Posted: March 12, 2019

We got a lot of work done during our Dig Day in the garden on Saturday 2 March. Benn and Sadie weeded one very overgrown bed, which took a lot of time. Benn and Justin then weeded another bed that hasn’t been used much recently near the weeping willow tree.

Planting garlic in the garden

Justin got on with hoeing the weeds in our beds where we are growing kale and cabbages. And Huseyin did some weeding and also planted more garlic in one of the beds.

We talked about plans to restart a wormery – which gives us lots of good nutrients to add to the beds – and to better organise our compost heaps. We’ll also be sowing some seedlings in pots in our polytunnel soon, so we had a chat about what kind of things we might like to grow over the year.

Weeding the bed next to our weeping willow tree

Our community garden has recently teamed up with the Friends of Ruskin Park, which organises gardening and other activities in other areas of the park. We’ll be in the garden from 10am until around 12.30pm on the first and third Saturday of each month, and there are always plenty of jobs (big and small) to be done.

Posted: October 4, 2018

We were in the garden for a couple of hours last Sunday to coincide with the Ruskin Park Community Harvest day.

Lots of people came along to the park to get involved in the activities, and visitors came to look around our garden and find out more about what we do.

It’s great to have new volunteers in the garden

Thanks to everyone who popped in!

We have had some new volunteers involved in the garden recently, who have taken responsibility for looking after their own beds.

So far they have planted cauliflower, salad leaves, onions, parsnips, carrots, herbs and chard.

Raking over a bed to get ready for planting

It’s meant that more people are working the beds in the garden, which is a good thing.

In the community beds we’ve planted onions and garlic, and are still harvesting our potatoes. On Sunday we gave up on the hope that our remaining tomatoes would ripen, and harvested the last of them.

Green chutney here we come!

Cutting back the willow tree to let more light to the beds

We also cut back the willow tree, which means one of our beds is not completely overshadowed by branches and it’s a lot easier to see what we are doing.

We harvested some potatoes, and planted more garlic.

In coming weeks we’ll be planting out broad beans and peas for overwintering, plus digging over the beds, weeding, and aerating the soil to get ready for planting.

Everyone is welcome to come along and help out, and share in our harvest.

We will be in the garden on Saturday 6 October from 12 noon until 2pm, and again on Sunday 14 October from 11am until 1pm. It would be great to see you there!

Posted: September 20, 2018

We’re getting ready for the autumn in Ruskin Park Community Garden. That means a lot of digging over beds and laying down compost, to get ready for planting new crops for overwinter.

Lots of green peppers

So far we’ve planted rows of onions and garlic. And we’re still harvesting veg from the last lot of planting.

Currently we’ve got tomatoes (mainly still green!), peppers and squash still growing to be harvested soon.

We’ve also got potatoes still to harvest, while our cabbages and kale are still going strong. And we have plans to plant some broad beans and peas for overwintering.

Squash in the garden

Another volunteer is growing cauliflower, rainbow chard and salad leaves.

And another has set about tidying up our herb bed with a view to growing some new herbs in the future.

We’ll be open for all volunteers on Sunday 30 September, from 1-3pm. That’s the day of the Ruskin Park Community Harvest day in the park, so there will be lots for people to do on the day.

All our volunteers – and new people – are welcome to pop in and see how we’re doing in the garden. We are always open to new volunteers getting involved, and we’d love to hear some of your ideas for what else we can plant in the coming year too.

A few potatoes unexpectedly found while digging over a bed

Posted: May 24, 2018

It was a lovely, sunny and peaceful day in the garden on Sunday. We got through a lot of much-needed weeding! Our broccoli and garlic beds were weeded, along with some more of our Mandala bed.

Earlier in the week Paula had done so much weeding that she discovered chives growing there, which we have left in.

Our purple sprouting broccoli bed before weeding

We also made a start on weeding some of our mostly empty beds ready for planting out seedlings. We gave everything a good water and planted some pumpkin seeds in the polytunnel.

