We planted garlic in three veg patches – all well fox proofed! In the greenhouse, greens continue to do well. And we have planted pots of bulbs for Little Explorers to take home. see Lynne’s Veg Patch Autumn 2023.
Olden Garden members, volunteers and visitors continue to welcome and support families with children, especially those who do not have access to a garden, as is the case for some of the Little Explorers team.
We are currently working on soil improvement in the veg beds and thinking about how to deter foxes, as their digging is a problem. See Lynne’s Veg Patch Summer 2023. ‘Little Explorers’ – the mini garden club for children – continues to grow – in all senses!
Spring 2023 saw us spreading well rotted manure on the veg beds – some people enjoyed this job more than others! Crops that overwintered well include garlic, leeks, parsley, red veined chicory and mustard greens. Spinach, parsley and greens are also doing well in the greenhouse. Baby kale, wasabi, spinach and red lettuce were sown, ready for early summer. See Lynne’s Veg Patch Spring 2023
The Autumn 2022 highlight was our very successful potato harvest, held at half term. Families and children came along to dig up the potatoes. Several varieties of potato came up, blue, yellow, red, purple and white – a rainbow of colours! And everyone had a bag of potatoes to take home. We are enjoying the rain, celebrating how well our seaside bed of sea cabbage, sea kale and sea beet is doing and dreaming of spring.
Although the Summer 2022 heatwave means lots of watering, it also means a decline in the slug and snail population! So, we have French beans, runners and courgettes all doing well. In the raised beds are celery, leeks and tomatoes. In the greenhouse, basil is looking fabulous and we had a good strawberry crop. We are supporting a new Islington group – ‘Welcoming neurodiversity in our community’. See Lynne’s Veg Patch summer 2022
Spring 2022 and our greenhouse is full of salad leaves from the veg crew. After a challenging autumn, we now have rainbow chard, mustard greens, parsley, various lettuce and chicories, underplanted with spring onion. Outside, in the raised beds, garlic is coming up well; red veined chicory and stridolo both looking good.
Olden Garden Veg Patch continues to support food growing across Islington whenever possible. During the Easter holiday, Lynne ran a session for 60 reception children from Thornhill Primary School – at the wonderful new Outdoor Classroom at Carfree Open Space. Each child received a large pot from Olden Garden and Lynne gave them hands on experience in filling the pots with compost, identifying different seeds and planting pea shoots, spring onions and nasturtiums. Children labelled their pots with giant lolly sticks and proudly took them home. Starting early with food growing – making edible pots – see instructions .
Continuing our ‘outreach’, Lynne is running an edible planting session with 60 reception class children as part of Forests for Change Outdoor Classroom. Olden Garden is providing pots for all the children. Lynne’s vegetable patch spring 2022
Spreading Olden Garden seeds through the community – Lynne’s herbs and seeds August 2021
Despite the antics of families of foxes, Olden Garden continues to be a hub for community vegetable growing – Lynne’s Vegetable Patch summer 2021
By early 2021 the project had gone from strength to strength – Lynne’s Vegetable Patch spring 2021
During the Covid lockdown restrictions in 2020, Olden Garden provided facilities to enable families to take part in a seed kit project which provides seeds, pots, compost and instructions for any children wanting to have a go at growing – Lynne’s Vegetable Patch 2020
