The Sentinel magazine

Sentinel

Local Matters

Sandgate

a dce2.0 company

September 2021

This magazine is compiled and edited by David Cowell who is totally responsible for content.

If you do not wish to receive these magazines please email UNSUBSCRIBE to him at david@thesentinel.org.uk

SANDGATE FARMERS MARKET

REAL F D. REAL CL SE.

Shop Local. www.sandgatebusiness.org.uk

The Sandgate Market provides three types of produce offerings: 1. Local produce: veg, cakes, honey etc 2. Local made: jewellery, soft toys and furnishings etc

3. Local enterprise: local residents running a a local business but selling products not necessarily produced locally but that you might just like to buy for yourself or as gifts

Local made

Local produce

Catherine Jordan Cakes

Anji's Interiors

Usher's fruit and veg

Artisan bakery Dutch cheese There will not be a CAFE at the Market although the Dog House are offering Market attendees black coffee or tea at £1.

Please collect your voucher at the Market

It's a Florrie Thing

Pauline's hand Gill Thompson made toys Jewellery Local enterprise

Arkwrights Pantry ...and a chance to win £20,000

Hand made clothing and greeting cards

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Our thanks to the Sandgate Parish Council and the Community Gardeners for allowing us to reproduce this diary page. We hope to make this a monthly feature in the magazine but you can read all the diary entries by clicking on this box.

It is now a real race against time to get everything in that was sown at the start of the month and to get the final sowings of winter greens done by the end of the first week in September. You can already feel the change in the season, the days are shorter and cooler. We sowed four trays of spring onions, and four of bulb onions, plus a few more winter radish.

Strapped for space, we are being ruthless and twisting out anything that is past its best or not performing well enough, in favour of new plants. These plantings will take us into mid winter and spring so the beds are given a generous helping of compost as it is much easier to do so now than in December and working around established plants.

We planted over 120 plugs of spinach with 1 – 3 plants each plug a potential of some 300 plants however you need a lot of spinach to make a meal and more was sown in the week. The Nero kale and Florence fennel got planted as well as more coriander, Amsoi, Pak Choi, red giant mustard, mizuna and Green in the Snow. The mustards are able to withstand a temperature of at least minus six, depending on the duration of the freezing. Some of them will be grown in beds and some will be planted into mushroom boxes and kept in the cold frames.

The tops of the tomatoes should have all been pinched out by now to allow them to concentrate on ripening the tomatoes they already have, any later tomatoes are unlikely to have the time to mature especially outdoors. We find a few half chewed as well as pecked courgettes occassionaly, but the wildlife seem to not be so sure of the fat prickly cucumbers pictured below – mind you neither are some of the gardeners at first until they try one!

We are now starting to water the celeriac as Bucket of flowers for the Sandgate they are beginning to swell at ground level, Society Pop up café

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although we are still unsure if any bolted plants will yet perform. The kale is pushing up the mesh netting and interesting the cabbage white butterflies but soon they will cease to bother with the brassicas at all now the window of opportunity has nearly gone.

Many thanks for all the messages of support following the ITV Meridian report which finally got aired on Thursday following the filming on Tuesday in Sandgate and Cheriton of the Incredible Edible spaces. The phone did not stop pinging all day and Prickly cucumbers evening. If you missed the film, here is the link below. https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2021-08-26/community-gardenscheme-bears-fruit-in-folkestone Our next outing is the Sea Festival in Sandgate this Sunday 29th, and may all be over by the time you read this newsletter. We will be on the seafront outside the castle with our plants {thank you Jill for your donation of houseplants) and various wares on our table, plus lots of smiles hoping to encourage you to part with some cash for yet more projects. Erica of the Incredible Edible crew, kindly donated a rather splendid butternut squash from her no dig organic allotment, for the ‘Guess the weight of the squash’ competition. We picked a bucket of flowers for the Sandgate Society to put in small vases on the tables for the pop-up tea and cake café at the Fire Station, which will certainly be getting visited by many of us when we have finished a stint of rattling the donation box at our stall!

Finally, if you are interested in the community gardens and like the idea of growing organic, no dig fruit and vegetables then come along to the walk and talk on Sunday 5th September. Happily it will be worth the visit just to frequent the pub (The Golden Arrow) at Golden Valley to sup tea or coffee with the new landlords Shona and Richard, both looking forward to welcoming you to see the changes they have brought to the establishment.

Check out the Sandgate Society website to book.

What’s next?

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Tidy the area where the raised boxes were First pick of the third lettuce sowing Sow more mustards Pot up some coriander plugs Weed under some of the nets Hoe along the outside edge of the fence Keep watering the new plants 5

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Some of our books will be available at the Sandgate Farmers Market All now available in paperback and on Kindle Set in Folkestone in the heady days of the late 60s.

They say if you can remember it, you weren't there!

Two plays. One an imaginary meeting between Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan in a Fitzrovia pub. The other is Caitlin Thomas reminiscing after the untimely death of her husband.

This is the tale of Hana, a young girl who moves from where she was born in London, to the Kent coast. They discover a wonderful area called Prince's Parade which is full of amazing animals, has a beautiful canal and is right next to the sea too! By buying this book you will be helping to protect it. All profits from it will be donated to the Save Prince's Parade campaign which aims to halt plans to develop the area into a housing estate.

Very funny, and surreal story about a man and a woman on their first date: Bolton Brady and Veda, set in London, November 2001. Bolton is forty, not into assets, has never lived with a woman and looked into the future and seen loneliness. So he decides to do something about it. He advertises in a lonely-hearts column, and receives six replies, but after experiencing one disaster after another only Veda remains between him and his sanity. As the day unfolds the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred, building to a surreal, yet poignant, conclusion.

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Some of our books will be available at the Sandgate Farmers Market

This walk through the history of Sandgate to the present day was first performed at the Chichester Hall a decade ago on Wednesday, 9th June. It is now available on Kindle or in paperback.

Now available on Amazon. Great evocative yarns of worldly travels.

A Loose Cannon tales of a lapsed activist

Ted Parker

The title of the book hints at how, as a ‘loose cannon’, Folkestone born Ted’s risk-taking got him into trouble on a number of occasions whilst being a considerable advantage in his working life.

As a young journalist, Reg Turnill met most of the prewar political personalities and later became the BBC's space correspondent being the only one in the press room when the historic Houston we have a problem message came from Apollo 11.

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Us he rs no fru w it a on nd -l i n v e eg

You can now order on-line at: https://www.usherswholesale.com/box

or by telephone on: 07515 529425

DE D

We deliver to Folkestone, Cheriton, Hawkinge, Capel, Alkham Valley, Saltwood, Sandgate, Seabrook, Hythe

SU SP EN

To advertise in three The Sentinels with circa 2300 targetted readers and growing please email me at:

The editor of The Sentinel is also responsible for sending Hythe, Newington and Sandgate related event information to the Folkestone Herald. If you have an event you wish to publicise it is needed by Tuesday at 17:00. The information should appear in the edition two weeks later although it is not gauranteed.

david@thesentinel.org.uk

for a rate card.

Thank you.

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F O L C A Folca is the old name for Folkestone We celebrate all activities in the Folkestone and Hythe district also known as Shepway See our comprehensive Directory and Blog pages

folca.co.uk

Great gift only £11.00 including P&P (UK mainland) www.the-find-online.com

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If you would like to submit an article or letter please email it to me.

I will print almost anything as long as it’s not libellous, racist or unkind.

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Mobile: 07771 796 446; email: david@thesentinel.org.uk