The Allotment Boss

Last night I spoke to local allotment co-ordinator, a Mr. Cox. If there is one thing I've learnt in my life, it is to stay on the good side of those who hold the power! I explained the nature of the project, and it is safe to say that he was very enthusiastic. He could immediately grasp the idea of the therapeutic potential of allotment keeping. We ran through some of the allotment regulations, path width requirements, shed sizes, bonfires (none) and etc. We need to make sure that we don't do anything wrong that might break the allotment rules (some are written down, but I wonder how many of them are unwritten and implicit etiquette?) and annoy or upset some of our allotment neighbours. But I don't think there will be any chance of that, just as long as we keep our allotment tidy and in production. All very positive. Nice to meet you Mr. Cox!

Allotment innovation!

Bob (he's the man to ask!) Christian has supplied us with a few ideas and pictures for the allotment. Firstly, here are the compost bins, critical for ecological purposes, and central to the idea of re-cycling. These are the ones that Bob has made, and we'll have something similar soon in our own allotment:

Secondly, here is a picture of a cluster bomb casing from Laos (!) that was being used as a raised onion bed, so that wild pigs can't reach them. Not sure if we can get hold of any old bomb casings, or how many wild pigs we have at the allotment (?), but the raised/elevated bed system is interesting:

Finally, here is a picture of a couple of other things that we may be able to integrate into our allotment; firstly, on the left, two old brushes nailed down that can be used as a boot cleaner, and on the right, a welly puller...both essential I think with the weather that we have been having recently.

11th January 2011, another clear up...

The rain seems to have given way to some sunshine and enables yet more cleaning activity to take place. Perhaps it was the sun that prompted these smiling faces, but it just goes to show that this kind of activity can be therapeutic. We're getting there, slowly but surely; soon we'll have a tidy allotment. Pictured below are John and Adam, as mentioned in a previous blog entry. Pic below, courtesy of Robert:

Getting rid of one of the old sheds

Today, 8th Jan 2011, we (myself, Anna and James) aimed to get rid of the old shed. After a couple of hours it was fully dismantled, and I went to load it in my car (to take the boards back to my workshop, I want to do some sculptures and things like that) only to find that they were too big to fit in. Anybody got a trailer? The wood is lovely weathered red cedar (I think), and quite solid, the boards are thick and wide, so perhaps we'll be able to make raised beds with some of them. Anything that cannot be otherwise usefully used can be thrown in the woodburner.

We had a walk around the allotment site. How come we have easily the smallest allotment, others seem to be almost twice the size of ours? And I was sad to see that throughout the site little attention seems to have been paid to the aesthetics of allotment keeping. The allotments seem almost purely functional (if that!), indeed just plain scruffy. Perhaps its the time of year?

Here are three of pics of the shed, before and after deconstruction:

What an exciting week...

On the 6th January 2011, I met with John, Robert and Di and we had a very successful planning meeting. In a nutshell, I'm off to the allotment on Saturday or Sunday (depending on the weather) in order to pull down the larger of the two sheds. I'm going to save the very nicely weathered wood and will knock out a few sculptural boards for the raised beds, and perhaps make a sign or two, or planters; that kind of thing. We discussed Robert's allotment plans and made a few refinements. This might still be considered to be a draft, but you can see a floor plan of what the allotment might eventually look like here (sorry its a bit small, but I hope you can work out the detail):

Anyway, we also agreed that a few more things needs to be done. John and Adam (Di's husband) will be clearing the site of rubbish next Tuesday, 11th January 2011. After that we are going to try to address the couch grass problem again and hopefully then we might have a clean(ish) site that we can start work on. When the wood arrives we (well Robert) will edge the whole site with tanalised timber so we can have nice tidy allotment edges. Then we need to prepare the base for the shed. I've checked with the local Council, and the biggest shed we can have is 8 x 6ft, which will have to do. We'll probably lay a gravel base, on which we'll place batons, and then the shed itself.

