Sandgate Community Garden

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 4th February: Taming the wild garlic and thinning the strawberries.

It has remained dry going into February, and a little milder although with a wind chill it is sometimes difficult to believe that.  The rainfall for January was a mere 45.9 mm, the driest month since last June.  It has given a chance for some of the waterlogged areas to dry out a little.  Not much around in the way of sunlight, but the daylight hours are increasing and it is still light at around 4.45pm.

The park is certainly showing signs of waking up, some of the daffodils have emerged and are flowering (none in the community garden in flower as yet, but still pushing through the ground with the bluebells), and there are some fabulous displays of snowdrops to be seen.  They really cheer you up and make you appreciate the season is at last turning towards spring.  Yet we know not to get too excited as things can dramatically change in a matter of days.

We got to grips with several of our tasks this week.  The mint which escaped from the base of a large pot and into the ground some time ago has been romping away in the compost to the point that it got itself noticed and got a good thinning to make sure it did not have the chance to take over.  Several pieces were planted in pots as part of our stock of spare plants.  The wild garlic has continued to appear in lots of places around the plot, and it has taken some time to tame it and get it back to where we are happy for it to be, but there is yet more to remove!  A happy hour or two was spent removing wayward strawberry plants crowding out the gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes which mean that there is now good access to the shrubs so that they can be pruned.  

The last of the leeks were lifted, and compost put down as mulch on the empty bed.  We are now getting close to being ready for the first seed sowing of the year, not this week, but next – always close to St. Valentine’s Day, although if the weather turns cold again then it will be delayed, so our fingers are crossed that we get an early start.

We have got our seed potatoes already and have them indoors so that their shoots can develop, known as ‘chitting’.  As usual, we have gone for early varieties, and they will not be planted until March.  Now that many of the beds are empty we can plan where all the first seedlings will be planted in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately there will not be a newsletter next week, however we will be back the following week hopefully with news of how we got on with the first sowings – of course that is if the weather is on our side!

What’s next?

• Still need to cut back the dead nettle and the feverfew

• Finish the strawberry job

• Remove more of the wild garlic

• Start work on the gooseberries

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 28th January: A real community event and a pleasure to share food which would otherwise have gone to waste.

We have been lucky enough to have some pleasant sunny days when we have been working in the garden this week.   Cold with some heavy frosts, so we are still limiting how long we have been staying.   Two beds of broccoli from the summer were twisted out, stripped and composted.  They have worked extremely hard and have given us so many florets, but they were now exhausted and it was time to take them up.  A good layer of compost was put down on the beds where they were, to replenish the soil. 

One of our composting nets was turned out into a maturation bay; it will be some time until we can make more compost in our circular nets as there is not enough fresh new growth this time in the year.  The ‘runners’ from the hedge were cut out, a bay tree pruned, and the dead growth in the rosemary plants were cut out – more tidying and preparing for the busy season to come.

We were fortunate enough to have a group of volunteers from the Napier barracks come out. They barrowed lots of wood chips from the bottom of the hill up to the garden. They were then laid to make a new main path going right down the centre of the garden.  We still have more paths to put down, but we have made a good start.

It was a real pleasure to drive out to the largest greenhouse complex in the UK, Thanet Earth on Wednesday.  With strict security, it is a mile from the entrance to the reception desk, driving past the most incredible glass houses containing huge tomato and bell pepper plants still producing fruits in the middle of January.  We rang to ask if Thanet Earth might have some spare produce for the Disco Soup event on Saturday, and they kindly obliged by donating two boxes of tomatoes and two of bell peppers. 

On Thursday there was a visit from the Hythe Environmental group field gleaners, bringing two crates of potatoes, a crate of broccoli and a crate of cauliflowers freshly gleaned from the farms that very day.  With all this amazing produce, some donated sourdough bread from Docker bakery, plus some salvaged bits and pieces from a couple of local supermarkets, the participants of the Disco Soup event helped to put together a delicious feast of soups, salads, and tasty roasted vegetables.  It was a real community event, and a pleasure to share food amongst so many people which would otherwise have gone to waste.  All the vegetable peelings were saved too and will be going to our hot composter at Folkestone College sometime this week, nothing has gone to waste, and a good time was had by all.  We are now going to be looking forward to the next Disco Soup event either in April or May.

What’s next?

• Take up some of the mint starting to emerge

• Cut back the dead nettle and take out some feverfew

• Put down compost where the leeks were

• Remove old leaves from the purple sprouting broccoli plants

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 21st January: Cold weather, awards and the return of Disco Soup.

