Engaging with the local community

A local branch of a well known national retail outlet contacted us recently. Terms of employment require that all employees spend two days a year engaged in voluntary activity (for which they receive their usual salary). What an enlightened condition of employment! So, very soon we will be having eight employees join us for two days a year (perhaps not all at once) to help us out with our project! Watch this space for more details!

Measurements

We need to plan the allotment so that it is accessible by as many people as possible, and that includes those with different levels of mobility, including those who use wheelchairs. So we need to think about having raised beds, and paths that are easy to negotiate. But how high should we make the raised beds? Reference to the very helpful Thrive website gives us some answers. For example, they recommend that the minimum path width for those using a wheelchair needs to be at least 900mm. For raised beds, Thrive supply an excellent leaflet, that can be downloaded and printed off here. As a rough guide, they recommend a maximum bed width of 500mm if the bed can only be accessed from one side, and that the height of the bed should be approximately 900-1000mm (for somebody who gardens standing up), 690-760mm (for those sitting) and 615mm (for those in wheelchairs). I think we need to make raised beds that are of different heights.

Today, the sun shone and the work got done!

If yesterday's heavy rain had continued into today then it would have held us up. However, it was an almost spring like day, ideal for cracking on with the work. John, Adam and Bob were on site from early on, and worked valiantly with Mr. Womble, the Dorset Volunteer Coordinator and two helpers engaged in community service activity. At least half of the site was dug, and Bob put all the boundary boards in place, effectively outlining our plot. As the following picture shows, John (AC Volunteer Coordinator for the project, and Faaf expert/activist) exhibited what might become a new fashion in trousers, but looking at the state of his knees, he might have spent a little to much time supplicating in front of our very own Horticultural Consultant (Bob 'Round-Up' Christian).

Spot on 12 midday the first shift departed (well except for Bob who stayed on to spread some muck on the raspberries) and the second shift (Fran and Matthew Jack) arrived. We set on preparing the base for the shed, now due to arrive a day later than previously reported, that is on 8th March.

Matthew Jack was surgically separated from his XBox and on arrival almost enthusiastically started levelling the ground for the shed base. Here he is in the picture below. He continued the trouser fashion show, as initiated by Jon, by sporting low slung builder's bum/emo type skinnys and colour co-ordinated wellies and a hoody and for some reason, a kind of ethnic yak wool hat. Apparently it is important to look cool at all times, even on an allotment.

Anyway, much of the site was dug, yet more couch grass was removed, the rhubarb was transplanted to a more convenient part of the plot along with a good row of raspberry canes, all rescued from the site and finally, a level base was made (using existing concrete blocks that were found on the plot), ready to take the shed. Here is a picture of the site as it looked at 3pm today. Have a look at the pictures taken at the beginning of the project and posted here in earlier blog posts, to see how far we have progressed. Note in the following pic - the shed base, the dug ground and the perimeter boards...its starting to look good!

Publicity Day!

Today Bob and I met Edward Griffiths from the Dorset: The Dorset County Magazine (click for the link) who will be writing an article about our allotment and project, to be published in May 2011. Edward writes about allotment keeping in the magazine, see here for a past example. Otherwise, the magazine is one of those rather posh ones about country life, coastal walks, restaurants, country walks, that kind of thing.

Bob, on the left, talking with Edward Griffiths,

probably either talking about couch grass, or the geological qualities of the soil.

Clip boards!

After the meeting Bob ran off to buy a load of wood, to delineate the allotment perimeter.

The day was very overcast, almost foggy. There is a very nice rhubarb plant shooting up right in the middle of the plot. Surrounded by couch grass.

Sheds!

Click here to go to my all-time favourite website!

Here comes the shed...

If there is one thing that an allotment has to have, its a shed. And we've just ordered one, due to be delivered on March 7th, so we are going to have to crack on and get the base prepared. Briefly, the shed will be 8 x 6 ft, the biggest we are allowed to have according to the allotment association. Its made of sturdy log-lap and will be painted green. Security may be a problem, so I've ordered the shed to have toughened glass in the windows (better than perspex that just shatters) and that will be covered in a heavy metal grill. In addition all the hinges and locks will be bolted into place, rather than screwed. The base is likely to be paving slabs laid on level ground, perhaps gravel, raised on 2x1 tanalised wood laid on top of the slabs. Slowly but surely its all coming together. In an ideal world I'd like a shed like this, isnt it lovely!:

Slowly, the publicity machine....

