Gardening Guilts and signs of spring

You may have noticed I've been a bit remiss with my blogs. Well I tend to write when I'm doing lots in the garden and I feel inspired... of late, it hasn't felt like there's been much to write about and that's because the snow's been stalling me.  Really?  I think that's just an excuse!  And gardening at the lovely Urban Veg just makes me feel more guilty about my absence from my own patch.  There we've been sowing broad beans and salads for the green house and its really starting to be populated with baby seedlings and lots of seed trays. 

Meanwhile, at home my seed box has barely had a ruffle since I restocked it over Christmas.  I should be sewing those seeds that need an extra long season like the chillies and the aubergines (summer willing - pleeeease!).  All my seeds are organised in month order so its not as if its hard to do and over Christmas I bought my seed compost so there really is no excuse.  Hopefully committing my gardening guilts will spur me into action!

In terms of the garden, hey it might be winter still but there seems to be lots of signs of life starting up.  We may be getting lots of snow but that's not halting everything out there.  Over the Christmas period garlic started to peer through the soil and the HSL crimson broad beans germinated (I think something got a taste for one of them though) and despite the snow keeping the ground cold there are some lovely rhubarb shoots in such a vivid red and little lush leaves making a start.  The chives are starting to grow too. 

So if the more hardy residents of the plot are braving their first shoots I really should get on with my window sill sowing in earnest and dust off the heated propagator for those chillies and long season tenders.  Its about time my windowsills are bursting with young seedlings!

New Year, New Jobs in the Community Garden

This morning was the first 2012 Sunday session of Transition Town Wandsworth's Community Garden.  We had lots of jobs to do and 5 energetic volunteers so we got cracking with our spades and gardening tools.

We had a lovely mild day to work in.


We had several jobs to do:

1.  We have a mound of compost and either need to contain it or use it up rather quickly.  As our community garden is located within a public park we need to make our compost heap look more beautiful.  However, we have the dilemma of not being able to build a structure against the wall to contain it in a wooden structure and are not sure how to deal with it.  Gardening generates waste plant material and it would be great to be able to turn it into usable material for the garden.

So in the meantime, we buried the partly composted material from the compost heap into trenches where the soil is not so rich and fertile.   

Any ideas on a remedy for this?

2.  We had a separate mound of fully composted material kindly donated by the Council so we distributed it as top soil for the raised beds. 

3.  We removed leaves from the base of plants to try to prevent botrytis on the lower leaves of plants.  Botrytis is a fungal condition which occurs in damp environments and is commonly found on strawberry plants. The fallen leaves bunched up at the base of perennials and keeping in moisture is prime breeding ground for this condition.

With 5 volunteers we were able to make a good stab at the jobs but weren't able to complete them all so will have to finish them off in next Sunday's session.

We need more to come and join us, its great fun and the more the merrier!  Bramford Community Garden is a big site in Wandsworth's Bramford Park.  If you want to join us - please get in touch! Email: ttwandsworth@hotmail.co.uk
 
For more information:
Bramford Community Garden Project Dirt 
Transition Town Wandsworth 

Obviously hard work must be rewarded so we shared out the harvested veg :)  Not bad going for January!

Off to warm up in a nearby cafe with a well deserved hot chocolate.

Fresh Veg from the November garden

I was just looking through my garden diary and noticed that I am still cropping food from the garden even now in mid November.  The other night I picked a winter salad to accompany some shepherds pie and last night I was picking chard for a curry.

In fact the garden has been feeding me steadily and hasn't taken a week off since April - thank you garden!

Considering I have a small patio garden and my growing is in pots,  I don't suffer gluts very often, but I am finding with time and learning about what works through trial and error that I have a steady supply of salad greens and these haven't had a week off for about 7-8 months, which I would never have guessed would happen in a small container garden, but what a blessing it is.

I am sure it is also thanks to this strange year of weather we've been having and we haven't had a frost in South West London yet.

The types of things that I am still cropping are:

• Chillies & Peppers (from the plastic greenhouse)
• Kale
• Chard
• Beetroot
• Cabbage
• Rapa de Senza (turnip green eaten as a salad leaf)
• Kai Lan (delicious raw in salad or lightly stir fried)
• Nasturtium (will definitely be popping these seeds around the garden anyway I find a spare bit of soil - such a versatile crop for pesto, salad, pickled seeds, flavour and it grows so easily in the UK.  So far from May - November)
• Mustard Leaf
• Garlic Chives (from last summer's garlic bulbs - I missed a few when harvesting and now have garlic chives popping up in a few places...delicious!)

Last night we made a flavourful curry with the chard from the garden and some potatoes and free range chicken.  It was simply delicious, made even more delicious by the garden chard and fresh from the plant chillies.  Even the mustard seed was saved from the garden.

I would never have guessed that even in November the garden would be inspiring evening meals.

Autumn Sunshine

Autumn has finally arrived to the garden here in South London, the squash leaves are looking tired, the sunflowers are starting to look a little sad with their bowed heads, lots of leaves to clear up off the patio and pots to spruce up.  Time for the autumnal tidy up!

Zapallito de Toscana (Cucurbita Maxima)

I love all these new gardening jobs as the summer season moves on to the next chapter of autumn.  The new light levels, the warm sunshine, spaces made where the summer crops have finished doing their thing, the garden is starting to look a lot less congested!  Whilst I absolutely love the jungle look that summer brings in our garden thanks to all the squash plants I like to grow I also love the new space that we get as autumn moves in.

Aubergine "de Barbentane" (Solanum Melongena)

And in the new spaces I've been busy sowing!  Winter radish, variety of turnip greens, peas for peashoots, tree onion bulbils (a perennial onion), onions from seed, Kai Lan and various winter salads.  I'm determined to keep the patio awake with edibles feeding us right through those cold winter months and into the hungry gap.

Against the south facing wall I have new spaces so have moved the sunloving herbs like rosemary, lavender, thyme, sage, marjoram and camomile which really seem to be enjoying their new home.

Citrus Lime (Citrus Latifolia Tahiti)

That's the beauty of the container garden, you can just keep moving your pots around through the seasons.

Another event in the garden is the migration of the heat lovers back inside the flat (chillies, peppers, the lime tree, the aloes...).  I keep an eye on their leaves and as long as they are not yet showing any sign of stress am letting them stay outside to make the most of any sunshine available.  However, I am keeping an eagle eye on the forecast and a daily check of these plants to make sure they are still happy outside.  Whilst we had a rather disappointing summer, we do seem to be blessed by a warm and gentle September.  As soon as those temps start to go towards 10 degrees C or below, I will find homes for the tender ones inside the flat.  I have a feeling that it might be a bit crowded indoors this winter!

Looking in my seedbox, the only month I can't find anything to sow is December.  Any suggestions?