The weather this week continues to challenge our perseverance as to how long we can manage to work in the garden before all sense of feeling in the fingers and toes disappear!  We kept the sessions to just one hour which is fine if you are being active enough.  In spite of the cold the rhubarb is starting to make an appearance which seems incredible considering much of the ground is frozen solid and we had to refrain from doing anything with some of the potted plants as they were frozen into the pots.

Despite the frosts, there were plenty of holes around the plot in evidence this week, some were dug from above ground, probably in the search for juicy worms below, but some have been dug from below ground – just small, deep gaping holes to who knows where, but interesting all the same.  It makes you ponder, thinking of the recent flooding in the UK, of the plight of the creatures living underground, and how they can possibly survive.  Luckily our garden is not prone to flooding.

The new stacking crates got labelled so that we can easily find the small tools, (such a luxury) and the rest of our time was spent weeding and cutting back dead growth or shrubs.  We had a large patch of allium triquetrum, better known as the three cornered garlic or leek.  It is quite prolific in Sandgate, and spreads like mad if given the opportunity.  It was decided to take out this large patch as we have more elsewhere anyway and it makes a great pesto, so most of it got eaten.  However be warned that this plant is not native to us and considered invasive and therefore it is an offence to introduce this plant to the wild.

We had a delivery of woodchip, and so one of our tasks for next week is to put a good layer of them on the main paths as they are breaking down fast from their last dressing of chips!  That should certainly keep us warm, although the signs are that it should be warmer outside anyway.

We have been awarded a certificate by Councillor Dr Stephen Scoffham, (cabinet member for climate, environment and biodiversity) for our community composting project at Folkestone College.  Early days, but the food composting project is underway and we are composting anything from vegetable peelings to hot dogs, fish heads and potato chips.  The cold weather does affect the composting unsurprisingly, but it will be in full swing once the air temperature and the composter temperature start to rise.

Last but not least, we are supporting the next ‘Disco Soup’ event being held next Saturday at Radnor Park Bowls Club, Radnor Park, Folkestone, from 11am to 3pm.  A great free family event all about using waste food to make a community feast, you can dance, cook and eat whilst local DJ Andy Tempest gets the party going.  Check out social media for details on how to book a free ticket.

What’s next? 

• Get those wood chips down on the paths

• Have the pots defrosted?

• Empty the compost net

• Still got hedge runners to remove

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 14th January: It was all about compost this week.

We have another month until we can start off the first of the seeds for the year, so most of our time is spent clearing, tidying and preparing for the growing year ahead.  It remains very cold, not so much rain and happily a little sunshine.  Some of the men from the Napier barracks came out to help us by moving yet more compost from the lower end of the park up to the garden and into our compost compound there, as well as dropping several wheelbarrow loads onto some of the beds in need of covering mulch.  At the same time a compost pile we have been adding to within the garden was turned causing a flurry of excitement by our resident robin.  The robin could be heard singing at the top of his lungs throughout the whole time we were there but was not so easy to spot and even harder to photograph.  It flit into the various compost piles whenever our gaze was averted and no doubt managed to find some good pickings from the compost wildlife.

It was time to tidy the tool box too.  Some stacking crates had been found destined for the bins but were rescued and put to good use keeping all our smaller items such as balls of string scissors, secateurs and hand trowels together, where they can now hopefully be found easily.  Woe betides any gardener who messes up the good work there for a while at least!

On Thursday there was a kombucha tasting evening at Docker Bar Sandgate.  There were some amazing flavours to sample from elderberry to fig leaf to ginger and turmeric as well as Hythe Hops, perhaps from our very own hops from 2023.

We had a visit from two ladies in the process of starting their own community garden in East Folkestone for patients with dementia.  We are always very happy to give any advice we can on starting up a garden and will be following their progress with interest.

What’s next?

• Get a delivery of wood chips

• Some of the main paths need a new wood chip mulch

• Tidy the banana tree

• Label the stacking crates

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 7th January: A definite sense of déjà vu.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

There is definitely a sense of déjà vu looking back at the newsletter for this time last year.  Reassuringly we are doing the very same tasks within the garden, but it seems that the weather patterns are also the same.  High winds/storms, and oodles of rain.  The rainfall for December was 87.2 mm; last December it was 88.6 mm.  The month with the highest rainfall in 2023 was November with 183.6 mm, and in 2022 it was November again but with 194.8 mm. 

