Garden Update - January
One of our last 2025 garden drop in sessions
Tomatoes, basil, seed saving!
The garden was ready to roar when we left it before our summer shutdown period, and it has done so well to thrive through the warmer temperatures with far less love than usual. Luckily, we have some incredibly committed volunteers who stopped by during their breaks for supplementary watering and the first harvests of ripe tomatoes. Teamwork is key in these communal spaces, and we are so grateful to our volunteers, we truly couldn’t do it without you.
Tomatoes and basil are thriving at the moment. We are making sure to spend cool mornings on extra staking and tying of the wildly growing tomato plants. Our favourite activity in the garden during this heat is pinching off the basil flowers while watering. Minimal effort for maximum reward, longer-lasting basil. If you catch your basil trying to flower in these high temps, pinch those flowers to prolong the productive life of the plant. Eventually, they will get leggy, flower, and seed, but for now let’s keep the basil flowing. Of course, leave them to flower naturally as pollinator food if you’re sick of basil for the season.
Another great hot weather garden activity is seed saving (indoors or in shade). If you can find a cool evening or morning to pop out to the garden and collect seed pods, organising and labelling can be a fun activity. Saving seed is such a good way to keep your garden on the way to being more of a closed loop system. Make sure to store seeds in a cool, dark, dry place once they are sorted.
If you’re wondering how you can best care for your garden in high temperatures, we have compiled our top tips to share with you. Morning watering is best, or late afternoon/evening once it has cooled down will work too. Make sure to soak the soil rather than wetting the foliage. Remember, your potted plants often need more water than those in the garden. Consider putting in some ollas (clay watering pot - see photo below) near your prized plants to help them through the heat. We installed an extra one of these at the garden before the holidays to keep our apple tree looking lush.
Our regular Thursday drop-in sessions will resume on Thursday, the 5th of February, in line with school term dates. We are also hosting a garden gathering on Saturday, the 7th of February (see our events listing, for those who can’t normally join on Thursday mornings or want some extra time in the garden.
