The summer has been a brilliant time for the garden with lots of rain as well as sunny times!

Find out what's been growing in the garden, how we use food waste, and what's on for the chickens!

---

Foodwaste and worms

At St Luke’s we have 4 methods of composting – A Wormery, Open compost heap, Hot bin and Tumbler composter. We use cuttings and clippings from the garden mixed with paper and cardboard. Peelings and food waste come from the community cookery school classes to create rich compost to use in our gardens. We also collect used coffee grounds from our Central Street Café which are a good fertiliser when mixed in to the soil.

 

What’s in season

With the hot and rainy weather the gardens at St Luke’s are flourishing. We have a new pergola in our edible yard with cucumbers and blackberries climbing up ready for harvesting. We also have a bounty of tomatoes, beetroot, salad leaves, blueberries, purple and Italian basil, raspberries, radish and only 1 turnip! (The slugs got to the others before us) We are also very pleased with how well our apricot tree is doing and have enjoyed delicious plump apricots over the last few weeks.

 

Chickens

Our five hens have made a happy home at St Luke’s. They enjoy playing on their yellow swing and eating fresh leaves from their planted troughs in front of their chicken run. We give them organic laying pellets and chicken treats containing a mix of seeds. They lay eggs most days which go to our wonderful chicken volunteers and are used in our community cookery school classes. Our Edible Yard is open during centre opening hours and we invite people to come and visit the garden and chickens. We want to thank our chicken volunteers who look after them on a daily basis.