Pruning time!

Vine pruning lessons, State Library of South
Australia, Wikimedia Commons

Many trees are pruned in winter, when it's really cold. We are hoping to run a pruning workshop at some point, but in the meantime, here are a few quick tips. We are not exactly pruning vines, but I couldn't resist this vintage photo where a man wearing a kind of colonial outfit is giving lessons to adoring females in smart work clothes. Everybody looks so stylish, not exactly our modern-day, casual gardening gear! If you have any pruning tips to share, feel free to leave a comment. 

• Pruning starts in the first or second winter of the tree's life, this is formative pruning, which is followed by maintenance and renewal pruning after about five years. Be careful of what you do in the formative pruning stage, the tree might not be as 'forgiving' as later on.
• Buds on branches can produce fruit or shoots. Vegetative buds are small, triangular or pointed and they lie flat against the stem. Fruit buds store carbohydrates and become larger, fatter and may appear furry. For apples and pears, flower buds only develop on two-year-old wood and flower the following year to produce fruit. 
• Branches tend to grow upwards towards the sky and sun, but vertical branches do not fruit well. You need to control the height, as it will also make it more difficult to harvest the fruit. If you inherit a big apple tree, you might have to reduce its height and if you are quite harsh, you might not see any fruit for two years. [This happened to me, the cooking apple tree didn't mind too much and produced less apples, but the eating apple tree sulked and we didn't get any apple the following season.]
• The harder you prune, the more growth you get. It's best to prune weak shoots to half of the annual growth, stronger shoots only up to a third of the year's growth.
• Remove dead, diseased and damaged wood. Remove crossing branches.

These are just a few tips to get you started courtesy of our garden's members, watch this space for our very own workshop and/or check out the BBC's online guide to pruning.

The one about the exploding cucumber

Many of us at the Empty Common Garden love the Real Seed Catalogue company. Their seeds are special because they preserve varieties of fruit and veg that are disappearing from the stores. Commercial seed providers are narrowing the varieties we can grow and we are missing out on many interesting plants, especially British ones. Whenever I see a packet of seeds to grow Italian tomatoes I am a bit annoyed. I am Italian but having lived in Britain for two decades, I know they are not going to do well, unless you have a heated greenhouse or a blistering hot, south-facing wall. I keep trying and changing varieties, but my tomatoes get the blight every single year and the crop is disappointing. 

This year, we had glorious tomatoes at the Empty Common Garden but guess what... they got the blight. I am told there are resistant varieties and perhaps we should all shop more often at 

because they have seeds that can do well in this country. By the way, this is a genuine endorsement from myself and Charlotte, we are not receiving sponsorship from the company. We also buy seeds from local garden centres, but when Seedy Sunday comes, I hope to get some seeds from them.

Meet the exploding cucumber

One of the fun buys from The Real Seed Catalogue is 'Fat Baby', a climbing vine that produces spiky cucumbers. They taste like sweet peppers when cooked but have an intriguing way of propagating... they explode, with the seeds spreading all over the garden. I like picking them when small as they taste more like a cucumber, this way you don't need to cook them and you can use them raw in salads. When bigger you get less 'flesh' and have to remove the seeds. When big, you also need to cook them as they won't taste good raw. If you want to keep the seeds to plant the vine again next year, you can artificially pop them, just before the cucumber is ready to do it by itself. The website has also this H&S warning:

"HEALTH WARNING. DANGER OF EYE INJURY! HARD SEED IS EJECTED AT GREAT
SPEED. DO NOT HOLD RIPE FRUIT NEAR FACE. HARVEST FRUIT AFTER IT HAS OPENED. DO NOT ALLOW CHILDREN TO PLAY WITH FRUIT. We know this sounds silly, but we recommend that YOU WEAR EYE PROTECTION WHILE HARVESTING AND PROCESSING FRUIT."

A new member

It looks like we have a new member! Do you recall the RSPB's slogan... build it and they will come? Well this secretive, colourful bird visited the garden to have a bit of a snack in our veggie beds.

It got caught red-handed (or should I say red-breasted) by Charlotte's camera. We believe this new member hasn't filled the membership form so he is not eligible to join our mailing list. What a cheek (or should I say beak)!

Our shed is a very fine shed

Our new shed is up. This is the heaviest and most secure shed we’ve ever seen. It reminds us of the mysterious black monoliths in 2001: A Space Odissey, which were linked to man's evolution, so a very apt image for our developing garden. There is no mystery here, though, if you join us, you can step inside and see for yourself.

The shed came from far away. On the wettest morning of the year we dragged the heavy black panels down a back alley to a hired van. Half way through we wondered if we would have the strength to finish the task. At that point Peter announced that he would be 77 the following week! Would he make it?

The man who sold it to us was full of advice but didn't think of offering us a cup of tea. At one point we were exhausted and standing there like drowned rats contemplating, "How do we find the strength to get the last, and heaviest, piece in the van?" As in a fairy tale, a young Rumanian came past and offered to lift it in for us. What a relief, what a lovely young man.

Another morning of work (and banter) and the shed now stands in its new home in our garden. Our shed is indeed a Very Fine Shed!

PS We now have a web page on Transition website, click here to see it.

And now for something completely different: seedlings on a boat!

"The Big Dig is all about getting people involved in their local community garden." This is the slogan from an initiative that organises national events across the UK "to raise the profile of community gardens and encourage more people to take part". 

Their next event, the Big Dig Day, is on Saturday 21 March 2015, so you have plenty of time to prepare if you want to join in. 

Here is Charlotte's contribution to the previous event, when she grew seedlings on her boat Little Ship, a name with historic connections. Little Ship was a Big Dig nursery! 

January is coming soon, with it the Transition Seedy Sunday, a chance for you to swap and gather seeds for the next Big Dig event!

Keeping the faith and vision going: Bahá'ís interfaith day

The Cambridgeshire Bahá'ís were excited to contribute towards the Empty Common Community Garden's project when this initiative was first getting off the ground. Building unity and embracing diversity lie at the core of the Bahá'í Faith's principles, so of course, the Bahá'ís supported the notion of a community-oriented garden that aimed to bring neighbours together to share in a bountiful harvest.  

It was a lot of fun to meet with the garden's representatives to help clear the rubbish that was left behind in this abandoned site and to then set up a Hugelkultur bed and plant trees in preparation for the summer growing season. The following autumn, the Cambridge University Bahá'í Society came back to the garden with other Faith groups involved in an interfaith initiative to help weed, mulch, and plant new seedlings that could take hold in the winter months. 

The students who came enjoyed getting to show off their green thumbs and also doing some hard labour, shifting logs, to help keep the garden's vision going strong. Some of them hope to return on a weekly basis because they enjoyed the garden just that much! The Bahá'ís will continue to lend a hand in this endeavour in upcoming months so that the fruits of unity can truly blossom and grow in Cambridge. Shivani Jain

Belated Happy Birthday wishes!

The Empty Common Community Garden celebrated its first birthday in October. For those who joined later in the year, here is a pictorial, seasonal round-up. Thank you, Charlotte for sending this. To enlarge the pictures, press your ctrl key while you rotate the wheel on your mouse.

Still unsure about joining us? Please read the first post, where you will find Charlotte's email if you require more information. It's up to you how much time you can donate - we welcome everybody, of all ages and abilities.