So, what happened in September?

In the garden, we finally slowed down a little. September was about harvesting and relishing our produce: tomatoes, cucumbers, swedes, potatoes, kale, cabbages, salads, salsify, carrots, raspberries, blackberries and wild strawberries.

We also picked our first apple! One of our tiny apple trees which have been planted along the fence earlier this summer gave us the most delicious, crunchy, sweet-tangy fruit we’ve ever tasted. (Although we probably are a little biased…)

We also picked lots of beans for the Harvest Festival and Judy’s been steadily freezing them. Beans need to be picked continuously as that encourages the plants to produce more, so it couldn’t really wait. Other veg – pumpkins, beetroots, parsnips, corn and carrots – will be picked just before the Festival and cooked up on the day.

We’ve continued sowing more and more beds with green manure and some of them have already been covered for winter.

But it’s not just pure gardening we’ve been busy with over the last few weeks.

We’ve hosted our Art in the Garden workshops and they were really good fun! Drawing inspiration from our beautiful surroundings, we painted, photographed and sang together, as the sun slowly set over the horizon… We hope to do this again in future so keep an eye out for it!

And finally, we’ve officially launched the amazing courses we are organising in partnership with Incredible Edible Oxford. These are around various self-sufficiency skills, from making a sheep wool rug to designing your own growing space, and you can view the full schedule here.

And what will be happening in October?

• Harvest Festival! Sunday 9 October – a community festival of music, food and enjoying the beautiful outdoors
• Building & clearing projects – fixing our raised beds and compost bays, clearing away some old structures
• Getting the space ready for winter – covering beds with tarpaulin, clearing beds, sowing green manure, ordering seeds
• Cosy Wednesday – an evening session of garden planning over a shared meal (Wednesday 26 October)

Don’t forget that the next meeting of the Organisational Circle will happen on Wednesday 12 October, 6pm, in the garden. Everyone is welcome. We will be discussing our plans for the garden for the autumn/winter period (building work, getting ready for winter, winter crops), events organisation (workshops, festivals), finances (budgeting for the next year) and any other business that might crop up in the meantime. Tea and nibbles on a bring-and-share basis.

With wormest wishes

Team OxGrow

Questions? Suggestions? Email us at mail@oxgrow.org.