Volunteers came earlier to the garden last week, and this Sunday we’ll be open from 11am. Please feel free to pop in and lend a hand as there is lots of work to be done!

Our purple sprouting broccoli bed after weeding

Posted: September 25, 2017

It was a fairly quiet day in the garden this Sunday with just a couple of volunteers.

But we were very grateful to the people who dropped off some spare decking that they no longer had any use for.

This will be perfect for helping to build structures around our beds and to keep nets in place over our crops.

The part of our asparagus bed that isn’t weeded…

We focused on the asparagus bed last week, as it has become so overgrown that it is getting hard to see where it begins and ends.

We dug a trench around the edge, started on weeding the bed and then used some of our new decking to try and keep the grass at bay.

We also harvested some green tomatoes, a couple of lettuces and even a few raspberries that had grown. And we watered the crops and repaired the netting where it appeared some animals – possibly squirrels – had damaged it.

Next week we hope to finish work on the asparagus bed. We also need to cut back our raspberry bushes and do some weeding in the beds where we have crops growing.

…and the part that was weeded!

Posted: September 21, 2017

We got a lot done in the garden during our dig last Sunday. We weeded one of our beds and planted out some broccoli, brussels sprouts and kale that had been growing in the polytunnel.

Planting out some crops in the garden

We weeded another bed so we could plant out some more potatoes, which should be ready for Christmas.

We pulled up our remaining potatoes – quite a big harvest – and also our radishes, some of which had become quite huge.

And we harvested some of our tomatoes too.

We decided to leave most of the tomatoes on the plants, although they are green, as we are hoping that they might ripen!

Our harvest – including potatoes, radishes and tomatoes

Posted: July 25, 2017

We got lots done in the garden on Sunday with the help of a couple of new volunteers.

Tending to the tomatoes in the garden on Sunday

Gardeners pinched out the suckers from the tomato plants and removed excess leaves to help them to ripen. We also weeded the tomato and potato beds.

We cleared the front of the garden which had become slightly overgrown with weeds and thorny bushes, and also mowed the lawn.

Radishes, basil, sugar snap peas and beetroot were planted in the polytunnel. And we harvested quite a few potatoes, garlic and blackberries.

There will be plenty to do in the weeks ahead so please feel free to drop in and lend a hand. We’re there most Sundays from 2-4pm.

Posted: June 16, 2017

The harvest from last Sunday’s dig day – raspberries, broad beans and asparagus

There wasn’t a huge turnout on our dig day last Sunday. However, there was lots of harvesting to be done. Our raspberries are now growing strong and there was a whole tubful to harvest. They have continued to grow this week too.

The first of our broad beans are coming through too. And our asparagus continues to grow very fast!

Carrots were planted out in the broad bean bed last week, and some general tidying, weeding and watering was done too.

THERE WILL BE NO DIG THIS SUNDAY. All of our committee members are away. However, we will be in the garden again on SATURDAY 24 JUNE FROM 1PM.

This is because that’s the day of the Ruskin Park Summer Fete and so the park should be busier than usual. We hope to open up our garden and also to have a stall at the Fete to advertise the community garden.

If any volunteers are around on the afternoon of the 24th, and want to volunteer to help out for an hour or two, please get in touch by emailing info@ruskinparkcommunitygarden.org and let us know what times  you are free. We will try and organise a rota so that we have enough people throughout the day.

Even if you haven’t been up to doing much gardening, sitting on a stall for an hour and helping give our leaflets about the garden will still be a huge help.

Posted: May 28, 2017

A great team turned up and we were able to plant out all our tomatoes from the polytunnel.  The potato beds were weeded and then we sprinkled compost and other fertiliser across all the beds.  Also some lime trees saplings from Trees for Cities were planted right by our entrance gate.  We hope to do more tidying around the beds on Sunday 28 May and maybe do some more sowing as well.

Posted: April 4, 2017

We were in the garden last Sunday at our new time of 2-4pm, since the clocks had changed.

