By Angela Hoy

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In preparation for the garlic workshop later on, we tested the temperature of the soil in the prepared bed, which was 16°C. Alex and Angela were concerned that this was too warm to plant the garlic and decided to hold some back for planting at the end of October.

In the meantime, harvesting continued of lettuce, kale, collard greens, chard and chives. There were a few berries and quite a few unripe tomatoes, but as there were early signs of blight appearing, all the fruits that were starting to turn colour were picked. With the continuing warm weather, hopefully a few more will ripen before we have to take out the plants.

A great job was done on turning the first bin and clearing the compost collection bay, so bin one is now full! A separate team continued removing weeds from the Brassica bed.

Growing great garlic workshop

Alex led a lovely workshop on growing great garlic today. He described the method for preparing the garlic prior to planting, dividing the bulbs into separate cloves without damaging the individual cloves.

Metal grids were then placed on the prepared bed and, using wooden dibbers to make holes, a clove was inserted into each hole approximately four inches apart. Four varieties were planted.

A section was left empty for planting at the end of October when hopefully the weather will be cooler.