Posted: August 31, 2010

We had another fantastically productive day Sunday. The fruit beds are mostly dug! Jake laid them out and we had lots of diggers. The weather cooperated, even had some sun, until the last ten minutes which felt like a mini hurricane. Next week we’ll finish digging, sieve, and add compost and a bit of topsoil. We’ll get some more edging to keep the grass at bay. Then they’ll be ready for planting in November. Carol is researching which varieties and how many plants we’ll need; she’s going for disease resistance, yield, and flavor. As well as digging, lots of weeding, building bean teepees, caterpillar picking and harvesting was done.
Next week we’ll need to finish the fruit beds, stake the tomatoes in the front, weed, and maybe start the winter planting.
Compost – the council has been promising us compost for months, I have requested it urgently for the fruit beds. I am also trying to get some from Aardvark, which composts food waste. Please bring your garden waste and kitchen scraps for the compost heap so we can make our own!
Let’s have a meeting after the dig day. Here’s a draft agenda:

garden planning (based on Kate’s plan)

• winter planting
• crop rotation
• green manures
• soil improvement

garden admin

• put together a list of garden rules? e.g.
• how/when to harvest
• safety, e.g. closed toed shoes for digging
• no pesticides
• dogs
• don’t step in the beds
• how dig days are organised, e.g. who decides what needs doing
• how bigger decisions are made, e.g. what gets planted

other garden activities

• harvest feast
• workshops
• bees

If there’s something you want to add to the list, please let me know.
Sunday is also the Urban Green Fair at Brockwell Park and the Sky Ride (http://www.goskyride.com/city/details.aspx?eventid=305&cityid=4), The Sky Ride opens at 9:30 so we’re going in the morning.

Posted: August 20, 2010

There will be no dig day this Sunday, because of heavy rain. We’ll dig the fruit beds next weekend.

Posted: August 15, 2010

Today was brilliant. Kelly, Jared, and Meloni put the picnic tables together and Kelly and Jared did the smelly job of coating the tables with wood preserver. We moved the compost to the compost pile to make space for the tables. We planted some carrots and cavolo nero seeds. We also took the netting off the beans and sugar snap peas (they’re big enough to withstand the pigeons) and built teepees for them. Meloni made delicious chocolate chip cookies. The picnic tables are settled into their new home, looking inviting, and the garden is looking fantastic.

We agreed that we would dig the fruit beds next week. Jake is going to draw a plan. Meloni will coordinate things on the day. If we get really ambitious and have a lot of people we may dig one more big bed where the topsoil pile is (we’ll have to shift the topsoil).

We noticed that during the week someone harvested three crown prince squash; the squash are all meant for the harvest feast. Today we agreed that we would only harvest on Sunday, as a group, except for the waterers who are welcome to take the beans, tomatoes, and sugar snap peas as they are ready; harvesting encourages these plants to keep producing.

We had a big harvest today – two marrows, broad beans, French beans, cavolo nero, chard, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, and cabbage. Meloni harvested some blackberries; she’s going to freeze them to make a crumble for the harvest feast.

Does anyone have camp stove we can borrow for the harvest feast? We have one but need another.

I will be sorry to miss next week — I will be in Cheltenham at my mother in law’s.

Posted: August 6, 2010

There’s not much work to do in the garden at the moment, so let’s take the opportunity to have a picnic and watch the veg grow. Please bring something to eat and drink, a rug, and maybe a Frisbee.

Exciting news – two big picnic tables are on order and should arrive in the next few days. We’ll need to assemble and oil them when they arrive. Big thanks to Lambeth for some additional money. The tables will be really useful for running workshops and for events like the Harvest Feast.

We’re all set for the Harvest Feast September 19 at 5pm, after a dig day 3-5pm. We’ll cook what we harvest, and bring extras like bread, pudding, and drinks. The park closes at 7:15pm that day.