Our broad beans after repotting in the polytunnel

We dug over one of the beds in preparation for planting out some of our seedlings in the polytunnel. We also repotted our broad beans, which are doing really well and had started to overgrow their very small pots!

We put some potatoes in egg boxes for chitting – when they begin to sprout – and left them in the warmth of the polytunnel. And we gave everything a good water, including our asparagus which has started to come up now.

We’ll be in the garden on most Sundays throughout the summer from 2-4pm.

Posted: March 14, 2017

We braved hail and rain showers during the dig to do a bit of work on our Mandala bed. Weeding of the bed was well overdue – as we couldn’t see where the bed actually ended anymore!

As well as weeding and clearing moss and grass from the brickwork, we also dug over the earth. We dug a trench around the edge to try and ward off the grass in future, and also planted some peas in our polytunnel.

Weeding and digging over our Mandala bed

Posted: February 7, 2017

A volunteer helps spread compost on one of the beds

It was good to see some new – and newer – faces at our dig last Sunday. The ground was soft so we dug over and weeded three big beds (a long and tiring job)! We put some compost over the beds to give them a few more nutrients in preparation for planting.

We also trimmed back some of the dead growth over our herbs in the mandala bed. There were lots of new herbs growing underneath.

Our next dig will be Sunday 19 February from 1-3pm. We hope to start planting seeds in pots to go in the polytunnel, so please come along and lend a hand if you can. And if volunteers have ideas of what they would like to grow over the next year, please let us know.

Posted: January 18, 2017

We had our first dig of the year on 8 January. Luckily the recent rain had made the soil soft so we could get on with some weeding.

We found lots of garlic shoots in the bed where we planted garlic last year, so we we moved them into the bed with this year’s garlic. Fingers crossed they’ll continue to grow and we’ll get a good harvest.

Garlic shoots

We also found a couple of large potatoes while we were weeding, so ended up with an unexpected harvest of potatoes and kale.

Potatoes and kale

The Friends of Ruskin Park brought us a present of some bran, a by-product of the wheat threshing process. Bran helps plant roots extract nutrients from the soil, helping them grow. We’ll be digging it into our beds before we plant out seedlings later on in the year.

Read about the wheat-growing project in Ruskin Park.

We’ll be in the garden again this Sunday 22 January from 1pm to 3pm – come along and give us a hand.

Happy gardening!

The community gardeners

Posted: November 16, 2016

We did quite a bit of tidying in the garden during the dig. We pulled up the remaining tomato plants from the last bed, and put them on the compost. We also cut back our asparagus plants, weeded the bed and tackled the fruit bushes that are encroaching on bits of the garden.

The front bed got a bit of a weed, but there’s still more to be done. And we raked up wheelbarrows full of leaves to add to our compost heap.

In coming weeks we’ll continue to tidy up the garden for winter, and we also hope to plant some garlic. We may have a few other things to plant over winter too.

Posted: September 12, 2016

We managed to get quite a bit done in the garden last Sunday. It was great to welcome a new volunteer and also to see some more familiar faces popping in to say hello.

Weeding one of our beds

Justin did a lot of work on the tomatoes, pruning away the leaves so we could better see what was growing and also to stop the plants having to support so many leaves.

And we had a good harvest of tomatoes at the end of the dig too.

Martha weeded a bed where our garlic had grown, and planted a couple of rows of turnips in it afterwards.

Sadie cleared a bed of broad bean plants, which had had their day, gave everything a good water and added a few more supports to some tomatoes that were struggling under the weight of their fruit.

Planting some onions and cabbag

Joe weeded the empty bed and planted in some onion seeds and some cabbages, as our cabbages in the polytunnel aren’t yet showing signs of life.

And a couple of others dropped in to say hello and soak up some of the sunshine.

Along with our tomatoes we also harvested some potatoes, herbs and crab apples – of which there are plenty now on three trees!

A good crop of tomatoes!

Posted: August 19, 2016

Last Sunday we tied up the tomato plants. We have lots of tomatoes again this year – we even managed to harvest a handful.

