Community Garden News 

“ Gardens are not made by singing” oh, how beautiful’ and sitting in the shade”-  Rudyard Kipling

Well here we are HOT; still going, and a little over 12 months  since our first produce was harvested.

Like everyone , at the moment the garden is suffering from intense heat, and we are delighted to have volunteers to water …we would be keen to have more, so that we can water morning and evening, so if you are keen, contact us via our FB page, by email (martinboroughgarden@gmail.com.) or call in on Wednesday or Sunday mornings. 

What have we learnt over the past year?

• Keep planting simple – plenty of things that grow fast and well.
• We need to stay focussed on our mission to supply good produce to the larder, as we are a very small group – “nice to have’s” are not really an option.
• Daily harvest crops, such as berries are great for the home garden, but will only work for the community garden if we have a daily harvest and currently we do not have enough gardeners for this task.
• We need to have a more reliable source of plants available – we have developed a seed bank, but struggle with continuity of supply of new and replacement stock of basic plants which are popular at the larder.
• We probably need to fundraise, particularly for fertiliser, mushroom compost, planting pots (to avoid winter water pooling), compost bins and general equipment.

If you are able to assist or contribute to the success of the next 12 months with any of the above please contact us. Any assistance, no matter how small is appreciated, and makes the garden flourish.

What’s happening at the moment?

• Harvesting of  sliver beet; zucchini; cucumber; potatoes; radishes; beans and rhubarb
• Tomatoes about to be harvested.
• Corn settling for harvest in the next couple of weeks.
• Feeding and watering of pumpkins and rhubarb.
• Preparation of beds for further crops.
• Not much planting while the heat is so intense…once it cools  a bit we will look at further lettuce , bok choy and spinach planting, and setting down autumn/ winter crops