Rory - isnt he great!

Here's Rory, the allotment mascot. He likes coming along to to the allotment and being with people! He is good at digging holes and likes to have a good root around the compost heap.

Respect! Us old blokes are cool...

Me and Bob (H) were gently grafting away and he was telling me about his recent ills...gradual loss of sight due to cataracts, and the huge impact that had on him...(they've been removed now, or at least one has, so he's got some sight back), and we were talking about how dry the ground was and that we needed rain. I said "Not for the festival that I'm off to in a couple of weeks...". Bob replied "Would that be Glastonbury? I went to the very first one, and the Isle of Wight as well, and saw Jimi Hendrix".

How cool is that!

Briefly, he told me what he could remember from 41 years ago. He drank in the bar at Glastonbury with Roger Daltrey, and remembers Jimi Hendrix as an unknown in those days.

Bob used to keep his own allotments but had to give them up when they were developed into housing estates (tut...). He says he's really enjoying the opportunity of getting back to the land now on the community allotment. He seems to know everybody, and went to school with the guy who keeps the allotment on the other side of the track.

Here's Bob, true Glastonbury veteran, (respect!), watering one of the sunflowers that he had planted the previous day:

Just a bit of sort of arty stuff....

This is it, that's all it is:

Fence posts

I was about to put up fence posts to support the trellis at the front of the allotment so we can get some height and have climbing courgettes or something like that, and one of the Age Concern Trustees called in with two bags of muck for us, squeezed into the back of her Mazda sports car. The car was a bit smelly in the heat, she said.

Then Bob (not Christian, but Bob House) came along to do some watering (it's still very dry), and I roped him into helping me put up the posts. They are not quite straight, but I tried....here's a pic:

This weeks update..8th June 2011

Good turn out this Wednesday, further work was done by a good handful of volunteers, including Rory the dog, who is great fun. Am awaiting pics.

The new NEA Report

Defra's National Ecosystems Assessment has been establishing the benefits of living in or near the natural environment.

A good summary of the report can be found here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/02/uk-ecosystem-assessment-warning

25th May - Bob's take on it...

A splendid day on the plot with seven of us toiling away. John and Peter did a first rate job levelling and filling the latest raised bed. Others watered, planted, weeded. The improvements on the allotment have to be compared with what it was like before we started to be able to see what we have achieved. We now have some cabbage and brussels sprouts planted. Pat has given them a good soaking and they should grow. Maggie cleaned the raspberries and strawberries and despite the drought and that they are new plants, found the first strawberry. We are hoping to get lots of runners as new plants as they are very popular on the plant stall.

25th May 2011

Seven of us working today on the allotment. Watering, weeding, cleaning up the surrounding paths and putting in almost the last of the raised beds on the roadside. The infrastructure is almost complete now, just the compost bins to go in and a small raised bed next to them. Here is a sketch of the last part of the allotment infrastructure to be constructed, it is now partly complete (scan courtesy of Bob, as usual):

We were joined by Bob House today, who has known Bob Roundup (Christian) for years, he did a sterling job with digging and weed (couch) eradication, and will be bringing on some Iceberg lettuce for the raised beds.

Weather is still too dry really to get much planting done.

Just a quick thought

We've now had over 1000 hits on the blog and I can trace that they have come from all over the world. What a good way to commuicate!

At long last, another entry

It has been quiet on the blog, and it is with some degree of humility that I realise there have been no entries for almost six weeks, apart from the one that I made a few minutes ago. A long holiday in Greece may have had something to do with it, but enough of excuses.

Although there have been no blog entries, that does not mean that there has been no work going on. Stalwarts Bob and Adam have been grafting away as usual, with occasional help from the usual others.

The state of play is as follows: we now have a row of raspberries (OK, they have been in for a while, but I'm doing a summary here), a row of strawberries that are already fruiting, three rows of potatoes, a block of sweetcorn and another of ever-lasting flowers have been planted out.

The grass mats have all been laid, but still need to be flattened out a bit as the soil has settled leaving them a bit uneven. The two big raised beds have been built, put into position and have been filled with alternating layers of topsoil and compost (as the picture below - courtesy of Roundup - shows, we had one sq m. each of topsoil and compost delivered the other day).

The last of the muck has been spread on the allotment (thanks Adam), making space for the remaining raised beds and the compost bins to be built.

The Dorset Magazine write up

A good few weeks ago we were visited by a journalist from the Dorset Magazine who wanted to run an article about the allotment. The finished piece, and very good it was to, was published in May. An online version can be found here:

http://dorset.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/the-good-life-31625/

Hey Jude...

if you don't know her then you are missing out; here's her response to my last blog post (it was a bit longer than just this quote, you will find the whole thing in the comments section):

An extract from a poem by Edwin Markham, an American poet who died in 1940:

He drew a circle that shut me out.
Heretic, rebel -a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win,
we drew a circle that took him in.

