March at the Garden – Spring is moving fast!

It feels like Spring has truly sprung but March can be unpredictable weather wise so despite the lovely weather recently we’re resisting the urge to bash on with outdoor sowing and planting.

An exception is getting some parsnips sown, mix the seed with some radish which germinates quickly so you can read the lines. The reason for doing this is because the parsnips can take 3 weeks or more to germinate and there will be time to have another try if they fail to show.

It’s also useful to use cloches or mini Polytunnels to warm the soil by a few degrees which can help germination. 

The Polytunnel however affords us the opportunity for growing and our autumn sowings, which we covered in a previous newsletter , are growing away strongly and some of the greens are ready to pick. The propagation of other crops continues to go well with more of the grown-at-home crops now being raised in the tunnel benches and our now solar heated propagator now in action thanks to Will, again! 

People who adopted some seedlings to pot up and grow on at home can now bring them back with many thanks. We will start to grow other summer crops soon too and lots will be ready for a repeat of last year’s very successful plants and seed swap event on 25th April 1-3pm. 

Outdoor work to get the garden ready for the coming season carries on, we have sourced a load of topsoil to fill the new raised beds and to top up the other ones that need it, and Craig has started back and has been busy barrowing loads for this. We intend to roll out the plans for a more wide scale return for volunteers shortly, this will be a repeat of last year’s rota system which went really well with everyone sticking to COVID guidelines whilst using their exercise time to help keep the community garden going!

The existing beds will get rejuvenated with the addition of new compost, organic fertiliser and volcanic rock dust but I’ll need a hand to move the latter.

We’re all looking forward to the coming weeks and hope that we can welcome everyone back safely. More details of this from Ali soon.