We also planted cabbage, lettuce and basil in the polytunnel for planting out later in the year.

We harvested potatoes and broad beans, and picked loads of blackberries.

Sorry we forgot to take any photos!

Posted: August 13, 2016

We dug over one of the beds last week and planted out our chilli and pepper plants. Some of them already have fruit.

Chilli plant

We also weeded the asparagus.

We gave the garden a good watering with our newly fixed hose which now reaches all the way to the fruit cage!

We harvested garlic, kale, potatoes, loganberries and blackberries.

Last week’s harvest

Posted: July 29, 2016

We did some much-needed weeding and watering in the garden last week, and a volunteer pruned the Cedar of Lebanon tree for us.

Pruning the tree

The tomatoes and kale are looking really good!

Kale

Tomatoes growing well

We have so many potatoes! Come and give us a hand this Sunday and take home some freshly-dug spuds – they’re delicious!

Last Sunday’s harvest

Posted: July 21, 2016

Things are changing fast in the garden now. Our tomato plants are looking good after we planted them out a few weeks ago. Broad bean plants are doing well. And we have peppers growing in the polytunnel.

Apples growing in our garden

There were only a couple of us last Sunday, but we did some weeding, tied up our tomato plants so they have stronger support as they grow, and harvested some berries. In our fruit cage we now have black currants, red currants and raspberries growing. And we also have apples!

We also gave everything a good water in preparation for the hot days that followed.

We’ll be in the garden most Sundays from 2-4pm over the summer, and there will be lots to do and more things to harvest. Come along and give us a hand.

Posted: June 30, 2016

A few weeks ago we planted out our French beans ,and built a cane teepee structure to support them.

French beans

We also repotted all the plants that were still in the polytunnel, giving them a bit more space to get bigger before planting them out in the ground.

Repotted tomatoes

Our fruit bushes are looking great! We have currants, raspberries and gooseberries – yum!

A gooseberry!

Posted:

GoodGym volunteers working hard

A belated and very big thank you to the volunteers from GoodGym Brixton who came along a few weeks ago. They cleared a couple of our beds of weeds and dug over the soil, ready for us to plant out our tomatoes. With the British summer bringing an abundance of rain we need all the help we can get to keep the garden in shape. Thank you very much!

Before

After

Posted: May 22, 2016

Last week we found our first asparagus in the garden, after a 3 year wait!

Asparagus

We also harvested the last of the leeks from the demonstration bed at the front of the garden, dug it over and planted out the peas. We put broad beans straight into the ground.

Peas just planted

Last week’s harvest of leeks and spinach

Posted: May 11, 2016

Sunday

We’ll be in the garden this Sunday from 2pm to 4pm. Join us to plant out some broad beans and peas, harvest the last of our leeks and prepare some of the beds for the rest of our crops.

Saturday

There’s also a gardening event by the bowling green on Saturday from 11am to 3pm. We’ll be joining the Friends of Ruskin Park and Trees for Cities to help get the green looking lovely for summer. See the Ruskin Park gardening day 14th May poster for location details.

Posted: April 25, 2016

It was a chilly day for the Big Dig Day this year, but that meant the gardeners had to keep moving to stay warm!

Working hard in the fruit cage

We had some keen new volunteers who helped us clear out the fruit cage, which was so overgrown with weeds we couldn’t tell the beds from the path. One of our regulars, the robin, was there, following us along looking for worms as we dug the soil.

One of our regulars

We used bricks to build a border around the bed at the front of the fruit cage – it looked pretty good when it was finished, even if it is a little wonky!

Building a border in the fruit cage

A brick border round one of the beds

We chatted about what we should plant there – wondering if we should get more currant bushes or try our hand at strawberries.

We had a little bit of time left to do plant a few more seeds in the polytunnel.

Planting in the polytunnel

We’ll be in the garden this Sunday from 2 to 4pm if you’d like to come and give us a hand.