Posted: August 2, 2010

We had another lovely day yesterday at the garden. We put more netting on the brassicas and the seedlings and newly planted seeds. Kate planted some more seeds and worked on the planting plans. We put blocks of wood under the crown prince squash to prevent them from rotting. We strimmed a path to the beds and around the beds, and left the rest wild. We labeled the demonstration bed chalkboards with the chalkboard marker and picked up the stray bits of rubbish. We harvested the corn, (yum) and a bunch of other stuff. And we had a brief meeting to talk about the harvest feast. It will be Sunday September 19 at 5 pm, and we’ll have the dig day 3-5pm that day. We will cook and eat what we’ve harvested, plus bread, puddings, etc that we bring. Cosmo and Meloni will be in charge of cooking. Partners and children welcome as well. Would anyone like to come along and play guitar/harmonica/banjo/etc ? We’re thinking of cooking on a half-drum bbq (if we’re allowed to) – anyone know where we can borrow one?

Posted: July 29, 2010

I am incredibly pleased and relieved to say that the outside tap is operational and the water tank and water butt are both full. I know you’ll all miss the smell of the boys’ bathroom.
Thanks to the folks who came to the planning meeting last night. We’re making steady progress on all fronts.
Simon and Kate are going to plan the winter and spring planting. On Sunday they’re going to ask people what they want to grow, and also about names for the different beds. Kate has done some research into crop rotation and companion planting which will factor into the planting plans.
Bees – Seb is going on a natural beekeeping course on Saturday. We are looking to put bees in the depot.
Fruit beds – we’ll dig these once the ground has softened. They’ll get planted up in November.
Harvest feast – we’ll talk about this Sunday.
Workshops – Monica has found a volunteer, Maria Devereaux, to run an adult workshop on basic plant care and growing indoors. We have set a tentative date – Sunday 12th September at 3pm. The 1 o’clock club workshop needs to be run by someone who is CRB checked. Di, who had volunteered to run it, is on holiday until September. If Seb’s CRB check is acceptable to the 1 o’clock club folks he’s going to run a workshop for children in August.
A kind neighbor is going to loan us a strimmer for Sunday. If you fancy some strimming, please wear long trousers and boots. I will bring safety goggles.
Please bring your veg scraps for the compost bin.

Posted: July 25, 2010

First – please note that we’re having a garden meeting at Herne Hill Green Drinks, this Wednesday 7:30 at the Prince Regent. The pub is across the street from Brockwell Park Lido. There’s lots to talk about – planning the fruit beds, winter planting, bees, permaculture, workshops, the Harvest Feast.

We had a lovely dig day today. We put up netting on the bed with seedlings coming up so the pigeons can’t get at them. We put up our sign, tidied a bit, and watered a lot. We harvested a bit of a lot of different things – cavolo nero, chard, beans, courgettes, tomatoes, cabbage, broad beans, and radishes.

The garden is looking fantastic. The demonstration bed and ammunition planters are looking great; I’ll order some restaurant chalkboard markers so the rain doesn’t wash the writing away. It was good to see the netting up; I could see a cabbage white being frustrated by not being able to get at the broccoli. The corn should be ready next week. The first crown prince squash are appearing. We are going to have a bumper crop of Brussels sprouts.
I am meeting the plumber on Tuesday to get a quote on putting an external tap in; this will hopefully be the last week of trekking to the loos with the wheelbarrow. To all our waterers, without you the garden wouldn’t be what it is, thank you!

Posted: June 27, 2010

Yesterday was the Ruskin Park Summer Fete. Big thanks to Maeve who helped run the stall, it was a huge success. We gave away all the recycled yogurt pots that Becca decorated to people who planted seeds in them and went home with planted up lettuce, carrots, beans, peas, and beetroot. We gave out leaflets about the garden and encouraged people to have a look around. Mastoor, Monica, and Nicholas represented Garden Organic as Master Gardeners and helped people plant seeds as well.
And big sweaty thanks to the folks digging away in the hot sun in the garden. The soil is rock hard and it was seriously hard work. They dug and sieved the demonstration bed and started planting it. Simon made the planting plan, thanks! They also showed a steady stream of visitors through the garden, I think there will be some new faces in the coming Sundays.
Cathy’s dad has made us two beautiful signs- thanks!!! We’ll buy some more timber and put it up further away from the fence.
We are using up the water in the water butt really quickly. We are trying to find a used cold water storage tank so we can store more water. We are also trying to pursue a better water solution.
My mum is having surgery this week so I am going to America to look after her, and then we’re on a family holiday straight after so I will be away until July 20th. We have a rota of people who will be coordinating the Sunday dig, and Mastoor has generously promised to make cookies.

