Community Garden News 

Well, winter has certainly reared it head over the past few days! 

At the Community Garden we are still harvesting Jerusalem artichokes, broccoli, silver beet, and the last of the beetroot and lettuce. Brassicas are coming along and cauliflower florets have formed and are developing well. We have planted a good -sized crop of peas after last year’s success and they are just poking their heads out through the pea straw,

Some of our summer crops have taken their toll on the soil, so their planting spaces are being rested; limed, covered with pea straw, and given a well -earned rest before we look to spring crops.

It is the time of year to be having a big clean up, and this has certainly happened…a good cut back of the globe artichokes which should ensure a good spring crop; our spent beans have been uprooted and composted, and we have harvested all our peppers and aubergine, as the frost savaged them. We did, however, get some excellent feedback from those who managed to collect aubergines from the Larder, saying that they were delicious. Obviously, the frost killed the plant, but not the fruit!

Just a word on the composting at this time of the year…we do find it best to have two levels of compost: one for the small, leafy stuff, which goes into our bins, and then have an “earth pile” for the bigger stuff, which we can add to our bins when it has broken down a bit. This ensures that we have useable compost most of the time. 

We are now entering into the time of year where maintenance of crops requiring longer maturity is key. Leeks are fattening and brassica’s …who like no disturbance and heartening up. It is also time to ‘go back to the plan’ and ensure that when we plant our spring crops, we ensure we do not burden the soil with more of the same and we stay rigidly with our rotation plan.

As part of our planning, we will get a survey out over the next month to see what you would like more of, or less of etc. These should be available at the Medical Centre mid June.