Posted: March 30, 2016

We started planting seeds in the polytunnel a couple of weeks ago for this year’s crops. This was slightly later than last year, but February was so cold we thought we should hold off till the weather warmed up a little.

We planted the usual tomatoes, green beans and peas, and left some potatoes chitting to plant next time. This year we’re also trying our hand at sweet peppers, chilli peppers, courgettes and celery.

Seeds in the polytunnel

We also planted some garlic straight outside into one of the beds.

planting garlic into the bed

Posted: February 25, 2016

It was a bit of a breezy day in the garden last Sunday but gardeners were slightly protected by working in the fruit cage.

Be gone weeds!

Three of us tackled the enormous amount of weeds that had grown up there. We got a lot done but there’s still more work to do on it!

We also harvested some of our leeks, and some cavelo nero too.

This weekend we’ll be in the garden on Saturday 27 February to coincide with a Trees for Cities tree planting day. We’ll be in the garden from 11am until 3pm – feel free to pop in and say hello, find out more about the garden and give us a hand.

Hopefully we’ll also be planting up some new seeds for the next harvest too.

Yum – some of our leeks grown in the garden

Posted: February 19, 2016

It was a quiet day in the garden for our last dig, but that meant the chance to do some much-needed tidying.

The planks of wood were moved to behind the compost so we can get to the plant pots more easily.

Tidied wood

The canes were moved from beside the shed to beside the fence, so we can store the bricks under the bee frame.

Tidied canes

And some of the netting was sorted out and folded.

The beds all got a sign with their number on too – so it should be easier for us to communicate what needs doing.

Numbered beds

Posted: February 4, 2016

We got a lot of clearing up done during our dig – and turned up a surprising amount of potatoes in the process!

Some of our potato harvest

Four gardeners came to help. We weeded many of the beds and dug over the soil, to start getting them ready for planting.

We were pleased to find that hiding underneath our compost heaps there is usable compost, and we dug some of this into the beds too.

We harvested a bit of lettuce and herbs too.

We’ll be back in the garden this Sunday 7 February.

Doing some weeding

Posted: January 14, 2016

We had our first dig of the New Year last Sunday, and got a good bit of weeding done. We also moved some parsnips that were growing too close together to give them more space, and even managed to prune the weeping willow tree.

Parsnips

Weeded leeks in the demonstration bed

We had a great harvest of cabbage, kohlrabi, celeriac, spinach and cavalo nero, and we’re particularly proud of having lettuces at this time of year!

Lettuce and cabbage

First harvest of the New Year

Posted: November 26, 2015

Despite yesterday’s dig day coincided with first really cold day of the season, we harvested a surprising amount of produce – celeriac, kohlrabi, lettuce, radieshes cabbage, turnips, cavolo nero and a parsnip which we dug up by accident!

We cut back the brambles which grow through the fence where the garden borders the railway track. There was even one that had sneaked into the polytunnel.

We weeded the asparagus bed and the large bed with carrots, parsnips, spinach and beetroot in it. The marigolds have done their bit now so we pulled them out to give the veg more space to grow. We also pulled up all the radishes and transplanted some of the parsnips into the space we made.

We also pulled up the rest of the beans, saving any in the pods that were left to plant next year. We left the roots in the ground to put nitrogen back into the soil. We pulled down the cane structures that had been supporting the tomatoes and beans.

Harvest

Clearing the bed

Lettuces

Posted: November 18, 2015

We had a briefer dig day due to rainy and blustery weather. We did a bit of tidying around the garden and raked up more leaves for our compost.

We harvested our chinese artichokes and were surprised to see how much of it we have! Despite looking like grubs they were actually quite nice, kind of like radishes.

Some of our freshly harvested chinese artichokes

We also harvested some of our lettuce, which is doing remarkably well and avoiding being eaten by slugs.

