Every day in the Weather section of The Press you can find the soil temperature. The best guide for gardeners is the 10cm reading. This has been showing a pleasing upward trend recently so we have taken the plunge and planted an early variety of new potatoes at our St Martins site. We used Cliff’s Kidneys. Six weeks from now these will be followed by Maris Anchor and Agria. One of our volunteers, Ted, has also decided to try out the warming ground and has planted all the thinnings from his radish plants at home into one of the beds at Strickland St. So far they are looking very healthy. Christine is a fan of Daikon radish which she incorporates into pickles and also Kimchi, and has used this technique to increase the yield of this variety. The method could also be used with Beetroot seedlings as the ground is warming up.

Planting out of Silver beet has begun as well as  broccoli and cabbage. The last of the carrots have been harvested and the bed for the new crop is being prepared. This involves digging in the green crop of marigolds (tagites) and mustard which will deter the pesky carrot flies from laying their eggs

Maintenance work continues. Pruning is just about completed, which is timely as blossom is beginning to appear on the plum trees, and we are stringing the broad beans. The birds have been into our pea sowings so now they are protected by chicken wire guards. The St Martins site has benefited from a lot of work and is  looking good. It yielded a fine crop of pumpkins this year and also seems to be a great spot for growing chili peppers. Also benefiting from some TLC is the Beckenham site which has had lots of bark spread over the paths to freshen them up. In last months blog I incorrectly stated that the bark was donated by City Care. In fact it was given by Beaver Tree Services, so a belated thank you and apology to them. Some of the bark has also been layered into our compost heaps.

We have been disposing of surplus items via the Freecycle network This is a great way to give away items which are of no further use to you but are too good to go to the dump, or conversely, to pick up items which may be useful. It’s all done via email and is easy to use. Just go to https://my.freecycle.org/ for more details.

Emma from Canterbury University has been progressing our Human Activity in Gardening research project by assessing tasks for their suitability in improving balance, load bearing and cardio fitness. Christine and Anna presented the results so far to the last Public Health Association conference earlier this year and this project is ongoing. Emma’s time with us is coming to an end so we thank her for her work and wish her well in her future studies.

Happy Gardening.