Just before Christmas, we pulled up our parsnip harvest which if we are honest, we never expected to see.  We sowed the parsnip seeds just after the announcement that Enbrook Park was to be sold and decided only to sow a few because our future was uncertain and December seemed very far away at the time.  The thing about parsnips is that you never are sure what the crop is like until you get them up and out of the ground – they could be full of canker or just underwhelming.  Fortunately we were pleasantly surprised that although the harvest was small, there were a few whoppers as you can see in the picture below. 

Not much was happening in the garden over the Christmas festivities, and visits were made by a valiant few to check that netting and fleece was in place and all was generally as it should be.  It seems that there has been and are many instances of a nasty cough/cold bug going around the population, definitely not covid this time, and for some of us, something we have not had experience of for some years, or since the start of the pandemic. 

Happily there was some unexpected sunshine during our Saturday morning session which was most welcome and it was good to see some flowering primroses and the tips of the emerging daffodils appearing all over the garden and first sign that spring is actually on its way.  Unfortunately for us, the toolbox lock refused to budge which meant we had no access to tools but were quite happy chatting and generally taking stock of what was happening within the plot.  One thing that did not escape our notice was several potato plants popping up in the beds where they were planted last year.  It seems that no matter how hard you search for them on harvesting, they still get missed and rise up to haunt you the following year and always where you do not want them – just typical!

What’s next?

• Sort out the compost area

• Cut some claytonia

• Cut back the goji berries

• Prune some of the fruit trees

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 17th December: We would all like to wish you a very happy Christmas.

We are fast approaching the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year.  This gives plenty of hope to know that the days from then on will become longer as we make our way towards spring and the start of the growing season for the new year.  There have been some spectacular sunrises in Sandgate recently, mostly to warn us of bad weather to come – on Wednesday when we have one of our usual gardening sessions, there was no sign of rain on any weather apps, however it did rain significantly enough for us to abandon any thought of doing any work outside.  Happily Saturday was quite fair and we all commented on how good it was to get outside and get on with some worthwhile chores.

We are still occupied with clearing some beds and putting down more compost.  Some of the beds were treated to a sprinkling of bokashi bran and biochar just a week or so ago and this week we noticed that there is a white bloom that has appeared over the surface of the beds as they start to grow beneficial fungi and bacteria.  In general, with the cool temperatures and the shorter days, life in the garden has pretty much come to a standstill.  We were impressed to still be picking broccoli florets this week from plants that first cropped in mid to late summer.

Upon clearing the beds we came across a few hangers-on from the year such as the odd potato, a couple of turnips and a rather large winter radish.  Not much in the way of wildlife whilst we are in the garden except for our ever attentive and excited robin that you just catch in the corner of your eye as it flits about the plot looking to see what we have unearthed which might be edible for a robin.  We did find a fairly fat caterpillar amongst some of the broccoli leaves but put it back to fend for itself.

We have only been able to continue with our mulching of the beds because we had six volunteers come out from the Napier barracks to help wheelbarrow soaking wet and heavy compost all the way up the hill to the garden from where it has to be dropped off and stored.  With daylight fading fast, we just managed to fill the compost compound within the garden before most volunteers were worn out and ready to get back to the camp to dry out and warm up!

This will be our last newsletter of 2023, with our next edition being Sunday 7^th January 2024.  We would all like to wish you a very happy Christmas and look forward to relaying more garden news in the new year. 

What’s next?

• Clear the last of the beds and mulch with compost

• Sprinkle more bokashi and biochar

• Even up the hedge

• Clear some of the growth near the pond area

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 10th December: An invite to speak at the Canterbury Climate Action Partnership Climate Action Festival.

Still the weather continues to slow us down or keep us away from the garden with yet more rain.

We did enjoy a little sunshine on the Wednesday morning session where we were able to barrow some fresh compost onto the asparagus beds, clear some leaves out of the pond, and begin to check the brassica patches for yellowing lower leaves so that they can be removed.  We then picked some winter salad as well as a few leeks before packing away the tools for the day.  Unfortunately on Saturday it was raining quite hard and so the morning session was cancelled once again. 

Luckily we were not to be left idle that day as there was an invite to speak at the CCAP (Canterbury Climate Action Partnership) Climate Action Festival in Canterbury, about one of our very favourite topics – compost!  In particular, they were most interested in our new hot composter which came last week, and it seems that when it is finally up and running, producing plenty of compost, then we shall be getting visits from several organisations keen to find out how they work.

There were enquiries from community gardens as well as Parish councillors, keen to investigate if such composters could be useful to their locations.  In the meantime we might have to start thinking about how we can go about getting funds for another one!

What’s next?