Even more exciting, Anna has sourced some training from the charitable organisation 'Thrive' (you will find a link to the right of this post), so we'll all be able to get some insight into allotment gardening for the differently abled. Watch this space for dates and, when it happens, pictures.

Thrive

Have a look at this interesting link, I think we are going to try to do more or less this kind of thing:

Click here:     Thrive: Using Gardening to Change Lives

So what are the project aims?

Well we are going to take this rather derelict allotment and over 2011 we are going to transform it into a very fine community resource!

Who exactly are we?

Well, we are Fran, the keeper of this blog, who has an interest in organic gardening and vegetable production and I will be providing hands-on help and ideas about strategic direction. There are various individuals from Age Concern, Dorchester who will be driving the project and its day to day running. These include, notably, Robert Christian, an Age Concern Trustee and an enthusiastic and very active participant in that organisation. In addition, John Yonwin, also from Age Concern where he is responsible for the 'Fit as a Fiddle' project, will be playing a key role. Others who are involved include Di Lawrence, the Age Concern Chief Officer, and Anna Biley, the Development Officer. There will be more participants, I'll give you their details as they become more involved. Lastly, but not leastly of course, there will be Annabel Sampson, the UnLtd Engage Local Co-ordinator, and the wider UnLtd network, who will be giving invaluable advice and support in relation to the project.

Of course we don't plan to do all the work ourselves, that would be defeating the object the project. Instead, we are going to encourage volunteers, primarily men, who will probably be in later life, and are perhaps retired, and who may have a wish to become more involved in community life, to help us out and to become involved. Why older men? Well, when men retire, or move house/town, there is the chance that they lose contact with friends and acquaintances. They may not have the opportunity to engage in allotment activities (have you seen the waiting lists?). They may benefit from light exercise as part of recovery from any one of a range of illnesses. We hope that this project will give the opportunity to these men to meet up with others and engage in meaningful, productive 'man-type' activity, and of course, have that all important cup of tea with others. That's what we are going to try to do. I' really be interested in what you think about all this. Please leave comments!

A quick visit to the allotment

Today we went down to the allotment, it was cold and overcast, but I wanted to take a few photographs of the allotment before it gets cleaned up too much. The raspberry canes have been pruned, some of the couch grass has gone, and the plastic mulch should help clean up the weeds. But as can see from these photographs, the site is still a mess.

The approach road.

Plastic mulch, and what remains of the old shed

The small tool shed, probably post-war

25b, our allotments official number

In the very beginning

I trained as what was then known as a 'mental' nurse in the mid 1970s. In those days, in the big Victorian asylums, there was always the remnants long unused hospital farm. But in those days, I got to hear about how important it was for the in-patients to go and work on the farm, in order to provide food for the hospital, a sense of purpose and occupation, and to have a break from the ward environment. Nowadays, those large Victorian asylums have long gone, they've either been knocked down, or converted into flats and modern housing projects, like the nearby Charlton Down on the outskirts of Dorchester. And of course, it wasn't just the Victorian Asylums that had their farms. Grand country houses had their walled gardens, and during WWII, people dug up their lawns in order to grow vegetables.

But people in any setting, and that includes myself, need to be in touch with the land, to get dirt under their finger nails, and perhaps to have the satisfaction of producing food, even if its on a relatively small scale.

The allotment movement has, in recent years, grown enormously in popularity. People are growing their own vegetables, reducing their 'airmiles' carbon footprint, they are producing and sharing VERY fresh food, are perhaps growing organically, and are benefiting from that sense of purpose an community that can be found in any local allotment society. And in addition to all this, university researchers are beginning to be able to show and highlight that there are quite a number of physical and psychological benefits to keeping an maintaining an allotment.

With all that, and more, in mind, we started to develop ideas about creating a community allotment, so that we (a whole bunch of volunteers and people who would like to just come along and help out) could produce vegetables, or just come and sit in the sun and drink a cup of tea.