Posted: June 24, 2010

This week the dig day will be Saturday 1-4, not Sunday, so that people at the Ruskin Park Summer Fete can tour the garden. We will be running a seed planting stall at the Fete using recycled yogurt containers fabulously collaged by Becca. Hope to see you there.

We had a great discussion last night about what we want from the garden and what to do next. People said what they like and want from the garden, and why they’re involved in the garden:

- To teach people how to grow veg and to encourage veg growing

- To teach children how to grow things and expose them to nature, e.g. minibeasts

- For people with a bit of experience, to learn more about gardening

- Community/social , meeting like-minded people and being inspired

- Bees!

- Wildflowers

- Climate change/sustainability

- Gardening with nature, e.g. companion planting, permaculture, forest gardening

Then we talked about what to do in the garden. We agreed to:

- Pursue getting bees. Seb is taking the lead on this.

- Look into permaculture and how we could apply its principles to the garden. Kate is going to research this.

- Plant up the demonstration bed next to the fence so that passersby can see things growing. Simon is going to do a planting plan for Saturday. I will look into some signage.

- Mastoor is going to look into soil nutrients and building an herb spiral.

- We definitely want to run workshops, both for the 1 o’clock club and for adults. I am going to work on getting picnic tables. We agreed that we’d aim to run our first adult workshop at the beginning of August, with the topic of basic plant care and/or what you can grow indoors. For the 1 o’clock club I will confirm with the staff what the CRB requirements are, if any, and arrange a date with Di, who will run the workshop. Monica is going to speak to the people from the Master Gardener training to see who can run the adult workshop.

- Maeve is going to be general intern and social secretary.

- We’re going to create a fruit area in the shady back right corner – black currants, logan berries, gooseberries, and rhubarb. I will look into getting canes, etc.

- Fruit and nut trees and a pond were discussed, but we decided we don’t have room for them. There is an orchard between the 1 o’clock club and the wildlife pond.

Mastoor and Monica did the Master Gardener training and were very enthusiastic about it; they’re going to help at the seed planting stall on Saturday, as are a few other people from the course.

The Lambeth country fair is July 17 and 18 – do we want to enter our produce?

We will have our next discussion at the next Green Drinks – July 28 at the Prince Regent. I am really excited about our plans. Thanks to everyone for all your energy, hard work, and general loveliness.

Posted: June 21, 2010

The Ruskin Park Summer Fete is Saturday 1-5pm. It would be great if people could tour the garden during that time, so it might make sense to move our dig day to Saturday this week. Please let me know if you can come Saturday and if so what time you can come. Thanks!!

We have water! We bought a hosepipe and filled up the water butt donated by Mary from Friends of Ruskin Park. Those on watering rota, you should be able to dip the clear plastic water bottles in the top and fill up the watering cans that way. Also, the potatoes are big enough to start watering.

We had another lovely productive day yesterday, weeding and edging the planted beds and sieving the other beds. We also talked a bit about what we want from the garden. We agreed that after next Sunday’s dig day we would sit down and talk through what comes out of Wednesday’s discussion. Here are some things to think about:
• Planting fruit and/or nut trees
• Planting raspberries, gooseberries
• Winter veg planning/planting
• encouraging biodiversity – bug hotel, bee hives, ponds, wildflowers in areas too shady for veg
• Working with nature, e.g. companion planting, permaculture
• Educating/encouraging people to grow veg. Demonstration beds – plant up beds near the path with signage so people can watch it grow and know what it is and when it was planted. Run workshops? Run seed planting stalls at local fetes?
• Dig days – change the time to 2-4, or 3-5? Have regular mid-week dig days? While the days are so long we could even do an after work dig evening.
• A forest garden area, herb spiral, grape vine arch
• Anything you want from the garden but aren’t getting?

