Well it’s been awhile. Winter crept up on us at a slow pace this season and a very wet pace it was. Our visits were marked by the amount of mud on our shoes as we left, having slid a squelched our way around the garden.Throughout the winter we have had a fantastic supply of salad leaves as well as chard, spinach and herbs from the polytunnel which has really come into its own this year having been utilised to its full potential. This week as we looked around the garden we remarked at how tidy and well cared for it’s looking, the best we remember. We have a good group of members now who regularly come and do something even if it is just a bit of weeding, or mulching our paths with pepper mulch. We now have a few weekends set aside for group work days where a good contingent of members turn out to get those winter jobs done of tidying and maintenance that just don’t get a look in when the growing season starts. Last weekend was just such a one and we tackled more pruning , bed mulching and weeding and new fruit bush supports being erected.The pruning of all the soft fruit bushes and Hawthorn hedges has been an ongoing theme. Some of the prunings have been made into bundles of faggots to hopefully be used in the Spring to light the pizza oven, waste not want not.
This week we continued by finishing the pruning and having a good old bonfire to get rid of a pile of accumulated rubbish it did get to be quite a fearsome heat which kept us warm on such a chilly day. Already the garlic and onions have put a spurt on and it will soon be time to start thinking about seeds that need to be sown for this years crops. Onwards and upwards as they say on Gardener’s question time.
Tangmere Community Garden 