Posted: November 2, 2015

Dear fellow Gardeners

And so we head into winter for real, as the clocks have gone back and the dark nights draw in.  Our last dig was on Saturday 24 October, during which we had a tidy up and harvested as well.  We weeded and tidied up beds and raked in huge piles of leaves to be deposited on the compost heap, as well as dancing on them to pack them well in!  We harvested Cavolo Nero, Lettuce, Spinach, Squash and Purple Runner Beans to round off a productive day.

As winter has arrived, so we move to once every two weeks for digging.  Our next dig day is on Saturday 7 November from 1 – 3 pm and we will do some more weeding and tidying up of the gardens, as well as planting Garlic and Broad Beans.  We hope to see you then.

All the best for now,

The Community Gardeners

Posted: October 30, 2015

Now that the clocks have changed our dig days are every fortnight.

There’s no dig tomorrow 31 October, but we’ll be back in the garden next week.

Posted: October 18, 2015

We had a quiet day in the garden yesterday but did manage to weed the celeriac bed and tidy the shed!

Next week, we’ll do more weeding and gather up some leaves for our compost heap.

Posted: October 12, 2015

We focused on neatening up the garden at our dig last Saturday. Plenty of rain meant we had lots of weeding to do, yet again, so we made a start by tackling a couple of beds plus a section of the fruit cage.

We discovered a few potatoes during the weeding in one of the beds!

Doing the weeding

Our tomatoes seemed to get blight, and we’d dug several of our plants up over the last few weeks. Last Saturday we dug up the last ones from the front of our garden.

We dug over the whole bed, which our leeks are growing nicely in, to neaten it up. We also cut through the grass and weeds that had grown up around the front of the garden – so hopefully now it’s easier for people to actually see into the garden and have a look at what we are growing!

We cut back our bean plants that had finished producing for the year, but we left the roots in the ground as instructed by Monty Don so that the nutrients can go back into the soil.

We had a relatively small harvest compared with some weeks but everyone took away some potatoes, runner beans and green beans. We got a few raspberries from our fruit cage too.

Cutting back the weeds

This was only our second Saturday dig and we’re still testing it out to see if more people can make it.

Last week we had one gardener who came for the first time in years as she hasn’t been able to make Sundays. Another couple of gardeners have said they prefer Saturdays – and a couple have said they prefer Sundays!

If you have an opinion, let us know. We’ll be in the garden again this Saturday from 2-4pm.

Posted: October 9, 2015

Last Saturday we cleared one of the beds and planted out some Cos lettuce which we’d started off in the polytunnel a few weeks ago. We also planted some chard straight into the groud in the same bed after we’d given it a good weeding and turning over. Hopefully this will give us some crops over autumn and winter.

Marking out the lines for the lettuce

Planting out lettuce

We also pulled up the tomatoes in the mandala bed.

Clearing tomatoes

We harvested beans, tomatoes, spring onions and radishes. And we still have an enormous pumpkin in the shed ready to share out.

Harvest

Posted: September 28, 2015

We had great weather for gardening last Sunday and we started to do a bit of clearing out in the garden. Unfortunately our tomatoes seem to be near the end of their productive life as many of the plants seem to have picked up a disease.

Our tomato harvest

We harvested all the tomatoes we could, which was quite a lot, and left the very green ones in the hope they will be ok next week.

Sadie dug up some of the plants completely as the stems were beginning to rot, and we may have to pull up the rest next week.

Doing the watering

Justin also cut back the squash plants, which had taken over a big part of the garden, and things look much tidier now we have got rid of the excess leaves. Tom did a great job in cutting back the raspberry plants in the fruit cage too. It’s much easier to see what we have now – and we have added to our compost heap!

We also did some watering and Imogen gave the bed with our carrots in a good weeding. We tied up our asparagus plants and harvested some beans, cabbages, kohlrabi and another squash.

Doing the weeding

From next weekend (3 October) we’ll be in the garden on Saturdays from 2-4pm. All gardeners, new and old, are welcome to pop in and give us a hand. And we are also planning our planting plan for the coming year. So if there are things you’d like to see growing in the garden, please let us know.

Posted: September 27, 2015

What a fabulous afternoon for last Saturday’s annual harvest feast! It was great to meet some new friends and see some old faces too.