Meloni has volunteered to organize a Harvest Feast at the end of the summer! The basic idea is to research recipes that use the veg, take the veg home to cook, and bring the food back for a feast, most likely open to the public.

We agreed we would prepare and plant the bed near the path next week as a demonstration bed. We’ll need to figure out some signage. On an unhappy note, someone has taken our sign frame; the whiteboard was ripped off and left on the ground and the frame is completely gone. Next time I guess we’ll just have to have it further from the path.

We also agreed that we’d name each of the beds and make a map of the garden. I’d like to call one of the beds “Oklahoma”.
There was lots of chard, spinach, lettuce, and some broad beans and French beans to take home. It looks like the soap solution is helping a bit.

Posted: June 19, 2010

Great news – we have a solution to the water problem! We are going to buy water tanks and fill them up by running a hosepipe to the 1 o’clock club’s internal tap. We’ll have to do this between 12:30-1pm Monday-Thursday as that’s when the staff are there but before the children arrive. We will order tanks and a very long hosepipe in the next couple days. Enormous thanks to the waterers for all those trips to the loos.

Sunday we will be preparing more beds and planting more seeds and probably doing some weeding. If the netting arrives in time we’ll put that up as well. It would be great to get the compost going, please bring your veg peelings, they’ll be lovely plant food in no time.

Next weekend is the Ruskin Park Summer Fete http://www.ruskinparkcommunitygarden.org/friends-of-ruskin-park. We are signed up to do seed planting and we need volunteers, please let me know if you can help!

Posted: June 18, 2010

Posted: June 16, 2010

We had a another lovely day at the garden Sunday. We dug a new bed near the path to become a kind of demonstration garden for folks walking by, we sieved and planted some of the other beds, and we put more edging in.

We have harvested our first produce! People took home spinach, rocket, chard, lettuce, and green beans. From now until the fall we should have a bit of something to harvest every week.

The broad beans have pods on them, yippee! But they also have black fly. The organic ways to treat this are to wipe it off (I tried but some are inaccessible) and to spray with a water/washing up liquid solution. There is now a sprayer with washing up solution with the watering cans (thanks, Karen!) so if you’re on watering rota please spray the broad beans all over with the sprayer as well.

We also need to net the brassicas; otherwise we will get very small green caterpillars living in the broccoli heads. I have first hand knowledge of this and it is very icky. We are ordering netting – it will be the right size to prevent the cabbage white butterfly from laying its eggs on the leaves.

Don’t forget to add 23 June 7:30 at the Prince Regent to your diary and start thinking about what you want to see in the garden.

Posted: June 12, 2010

tomorrow promises to be partly sunny, perfect for digging! we’ll prepare more beds, plant more seeds, and put more edging in. and we’ll harvest our first produce – beans and salad. there won’t be a huge amount but please bring a container to take some home in. and pecan shortbread for sustenance.

i am doing my best to solve the water problem. we have made the problem abundantly clear and have proposed an alternative solution that addresses the health and safety issues, but another issue has been raised and we are waiting on an answer.

i have posted a watering guide on the website http://www.ruskinparkcommunitygarden.org/other-things-of-interest/watering-guide. once the seeds come up we may want to adjust the rota to water every other day.

we have received some fantastic tools from Veolia, thanks very much!

let’s get together to talk about things we could do next in the garden – raspberries, fruit trees, permaculture, demonstration small beds near the fence, encouraging biodiversity e.g. a pond, fall planting, please bring your ideas. please come along to the next Herne Hill Green Drinks – http://www.hernehillcan.org/dates/herne-hill-green-drinks-june
7:30-10:30 at the Prince Regent pub, on Dulwich Road across from Brockwell Park Lido.

Posted: June 7, 2010

Big thanks to Phil from Lambeth Recycling who came along to help us build a nifty composting bin out of recycled palettes, and spotted a stag beetle in the big horse chestnut tree . He has promised to come back at the end of the summer to give an instructional talk about composting.

