few weeks ago we are keeping our fingers crossed that it might grow one or two more next year.
The wall has many flowers growing in front of it, and down the other end there is currently a spectacular show of nasturtiums with lush green leaves and numerous flowers from pale yellow through to deep orange. We sometimes forget that the nasturtium is very edible and makes a great addition to a salad. Talking of salads, we planted one of our favourite winter salad leaves – Claytonia, or winter purslane. It is well worth growing as it is extremely hardy, not much liked by slugs and snails, and keeps on producing edible leaves and flowers well into late spring.
One of our gardeners confessed after the session that the claytonia had not been ‘watered in’ which helps new plants to get established quickly, however we need not have worried as by Wednesday evening the heavens opened along with a great show of thunder and lightning – it was fabulous to watch, and helped our new plants settle in at the same time.
What’s next?
- Plant some overwintering onions near the banana tree
- Keep checking for more caterpillars on the brassicas
- Continue to lay woodchip paths and put down compost
- Clear the area behind the pond
This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.