Tim Prater

The onions have toppled over, a sign that they are ready to be lifted and dried, and once done, the ground was covered with the last of the saved compost and planted up with more beans and cucumbers.  We have put extra windbreaks along some of the beanpoles to give the beans as much chance as possible. 

We planted a few basil plants, kale, and Brussel sprouts, all kindly donated by the new mayor of Folkestone, Michelle Dorrell.  Michelle is a keen allotment holder it seems, and has joined the Incredible Edible movement which some of us are involved with locally.  She is yet to visit the community garden, and hope she can find the time to do so this summer.

Everything is starting to grow fast, the courgettes and the sweetpeas are almost in flower, and so it will not be long before we can expect to be picking more.  Most of the time we have enough for the volunteers to have a taste, and occasionally a visitor to the garden will ask if anything is available, and go away with something too.  With the onset of the summer glut, we hope to be able to get the vegetables to even more people – not forgetting we are also sharing with the wildlife (most of us have not seen a strawberry as yet!).  Before the virus overtook, we would take produce to the library or perhaps the Sandgate Society at the Fire Station; and so now we are thinking we could make it known that we may have some seasonal veg available at the gate, on Wednesday and Saturday mornings from 10am until midday.   

Thank you so much to all the kind and friendly visitors we have that come up to the garden to lean over the fence and take a look at the changes, compare notes, or ask questions.  We really do appreciate all the positive comments we have had, and hope that more of you may find the time to do the same.  We are interested in promoting the growing of seasonal fruit and vegetables locally, as well as supporting wildlife.  Many of our volunteers are growing at home too, even if they only have space for a few pots, and below are a couple of photos from two of their gardens.  There was a request for the photographs to be listed for easier identification, so hopefully they should now make more sense!

What’s next?

• The mint has still not been potted up!

• Sow more beetroot and chicory

• Remove some of the finished pea shoots to make way for more lettuce plants

• Remove spinach as it is bolting.

No more procrastinating this week, and glad to report that jobs like repairing the flat wheelbarrow tyre and finishing the post wiring is under way and getting done, always satisfying to complete tasks that nag at you to get them finished.

At last the weather has broken and the much welcome rain will do wonders to loosen up the soil and bring long awaited relief to plants that we choose not to water, in preference to those that really do need it.

The new signs seem to be working well for us, and Saga has added their own just by the first gate, and very smart it is too.

Our experiment to find out if any of the horse manure added to the compost bins is affected by Aminopyralid (a herbicide which remains active) seems to be going well, and happily nothing seems to have happened to the tomato plants or cucumber planted into it.  If Aminopyralid was present, the leaves of the plants would curl up, and they would fail to thrive – so far so good.

Just to add to the mix of wildlife evident on site, a mole has decided to come over and rummage around too.  The best dining place for our friend seems to be the compost bins where there are always juicy worms, and mole hills have appeared all around the composting area.  Our constant companion never afraid to show themselves is a very friendly robin.  Always there singing loudly just as soon as we start any work, they dive into the cloches as soon as they are opened and quickly pick up anything they can find to eat.  We had a blackbird caught in the strawberry netting which was most upsetting.  Luckily we are on site every day and the bird was quickly released and was happily uninjured.  With the strawberries proving irresistible to all the wildlife, maybe we should just consider removing the netting and leaving them to it, or filling the entire plot with strawberries in the hope of getting a few to eat ourselves!

The warmer weather and rapid new plant growth has brought the arrival of aphids, the predators that feed on them are slower to appear, and so we have had to use a mild soap solution to deter the pests until, we hope, the cavalry arrives to help us out.  Luckily we are just starting to see a few ladybirds and their larvae around.

Most striking this week has to be the fragrance that wafts around the garden from all the flowers currently on show, just delightful.  Sheer pleasure is to take some time out, sit on the bench, and take it all in…….sea view, flowers, wildlife; a little piece of heaven right here in Sandgate.

Bee news – Ray and Chris have reported that the new Buckfast bees have really been busy and now have a ‘super’ added to their hive for them to move into.  They are probably enjoying the flowers just as much as we are.

What’s next?

• If more of the onions have started to topple over, they are ready to be lifted and dried.

• Check to see if any of the first early potatoes are swelling

• Tie in plants as they grow

• Pinch out tomato plant side shoots

• Re-pot mint