There's a range of nice fresh veg ready for harvest, including new potatoes! Nobody goes home empty handed.

Hope to see you there
Best wishes

As many gardeners will attest one of the greatest pleasures of gardening and growing your own food is the feeling of anticipation it gives you. So much of the joy of growing is found in this gradual unfolding of life as seeds begin to germinate and plants show themselves for the first time above the soil. Before your eyes and indeed when you are not there your garden is changing and growing. Every morning brings a new set of discoveries and a new gift of anticipation for the coming day.

The coming weeks will be full of activities for preparing the garden for the coming spring. There will also be the chance to get advice on growing your own apple tree, as well as tips on using a coldframe for growing salads. See the schedule below for details. So this is a great time to get involved and learn a few things about growing your own food. As always all are welcome.

February 08

Febuary 3rd
– Get your hands dirty Day! A day for garden weeding and clean-up, and doing those little jobs that need doing.

Febuary 10th
– Fruit Day. A talk and demonstration on pruning and planting apple trees and soft fruit bushes. And laying a mulch for them.

Febuary 17th
- Coldframes and planting early salad plants. A demonstration of an ingenious system for making compost and providing heat to the plants at the same time.

Febuary 24th
-Stone Day. Using stone to build low retaining walls for flower and vegetable beds. We will also be planning ahead for the spring planting.

Sunday 13th
– Re-laying paths using bark mulch.
Planning the construction of the main path running from the entrance.
We collected a van full of cypress mulch from the college and brought it to the garden. It’s amazing the difference it makes having a well defined path laid out. It also beats walking on mud which is very demoralising. Our soil is already quite acidic as seen by its compaction and the carpet of buttercdup ion various places. The bark mulch won’t help this so we plan to spread ground limestone on the paths too to try and neutralise the effects.

Sunday 20th –
The Great mulching Day. We will be doing a layered mulch on the raised beds.
We collected a trailer full of horse manure from close where I live. Unfortunately the manure was not of the best quality. It was uncovered and the brown pools of water showed that a lot of the nutrients were leaching out. At best I’d say this manure had 30% of fertility left. Still it’s better than nothing. We covered three beds in a newspaper-manure-straw layer.

Sunday 27th –
More mulching and hopefully laying of new path.
It was a beautiful day to be out in the garden today. We covered up more beds with a selection of mulches. It created a nice patterned effect. We also laid sone steps inside the square bed and gave the coldframe a bit attention.

The last of the tomatoes have been picked, the spuds dug up, the salads dressed and the garlics tied up. It’s winter in the community garden.

Our vegetable beds are largely empty now, apart from a few brave broccoli plants. All the berries have gone from our soft fruit trees. This is the time of the year where you get to reflect on the growing season just past, but it is also the time to have your beds mulched up so they can rest for the winter and be ready with a new lease of life for the spring. A layer of seaweed has already been laid on the beds but we plan to increase this with an extra layer of manure, more seaweed and straw on top.

November also saw the erection of our very own shed. In true sustainable fashion we salvaged an old shed from a garden that was waiting to be dumped. It only consisted of the walls, which them selves needed repair. And so we had to construct a new floor and roof. We also salvaged some palettes to use as the foundation. The shed is up now. It has helped greatly for storing tools, wellies and giving us shelter when the rains get heavy.

November has also consisted of plenty of weeding. There is a challenge with perennial weeds in the garden. Buttercups and helliborine are rampant. We have managed to keep the veg beds free of these. But a task for the future will be to further clear these weeds from the entire site and thus hold back their invasion. We are dealing with wet, acidic soil, which these weeds thrive in. It is also hoped that we can lay clearer paths and deal with the problem of drainage. The garden is sloped and so water and soil is moving down hill. We have also been doing a general tidy up, which is what this part of the year is for in the garden. All our pots and trays are washed and stored, the cold frame was cleaned out and the compost given a good look over.

Apart from that the garden is in great condition! It has been great to see new faces there from both Kinsale and outside. All are welcome, so hope to see you there soon.

For enquiries or to be put on the email list you can contact me on the address below.
dneavyn@yahoo.co.uk