...is grinding into action. A notice and link has been placed on the local Bournemouth University's website, advertising the project and the study day. If you are interested in having a look, and seeing more about the very relevant work of Bournemouth University's Centre for Wellbeing and Quality of Life and the 'Healthier Communities' work group, then pay a visit by clicking here.

In addition, we are about to be interviewed and photographed for a well known Dorset-wide magazine (scrub yourself up Bob!). More details will be posted here as soon as we have them.

Finally, through our flyers, we seem to be attracting interest from those who would like to engage with the project for therapeutic reasons. Again, at this stage I can't say too much, partly for reasons of confidentiality, but we had our first therapeutic participant working on the allotment last week, and another has expressed great interest.

Clearly, word about the project is spreading, and it seems to be generating great interest. Isn't that wonderful!

A load of old poo...

Or in this case, a load of not so old poo. As the light of an already dull day was fading, we (John and I) drove a few miles away from the allotment to pick up a second load of horse manure (John and Adam got the first lot last week) that we will use to give the allotment a bit of a kick start once we've got rid of all that couch grass. Not the best manure in the world, but better than nothing, so we bagged up 15 or 20 bags, or a good sized trailer load anyway, and took it back to the allotment. It was a couple of hours work for the two of us, but we need as much of it as we can. You can never have too much poo they say.

Here is John, standing on a huge pile of poo:

Unloading the poo into our poo store (note John's personalised number plate):

A poo close up, for those of you interested in that kind of thing:



Nice video about winter allotment work

Nice to know that its not only us that has a problem with couch grass!

Nice dog!

An allotment training day

‘Digging for Health’ TRAINING DAY 28th March 2011, Age Concern Dorchester 10.30am – 3.30pm

Age Concern Dorchester has recently acquired a community allotment in the Arlington Road area of town.  With the help of a volunteer we have obtained a small grant from the UnLtd Engage Programme and over the coming weeks and months we will be working to get the plot into shape and ready for the growing season. In the meantime we have arranged a training day for anyone who may be interested in learning more about gardening and allotment keeping with older people. 

The day will be a mixture of group work, discussions and practical activities and will include the benefits of garening for older people and specifically those with dementia, making gardening accessible and inclusive, and the role of a provider of gardening activities.

The training day is FREE and drinks will be provided. Participants will need to bring their own packed lunch.  The morning session will be indoors at a venue a short distance from the allotment.  Weather permitting, some time will be spent outdoors on the allotment so participants should dress accordingly.  Please note that the ground is uneven so strong footwear is advisable.

To book a place on what promises to be an interesting and fun day, please contact Anna at the address below.  Places are limited so book now to avoid disappointment! Please let us know if transport is a difficulty and we will do our best to help you. The training will be facilitated by an organisation called Thrive. For details about Thrive’s work, visit   www.thrive.org.uk  www.carryongardening.org.uk

Anna Biley

Development and Support Officer

Age Concern Dorchester   Tel: 01305 269444

Making progress, increasing urgency perhaps

This is what Bob has written about the recent days work at the allotment:

A good day was had doing further clearing and preparing the site. Next week, on Wednesday 9th February, we may be able to clean and level the far end of the plot and lift, prepare and replant the raspberries in a row. We lifted a root and there are signs of life so they are at about the right stage to transplant. In addition, there is ample scope to fork over the rest of the site and keep on shaking out the couch grass.

We have removed the small shed (it was beyond redemption, like me) [absolutely not - Ed.] and have transported the useful contents to a local store (we found some useful gardening tools and etc.).

We have defined the site with a post at each corner; measured dimension 21ft-6” x 49ft 8”, or in other words 20’ x 50’

We sorted timber into firewood & possibly re-useable piles

We folded the plastic 'mulch' sheets so we can dig and we carted two loads of rubbish to the tip.

We recycled some good planks and posts to make a place to put manure - which we can do as soon as we can get it (see picture). The planks were only assembled with string so can be re-used at a later date.

A good days work! Its interesting to compare this latest photo with the earlier ones, to see how much progress has been made.