Phil also helped us construct a frame for our sign; for the moment it is holding the white board with the week’s jobs. Cathy’s dad is a sign painter and has kindly agreed to make a proper sign for us, thanks!!!

We planted up the rest of the seedlings, the potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, and some French bean and sugar snap pea seeds. We sieved and dug compost and topsoil into more beds, and we got started putting the recycled plastic edging around the beds

We have our very first produce! Our dwarf bean plant has several beans on it. They will be ready to harvest Sunday, although it will only equate to maybe 1/3 bean per person . The lollo rosso lettuce is also ready for picking.

Our next dig day is Sunday, June 13, 1-3pm. We’ll prepare more beds, put more edging in, and plant more seeds. We may hold a general meeting at the garden at the same time, will keep you posted. We have achieved a huge amount in a very short space of time and it seems like a good time to talk about what next.

Posted: June 5, 2010

We sieved and planted up broccoli and Brussels sprouts on Wednesday; it’s all looking really exciting.

On Sunday Phil O’Keeffe from Lambeth will be coming to help us build the compost bins. If we bring timber we might also be able to build a frame for the whiteboard, so if you see any long posts in a skip please bring them along. We’ll also be preparing more beds and planting Jerusalem artichokes, potatoes, sugar snap peas, and whatever other seeds take your fancy.

Water update: the 1 O’clock club has said we can’t run a hosepipe above ground due to health and safety issues. I have asked Lambeth Parks for a site visit as soon as possible to discuss another solution and am waiting for a reply.

Thanks very very much to the watering rota folks; it is an onerous task but without it the veg could die, particularly in this hot weather. Each watering counts as a timebank hour, as does the other lovely things that people are doing – Mike wrote a great update about the community garden for the Friends of Ruskin Park newsletter, Cosmo is going to be posting weekly seasonal veg recipes to the website, Becca decorated a huge number of recycled containers for seed planting, and Ben is chasing up free tools.

I saw that another community garden is having a picnic in combination with a dig day – does that appeal? We could meet at 12, bring blankets, and hang out a bit.

The Ruskin Park Fete is Saturday June 26, 1-4pm at the bandstand in the park. We will be running a plant-a-seed stall; we’ll supply recycled containers (decorated by Becca!) that people can plant a seed in and take home. We need volunteers to help run the stand – to help with the seed planting, to talk about/answer questions about the garden (maybe give tours?), and to generally help out. Want to?

Posted: May 31, 2010

thanks so much to everyone who came yesterday! we planted up most of the vegetables from the eden project, finished digging the rest of the beds, and started sieving them. the garden is looking great and abundant – we have spinach, rocket, chard, tomatoes, beans, pumpkin, crown prince squash, broccoli, cabbage, cavolo nero, broad beans, corn, beetroot, carrots, lettuce, basil, coriander, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. and i’m probably forgetting something.
we have organised a watering rota – thanks to all who have signed up.
we’ll have a dig day wednesday 3-5pm so we can sieve enough of the beds to plant up the rest of the seedlings. i have a big box of seeds so we can then start growing from seed, and we have some jerusalem artichokes to plant. there’s a fair amount of interest in potatoes so i’ll get some as well.

Posted: May 27, 2010

We planted up the broad beans and cabbage seedlings yesterday, as well as some lettuce seedlings that Mastoor brought (thank you!) Everything will benefit from a couple days of rain. Sunday looks to be gloriously sunny. There’s plenty to do – lots more seedlings to plant and beds to prepare. We’re also going to plant some beetroot seeds amongst the broad beans.

Wandsworth Prison gives away free tools – would anyone be willing to give them a call and see if we can get some? Please email me and I’ll give you the contact details.

We’ll organize the watering rota Sunday and I’ll have padlock keys.

Posted: May 24, 2010

Extra gardening session: Wednesday 2:30-4:30. we’ll be planting up the rest of the seedlings, after sieving the beds. We have broad beans and cabbage ready to go in.

