October 2018 - Rain, rain and more rain

Well the saying "it never rains but it pours" couldn’t have been more true on Saturday morning. Having enjoyed a wonderfully warm summer the children's gardens were looking rather parched. The plants appeared thirsty, the water butts urgently needed refilling as did our pond. Needless to say on Saturday 6th October it rained and rained and rained some more, much to the delight of the children’s plants and flowers - not so much to the soggy attendees.

We made the most of the shelter the polytunnel provided by ensuring the tomatoes were picked and indoor irrigation system was working correctly (fed from the water butts outside). We even consumed our tea and cake, kindly provided by the ladies from Gilbert’s tea room, inside the poly tunnel listening to the downpour outside. During a short break in the weather, we busily collected fallen leaves from around the garden and car park. In a week or two, once the leaves have fully dried out the children will be sticking them to cardboard cutout hedgehogs providing a colourful coat of pointy brown, yellow and red ‘spikes’. Other plans we have for the coming weeks are to prepare for the children’s annual halloween party and then to ready everyone’s plots for the winter. This usually consists of removing all remaining plants and flowers and adding them to the compost heap, covering the exposed soil with cardboard to discourage weed growth and ensuring that all garden tools are clean and tidily put away in the shed ready for next year.

This year the Sherfield English Children’s Community Garden has joined the Royal Horticultural Society 'Campaign For School Gardening'. This initiative provides a chance for young people to discover the benefits of gardening, not only for them but also in their local community and the wider world. Registration has provided the children with free packets of seeds, a gardening project book and numerous factsheets to educate them in four themes of gardening around The Changing Climate, Wildlife, Growing Food For Their Plate and Creating a Happy Place. We really hope that this campaign will be running again next year as it’s helped the less knowledgable to get a better understanding around gardening techniques.

Thank you as always to all volunteers who give up their time and resources to this great local community group.

Neil

July/August 2018 - Thank you Smita!

Water! More needed! We are hoping that the pond is not quite as dry as it looks and that there is a damp refuge in the bottom where many of our pond creatures will have been able to survive. We have water butts to collect rain and these overflow into the pond. After rain last week there is a very small puddle in the bottom of the pond and the water butts are replenished. We are focussing on more rainwater harvesting; we have replaced the overflow with an old washing machine hose, acquired two new water butts and have bought some connectors to make a bigger water butt chain. It’s quite amazing how much water can be harvested from the roof of one shed and a bottle greenhouse.

The children have manged to find a little produce each week, including some delicious black tomatoes and attractive courgettes.

On the first Saturday in August we had a ‘Thank you Smita’ party as she and Krish are hoping to move north before long to be closer to family. Smita was a founder of the community garden in the village and has given her time, amazing knowledge and enthusiasm to establish the children’s garden club as a village centre of community excellence. It was lovely to see some of our past gardeners again. We wish Smita and Krish all the best for their new adventures and will sorely miss them.

Over the next couple of weeks we will be focussing on our entries for the Sherfield English Garden Show and hope to come away with some prize certificates. We hope to have seen lots of you there too.

Thank you very much to Gilbert’s Nursery for their support and children’s refreshments each week.

Best wishes, Ursula and the Children’s Garden Community Team

May 2018 - An enthusiastic start

The Community Garden sprang back into action in April this year. This was a little later than usual but the ‘Beasts from the East’ had at least finally departed by then. Pots of daffodils, planted last year as Mother’s Day gifts, were in full bloom at the first meeting and were promptly, but belatedly, sent home with their creators.

The club has been invigorated by some new young members, who are keen to grow as much as possible, and with this new injection of enthusiasm we’ve quickly caught up any lost time. Most of the beds are now weeded and planted. The small plots are sub-divided into squares and planted with a variety of vegetables, which are germinating and growing quickly in the ‘bursts’ of warm weather. Finger’s crossed, we seem to have avoided the hard late frost, that disfigured much new Spring growth last year. The fruit trees are grateful for this and arose from their cold, winter’s rest to produce much blossom, now transforming into a promising crop of apples, pears, cherries and plums.

Next on the list is a poly-tunnel spring clean, in preparation for the transplanting of warmth-loving vegetables. The scarecrow also needs a repair to its right hand, and a plan is being formulated to construct a family of scare-crow helpers!

Thanks, as always, to Gilbert’s Nursery and Tearooms for their continued support and supplying us with drinks and cake to keep us going.