Community Garden News

Cold and damp has set in and the growth is slow, however, we have set our mind to maintenance and preparation.Still harvesting kale, spinach, rhubarb and leeks. They will appear at the Larder on a Wednesday.

Winter tasks (which are timely for all gardeners):

• Pruning our small collection of berries, and taking cuttings for the future- blueberries grow well from cuttings.
• Tidying and feeding strawberries, and planting out runners that have formed new roots.
• Splitting rhubarb and giving it all a good winter feed of horse pooh.
• Lifting “spent’ plants that have done their service, and giving them a good burial in the compost heaps. It a good idea to chop these plants into small bits into the compost, as it takes less time to break down and the compost is ready for use in a shorter time. We remove all the hard and horny roots and place them in our “earth pile”, which is given much more time to mature into compost.
• Compost has had a good dusting of lime and a dose of horse pooh and coffee grinds to get all the lovely bacteria and worms working.
• Good time to plant broad beans, and for the first time we have planted a crop of peas.
• Our kumara were an improvement on last year, but we still need a bigger heap of soil. So have added compressed sheep dags, the contents of our tomato pots, and grass clippings , with the intention of building it further before next year’s crop goes in.

Join us if you wish—51 Oxford Street. 10-12noon Wednesday

We apologise to Debbie and all the keen gardening readers for the inadvertant missing of the Garden column from last months’ Star. The proof reader (me) didn’t pick up the miss and will be more vigilant in the future .  Mike