Community Garden News

From Trevor Potts

Wednesday afternoons are a hive of activity at the Community Garden site with a band of volunteers sowing, planting and weeding. All the effort is paying off with lots of fresh salad leaves ready for harvesting. You can now buy freshly cut salad leaves either direct from the garden or from the shop. Over the coming months there will be a much greater variety of locally grown vegetables and some fruit for sale at the gate, in the shop and available in salads at the Sonachan Hotel.

It has not been an ideal growing season so far for outdoor crops. The heat we had in April was too early and of course this recent long spell of wet and very windy weather has not been good for outdoor growing. The orchard, with over over fifty assorted fruit trees, had a bit of a set back with the salt laden air, despite it being 2 km inland from the nearest point on the north coast. Once the shelter belt has grown up a bit it should help to prevent the sort of wind/salt burn damage most of the exposed trees this end of the peninsula has seen.

The poly tunnel has been has made a huge difference this season and the fact that it is still standing after the gales is a testament to how sturdy these modern tunnels are. A lot of care was taken to put it up and this has paid off. All the space in the tunnel is taken for this season but next season there should be more available when the second poly tunnel goes up. At the moment all effort is going into planting and harvesting the areas under cultivation.

As always more volunteers are needed to help eat the cakes at the mid afternoon tea break. Everyone is welcome to drop in anytime there are people on site, which is most days and especially on the regular Wednesday sessions. Accompanied children are always most welcome to help, unaccompanied children are welcome by arrangement with whoever is on duty, depending upon what work is going on. There is still some outdoor space available for individual plots. If enough volunteers are available after the main growing season is over and the second tunnel is erected then there should be some more indoor space available for subsequent seasons. If you are passing please drop in.