• Empty out the compost bay onto empty beds or under the brassicas

• Clear the nasturtium plants affected by the frost

• Clear the flowered nicotiana plants

• Move any cerinthe seedlings creeping into the path

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 3rd December: The proud owners of a fantastic hot composter.

December has arrived and it certainly fells like it has too with a biting wind and freezing temperatures.  The rainfall for November was 183.6mm, so just as massive as it was for October.  The clay soil at Pent farm is swimming in water except for where there has been plenty of compost added, but happily Enbrook Park copes with it all very well. 

On Wednesday morning we managed to dodge the rain and get in an hour or two at the main Sandgate garden, sorting out some of the fleece over the beds, tidying and picking some green winter salad.   The rose hedge got a good pruning, as did the spent growth of the asparagus beds.  On Saturday it was decided that it was too cold for our usual gardening session, with temperatures below zero for most of the morning meaning that the ground would have been frozen and most of the plants would not have appreciated any disturbance either.  Cars were spotted in Sandgate with a covering of snow, so it was clear that the white stuff is not all that far away from us.

At the crack of dawn on Thursday a couple of us took delivery of a fantastic hot composter at Folkestone College.  This particular day had been a long time coming, and was a result of speaking at the Folkestone and Hythe Sustainable Futures Forum way back in May, then putting in an application for funding to buy a composter.  We won the bid, and after lots of negotiating and organisation, the day finally came when it was in our possession.

Folkestone College has kindly offered us a composting space within their grounds, and once we are all satisfied with arrangements, we will be ready to get going and shall be busy making compost; not from green waste from the gardens which we already do, but from food waste.  It has to be remembered that cooked food cannot be composted in exactly the same way as waste from the garden or kitchen peelings, and this amazing composter is just the thing to be able to tackle it.  It requires no electricity, just a bit of muscle power to turn a handle, and the input of wood shavings/chips or sawdust, which Folkestone College has in quantity.  When the first of the food waste goes into the composter it will take a mere two to three weeks for it to appear at the other end in the form of raw compost.  Raw compost still needs to be matured before it can be used on the gardens, but by going through the composter it will have been mixed with the sawdust/wood shavings/wood chips and have naturally heated up to high enough temperatures to kill off any harmful pathogens.

There is a great deal of work for us to do, and much for us to learn before we can be confident we are making the sort of compost we are looking to be producing, but it is a start, and we will not be sure of the results for some months to come.  However we can now make a start and hopefully be able to encourage more people to compost with us, or maybe even to support us in securing more funding to build up a series of such composting devices.  Now that really would be something!

What’s next?

• Still need to turnout the conventional compost bins

• Put compost over the cleared asparagus beds

• Use fishing net to clear some leaves out of the pond

• Check brassicas for pigeon damage/ remove old leaves

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

Sandgate Community Garden Team Diary Entry for 26th November: How is it possible that we are into the last week of November already?

We have had a few dry days this last week, and a slight frost, so we are glad that the fleece is in place over the broad beans.  How is it possible that we are into the last week of November already?   A few more cold nights should see the last of the leaves dropping from the trees, and the task of raking them up can be put aside for yet another year.

During our Wednesday gardening session, time was spent raising the fleece over the broad beans by putting in a series of hoops.  If the fleece was left touching the plants, any frost could blacken and kill the leaves.  They are generally tough plants but being still very young they will need all the help they can get if they are to survive the winter, able to take temperatures of -8 to -10 degrees.

In the first photograph below you can see that some of our netting is suspended above our purple sprouting, this is to give them room to grow and deter any hungry pigeons from stripping all the leaves and destroying the new shoots of the coming broccoli heads.  Fingers crossed that we do not get any determined pigeons this year.

The rhubarb has taken its energy away from the leaves and stems which have now all but disappeared as the plant retreats below ground to sit and wait for the winter to come and pass.  The asparagus fern-like growth is now just starting to turn yellow which is a sign for the top growth to be cut right back, and for a good layer of compost to cover the surface of the bare earth.  Empty beds have been treated to a compost blanket already, and as more are cleared then they will get the same treatment. 

Not all of the plants are retreating as the weather gets colder.  It was surprising to see that the wild garlic leaves have already shown themselves in the garden, and true to their invasive nature, are appearing in even more places than they were last year and so we will have to start sharing those wild garlic recipes once more and remove a great deal more of the stuff again over the next few months.

What’s next?

• Cut back the asparagus top growth and mulch the beds

• Raise the netting over the last purple sprouting bed

• Take out more strawberry plants

• Rake up the wood chips under the tree to make space for compost

This weeks update from the Sandgate Community Garden Diary.

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.