Hi Everyone,

Good news - all but two of our beds have been dug out and cut grubs wrenched out of their snug beds in our soil.   The Gifford family, who sailed here from the USA, have done most of the digging and ferreting out of these creatures with Kate, Deborah, Dave and others lending a hand.  I estimate that we have despatched over two hundred and fifty of these creatures.   Plants which we had recently put in and which just seemed to sit in the soil, were found to have these grubs entwined in their roots slowly eating them away.  But I think that we have won.  

I believe that the main reason for the proliferation of the grubs can be traced to our discouragement of Myna birds with our thrumming lines around the garden.  These lines discourage all birds and so protect our tomato, tamarillo,strawberries and other vegetable crops from being eaten.  The downside is that the young insects and grubs are not eaten by the birds.  It does not help that the rest of the park is infested as well.  But it is just one example of an imbalance in nature caused by our own actions.   We will just have to be very vigilant and very consistent in our spraying to deter cabbage and other moths.

The parsnips which we have raised from seeds are growing particularly well in the bed near the fence and because we were so successful with the seed raising, we have planted rather too many parsnips, as well as, turnips.  We are so happy with our seed raising that we don’t want to abandon the excess plants.

 Our Tuscan kale is growing well, but someone has been picking it wrongly i.e. just tearing the stalks off instead of cutting next to the stem.  The kale is not being given a chance to grow to its full size, it is weakened by trying to repair the torn stems and if the picking like this continues, the plants will not reach their full potential and could possibly die.  As kale is so popular, we will plant some more in the garden next week.

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 Yesterday, Gordon and Ian finished the work begun by Kate of flattening the area next to the canal.  They laid down weed matting so that we do not have to continually pull out the grass and weeds.  The matting will be weighed down by the crates which will elevate and support the potato growing bags.  We are awaiting the delivery of the organic seed potatoes so we can plant the crop.   We have been topping up our beds with fresh organic soil and have used it all.  We have organic compost in which to plant the potatoes. 

In one of the renewed beds we have sown carrot seeds and the two frames have sugar snap peas.   A few peas have come up and are growing well and each three weeks we will sow more so that we can have continuous cropping.  It is a challenging task to provide enough produce for those who work in the garden.  We try to over-plant and over-feed to get the maximum cropping and we regularly dig in Bokashi mash.

Last week I brought two of our Bokashi bins and emptied them into our large industrial bin and this provided lots of juice.  A regular contributor of Bokashi mash brought down their bin and some juice yesterday.   Dave buried the large bin of Bokashi in bed1 north and after it was covered with soil, we planted carrots there.   Ian dug a trench for the donated Bokashi in the bed that we had clear of grubs.  Next week we will replant some of the Brussels sprouts plants that we removed pending grub clearing and see if they grow any better.  We did not have good luck with our Brussels sprouts last year, so if these fail to thrive, we will replace them with the mini cabbage seedlings that Jan planted before going into hospital and Colin is now lovingly tending.  My pump spray ,which we were using, has died, so we will have to get a new robust, professional one.  We have found that it is false economy to purchase cheap garden implements.  We used some of the money we raised recently to purchase two really good, no kink, hoses which are a joy to use.

Last week, we began an experiment with self sown tomatoes.  Robin potted up a lot of self sown tomatoes found in last season’s tomato beds and even though we do not know which types they are, we are keeping them on the potting table to see if they will survive winter and provide early cropping plants.  It’s a bit of a lucky dip really.

We are still experiencing seedling and plant loss from unsupervised children pulling them out.  We feel like such naggers when we try to get parents of little children to supervise them.  Parents still try to lock their children in the garden, as if it were a fenced play area.  Jan and I are at a loss as to how to prevent this behaviour.  We both, as a former and current teachers, really love children but weresent having to be policewomen.  Any ideas?

We have been most successful in raising seedlings from seeds of Giant of Prague celeriac, a variety dating from 1871, which I purchased on eBay.  At the moment, they have four leaves but are still too tiny to transplant.   Celeriac, for those who do not know it, is a knobbly type of turnip rooted celery.  It tastes like a cross between celery, parsley and potato.  It makes lovely soups, mashes, chips and a really smashing celeriac gratin when sliced thinly and baked in cream.  Another popular use for celeriac is the French salad remoulade which is made from grated celeriac and mayonnaise.  The French can buy prepared remoulade in every corner shop and it is very popular as a salad.

Nigel Slater’s Recipe for Remoulade: 

Peel then shred a medium-sized (450g) celeriac. The shreds should not be too fine, nor should they be thicker than a matchstick. Toss them immediately in the juice of half a lemon. Mix together 4 heaped tbsp of good mayonnaise, 2 tbsp of smooth Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp of double cream or crème fraîche and 2 tbsp of chopped parsley. Season with salt and black pepper, then fold into the shredded celeriac. Set aside for 30 minutes then serve with thin slices of ham.

Toss the shredded roots quickly in lemon juice to stop them discolouring and to tenderise them. The dressing should be just thick enough to cling to the roots – in other words creamy without being soupy. Thin the sauce down with lemon juice if it gets too thick. Cream or crème fraîche sounds extravagant, but is essential if the salad is to be more than just roots in mayo. Don't attempt to keep it overnight. It will become soft and claggy as the celeriac soaks up the dressing. Chop the parsley finely – this is not the time for roughly chopped.

Beetroot remoulade has a more vibrant colour and a mixture of celeriac and beets is good, but should be lightly mixed so as not to turn the dressing raspberry pink. Poppy seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds make unorthodox but welcome additions, as do chopped toasted walnuts. A lighter dressing can be made using fromage frais instead of crème fraîche.

Try it….you are sure to like it.

Our outside bed has eggplants that are still flowering and as we intend to treat the eggplants as perennials, they will remain in place and we can see how long their bearing season will be.  To survive as perennials they like a winter temperature of 10 degrees or more. One of these plants has had the fruit wrenched off by a non gardener picking wrongly, causing it to die back.  This is a problem.  Eggplants must always be cut away with shears.  Whenever we are watering or in the garden and a local person shows an interest, we offer to pick some herbs or to pick from the outside bed and give them a gift of the herbs or vegetable.  This way we can demonstrate how to cut or pick produce.

The crimson broad beans planted by John in the eastern end of the bed are flowering and it seems that we will have a good crop of broad beans.  The western end of the bed, planted by Niall with crimson broad beans, was planted later and they are not blooming yet.  The rhubarb is steadily growing and later in the year should crop well.  It helps the plant to bear prolifically, if it is not harvested heavily in its first year of growth.

Next week will need to tie up the broad beans to small bamboo stakes and also to tie up our sweet peas which are very spindly but growing well.  The zinnias are finished, as are the cosmos, but we still have some self sown sun flowers.  We kept hundreds of sunflower seeds and hope to use them in the garden, as well as sell them at our annual Spring garden party in October.

Help needed:                       Is anyone able to water the garden on a Tuesday morning or Tuesday during the day?   

ll for now,  I hope to see you in the garden.

Warmest regards,

Carole Baker

Co-ordinator Milson Community Garden.