Some of the food at the harvest feast

Special thanks to all the gardeners who prepared dishes from our vegetables and herbs. We had some delicious dishes to share, including warm pumpkin soup.

Justin heating up soup

Special thanks also to Capital Growth for visiting us.

We hope to see some new faces in the garden this afternoon – we’ll be there from 2 to 4pm.

As of next week, we’ll be gardening on Saturdays. Sign up to our email alerts to be kept posted.

Posted: September 15, 2015

Join us on Saturday from 3 to 5pm for our annual harvest feast.

Some of the gardeners will be preparing dishes made from our produce, so come along and try some!

We’ll be in garden as part of Capital Growth’s edible open garden’s day so come in for a chat and find out what we do. We’ll also have a few jars of local honey for sale.

Last Sunday we weeded the beds and harvested lots of vegetables to prepare for the feast.

Posted: September 10, 2015

Last Sunday was such a lovely day to be in the garden that a few of us ended up staying quite a while. We weeded some of the beds – the recent rain meant that the weeds were growing everywhere. We cut back and tied up the tomatoes to stop them drooping on the floor and rotting – a job that needs doing every week at this time of year.

We also repotted the cos lettuce we have growing in the polytunnel into bigger pots to strengthen the roots before we plant them out in the ground.

We harvested beans, tomatoes, spring onion, chives, shallots, Savoy cabbage, the last of the beetroot and a lonely turnip we found.  We also have another huge pumpkin which we left for next week (tomato for scale).

Next week we’ll be doing some  more weeding and planting some seeds to see us through winter.

Sunday will be our last dig before our harvest feast on Saturday 19 September.  If you’d like to prepare something for the feast please come along on Sunday to collect some of the harvest.

Posted: September 1, 2015

One of our enormous squashes grown recently in the garden

We had a great harvest at our dig day last Sunday. We harvested lots of our tomatoes, some runner beans, a few green beans, a couple of potatoes, a couple of cabbages, a bit of cavelo nero and some rhubarb. We also took a knife to one of our huge pumpkins that were harvested a few weeks ago and divided it up among the gardeners who were there at the time.

We have been a little quiet in the garden over the last few weeks and many people will have been on holiday. This isn’t very unusual for us. But there is always lots to do and it’s great to see new faces.

Last Sunday we gave a couple of the beds a good weeding. The combination of warm weather plus plenty of rain meant they had shot up! We trimmed back some of the leaves on our tomato plants as they had also grown enormously and it was getting a bit hard to see all the tomatoes for the leaves!

We strengthened some of the structures for them and added new ones, to try and stop them lying on the ground and becoming easy prey for birds and squirrels. Although it was nice to have a visit from our regular robin during the dig.

Some of our tomatoes and beans harvested during last week’s dig

Next week we’ll be continuing the weeding, harvesting more crops and possibly planting more seeds so we have a regular supply of produce as we go into autumn. We’ll also be discussing more about our upcoming Harvest Feast – which is on Saturday 19 September between 3pm and 5pm.

Our plan is for gardeners to volunteer to make a few things using produce from the garden. If you have ideas about things you’d like to make, please get in touch or chat to us at the dig.

One of our regular visitors

Posted: July 28, 2015

The bad weather put everyone off this week – there were no volunteers in the garden!

Paula spent some time cutting back the tree over the water trough and the blackberries near the railway line. Some of the blackberries are already ripe!

Posted: July 23, 2015

We had a record turnout in the garden last Sunday – 11 volunteers came to help! We were glad to welcome lots of new faces and the big numbers meant we got a lot done.

Watering the cabbages in the fruit cage

We weeded pretty much every bed in the garden and gave everything a really good water. We also fed our crops with some fertiliser from our wormery.

We cleared out the herb boxes next to our bees and planted new herbs in them, including basil.