Thanks to all of you who came yesterday, we got a huge amount done! Two of the wheelchair-height containers are planted up with tomatoes and beans. We shifted 5 tons of topsoil. We forked in topsoil and compost into two big beds and sieved and planted one up with corn, courgettes, crown prince squash, and beetroot. We marked out three more beds and lifted the turf on one, and sieved another bed. We had soil samples collected for testing, thanks to Sarah from Growing Southwark. Thank you specifically to the water carriers, it is a mind numbing but essential job. And thanks to Florence Nsogebe, the Lambeth Cabinet Member for Culture, for coming to see us.

We talked a little about crop rotation. Here’s some more info http://www.vegetableexpert.co.uk/VegetableCropRotation.html. In general the RHS website is a fantastic source of veg growing knowledge http://www.rhs.org.uk/growyourown/

I have posted some photos

Watering rota: We’ll need daily watering in this hot weather. I’m going to get several extra keys made, and hopefully we can sort out a water source quite soon. Please email me if you said you’d be up for watering.

Health & Safety note – open-toed shoes and metal gardening tools are a risky combination; please wear close-toed shoes if you’re going to be digging/forking.

June 6: Phillip O’Keeffe will be coming from Lambeth to help us build compost bins using recycled pallettes and scaffolding boards.

Also, Herne Hill Green Drinks is Wednesday night, come along to the Prince Regent (across from Brockwell Park Lido on Dulwich Road) 7-10pm to talk about green stuff. http://www.hernehillcan.org/herne-hill-green-drinks

Posted: May 20, 2010

We’ll be planting up the four wheelchair height containers this Sunday. We’ve got cabbage, borlotti beans, tomatoes, beetroot, broad beans, corn, pumpkin, and courgettes seedlings ready to go in. Time permitting we may do a bit more sieving on the raised beds.

The weather looks to be fabulous, so bring your suncream and a water bottle. As usual we’ll have something yummy to snack on.

Posted: May 16, 2010

We had a great day despite the weather (again). We moved the turf to the compost heap and lifted the turf from the 5th bed. We sieved all the soil from one of the raised beds and a bit of another.

The rocket has germinated! Nothing yet from the spinach or chard.

Next week: we will fill the wheelchair height containers and plant them up. And more sieving. We are hardening off seedlings: crown prince squash, corn, broad beans, cabbage.

We need to get the soil tested asap so we can get on with planting the big beds.

Posted: May 15, 2010

Please come by on Sunday, 1-4pm. If you have them please bring gardening gloves and maybe a big fork or spade. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, an extra wheelbarrow would be handy.

The soil looks very good, so we’ve decided to build quite shallow raised beds to take advantage of it. This means that we need to test the soil for contaminants. So… building and planting the raised beds is on hold until the soil is tested.

The jobs we’ll be doing are:

• Shift turf from 4th large bed to compost area, we need a couple of barrows for this.
• Remove top layer from that bed to compost area
• Fill raised tubs with available topsoil and compost
• Sieve grass roots from soil in cleared beds.

Posted: May 10, 2010

Ruskin Park Community Garden is up and running!  Our launch party was Sunday – lots of people came by and planted a seed to take home, listened to vegetable songs by Jane Ruby, ate scrummy cupcakes made by SE5Forum, and learned about local groups  including Loughborough Junction Action Group, Friends of Carnegie Library, Friends of Ruskin Park, Growing Southwark, Brockwell Park, and SE5Forum. We planted our first seeds – salad, rocket and chard.

Next up, we will be building the raised beds and planting out the containers donated by the Royal Hospital via Growing Southwark. We will be meeting with the 1 O’clock Club to plan activities for the children there. We plan to participate in the Ruskin Park Summer Fete and to combine a Harvest Festival with the Big Draw. We also will be organizing vegetable growing workshops.

Posted: May 2, 2010

The garden is up and running! We had our first dig day May 2nd – a fantastic success. Despite the miserable weather lots of lovely people turned up, worked hard, and we lifted the turf on four of the raised beds – way more than the one bed we had expected.

Upcoming Dates

• Harvest Feast – Sunday September 19 5pm
• Dig Days

Other Things of Interest

• Brassica pests
• Preserving the harvest glut
• What to plant when
• Watering Guide
• Companion Planting, Crop Rotation – from Growing Southwark