We had a big harvest – including some potatoes, beetroot, turnips, shallots, garlic, radishes and chard. And clearing a little space meant we could also plant a bit more, so we planted some spinach where our turnips had been. We also planted some more radishes and onions in the bed where the chard had been.

Planting some spinach seeds

We cut back the gooseberry bushes a little and also the tree so we can get to our water a little easier!

Thanks to everyone who came and it was great to see so many new faces. We will be there again this Sunday from 2 til 4pm.

Posted: July 18, 2015

Posted: July 12, 2015

We had a quiet day in the garden last Sunday but did tie up the tomato plants so they weren’t falling on the ground. There’s plenty of green tomatoes already and lots more flowers, so it looks like we’ll have a really good crop this year.

We gave everything a really good water – a job that takes a couple of hours at this time of year.

We harvested a few more lettuces and planted some more seeds in the same place in the fruit cage. We also planted a few spinach seeds in the last empty section of the mandala bed.

We also harvested beetroot, spring onions, garlic and chard.

Posted: June 28, 2015

We had a brilliant afternoon at the Ruskin Park Summer Fete on Saturday. We didn’t get a lot of gardening done because we were busy chatting to lots of people! Hopefully we encouraged some more gardeners to join our group.

Lots of people were interested in our bees, and our beekeeper Sharon was there to answer their questions.

We did manage to plant some radishes and lettuces.

We had a good harvest of chard, garlic, spring onions, turnips, lettuce, raspberries, redcurrants and gooseberries.

Redcurrants

Posted: June 25, 2015

We had plenty of gardeners on Sunday which meant we gave the garden a good weeding – something we need to do regularly through the summer months.

Weeding

We dug a trench around the asparagus bed to keep the grass out of the bed, weeded it and tied the stalks up to longer canes. Only another 3 year to wait before we can harvest the crop!

Digging a trench round the asparagus bed

We thinned out the carrots and turnips and planted some kohlrabi.

Unfortunately the broad beans weren’t doing very well and we had to pull most of them up.

We harvested potatoes, lettuce, broad beans, radishes, some tiny turnips and raspberries.

Posted: June 17, 2015

With the help of a new volunteer we weeded many of the beds, which were in real need of attention! They look much better now. We also watered everything and had quite a good harvest – including gooseberries, radishes, lettuce, rhubarb and a few broad beans.

In future digs we will be thinning out our root veg and planting more seedlings in the polytunnel. And if volunteers have raw vegetable scraps that could feed our worms, please feel free to bring them!

Posted: June 13, 2015

We got lots done at the dig day last Sunday. We planted out our leeks in the display bed and also planted out our squash plants.

We planted horseradish plants in our new bed as they looked a bit uncomfortable in their pots! Joe dug trenches around the beds to neaten them up and protect our plants from weeds and grass.

We were joined by a sociologist doing some research into community gardens, and he helped us weed the beds.

We cut back weeds at the front of the garden and gave everything a good water – which takes some time these days. We also put more canes with our tomato plants to give them more support and strengthened the supports for our broad beans.

We also had a little harvest! Volunteers took home some broad beans, radishes, mazuma mustard leaves and gooseberries.

Posted: June 3, 2015

We missed the downpour on Sunday but a few of us came along and planted out the last of the tomatoes.  Tom dug a trench around the mandala bed where we planted them to stop the grass encroaching.

Planting tomatoes

Watering and digging a trench

Planted tomatoes

We also secured some of the netting which was coming away from the beds.

We harvested the first of the broad beans and some lettuce!

The first of the broad beans!

Next Sunday we’ll be joined by a sociologist who is  writing a book about community gardens in London and Berlin and wants to chat to some of the gardeners.

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Upcoming Dates

• Next Dig Day: Sunday 28 January 2018

Other Things of Interest

• Spring Summer Planting plans
• Notes from permaculture day
• Green manure
• Notes from Maria’s veg growing workshop – what to plant now, crop rotation, and books/websites
• Brassica pests
• Preserving the harvest glut
• What to plant when
• Watering guide
• Companion planting, crop rotation – from Growing Southwark

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