Very relevant and timely. And while I am at it, here is another extract from another one of his poems, A Man with a Hoe:

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes.
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

The great Guy Garvey runs our training day...

We had a great training day on Monday, 15 of us led by Guy Garvey (well actually not him...rather it was a nice bloke from the Thrive organisation, but interesting to think that Guy might have taken a day off from writing his poetry and his current tour to run the training day...that would have been something to write about. Here's a photograph of Guy (sorry, Damien was his real name). Don't know who Guy Garvey is? Click here.

Bob's been at it again, here's the story....

Last Wednesday I saw a skip and decided it needed raiding. Bob was with me, and I think like many people who are with me when I go skip raiding, he was a trifle embarassed. Me, I do it all the time, skip raiding that is, especially when there might be fuel for my woodburner going free. So, I asked permission, and went off to try to liberate some wood...and found quite a bit including a good few lengths of 6x1 tanalised, or it might have been 8x1. Tanalised wood is not much good for burning, which is just as well as Bob immediately nabbed it all for the allotment. Huh.....

Anyway, he put it too good use, and here is the outcome, a nice tool rack and there is even a shelf above it, all the better for being made of free (liberated) wood. Very tidy, with just the very smallest hint of OCD. Here's a pic....nice one Bob.

A quick progress report.

Terminal computer failure prevents me from doing anything more than a quick update at the moment, but I'll be adding a bit more detail and photographs as soon as I can. Anyway, Bob has got in a couple of rows of potatoes now, and some pink fir apples are going in soon. Over the weekend, James, Anna and I dug over about another row of couch grass clogged earth, we're getting there slowly but surely. As a security measure, I also put reflective film over the inside of the shed windows so that people can't see in to see if there is any good stuff to nick. The reflective film is good, from the outside it looks just like a mirror (i.e. you cannot see into the shed through the windows), but from the inside you can still see out. Other security measures include strong wire mesh over the windows, toughened glass, hinges that are bolted rather than screwed in place, and a good combination padlock. I guess its only a matter of time before the shed gets broken into, lets hope never, but at least we'll have made it difficult to anybody who wants to mess up our project.

All that has got me thinking about allotment insurance, which I think comes free with membership of the South West Counties Allotment Association (clicky here). Note to self: I'll have to look into joining, if I've got it right it only costs £3 per year.

Finally, the grass mats have arrived. The ground around the shed needs levelling and they can be laid, making it much easier for those with mobility impairments or those in wheelchairs to get about. Pics will follow when we've got that done.

Here are the details of our training day...

‘Digging for Health’ Training Day

Monday 28^th March 2011 9.30am – 3.30pm

The Community Room,

Sandringham Court (Magna Housing),

Dorchester, DT1 2BL

PROGRAMME OUTLINE

Coffee will be available from 9.30am, with the training starting at 10am.  There will be a very flexible approach to the day, which will include the following:

·         Introductions and aims of the day

·         Thrive and Social and Therapeutic Horticulture

·         The benefits of gardening                      

·         The role of the activity provider

·         Safety consideration and adaptations

·         Making tasks inclusive and achievable

·         Support and information

·         Self-assessment tools

·         Conclusions and questions

We've lost our wheelbarrow...

...well, not quite lost it. But the guy in the next allotment came along and claimed it as his. Hmmm.

Apart from that, the sun was almost shining today, which is why we were at the allotment and the three of us put in about 6 man hours, MJ (still co-ordinated and in his Yak Hat), did a good job levelling the ground around the shed, so that it is ready to receive the grass mats when they arrive (early next week I think); James and I spent our time digging ground a couple of rows wide, removing about a bag of couch grass roots. Bob will be along next Tuesday to plant up the rows with pototoes.

Here's a couple of pics - James collecting couch roots, MJ contemplating a hummock.

Well, Bob did say he wasn't Steven Speilberg....

Here is a short video, shot by Bob 'Well, I'm not Speilberg!' Christian, showing the plot, one frosty morning (well today actually), just before the shed went up.

And here is another one, the shed in construction:

It was a big day down on the allotment...

Well, it was a bit late, but it turned up eventually. Now we have somewhere to store the tools, drink tea and shelter from the rain. Looks good, doesnt it!

New ideas...

I had a useful and constructive chat today with Gwynne James, an occupational therapist (OT) and lecturer at Bournemouth University, who has agreed to become our informal 'Consultant' to the project. She brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge with working on horticultural therapy projects. We talked about many things, including the possibility of 'Digging for Health' being the focus of undergraduate OT placement and the subject of research studies. We also talked about an existing horticultural therapy project (clicky link), and noticed that it had been awarded a Green Gym licence (another clicky link) and had obtained funding from EcoMinds (yet another clicky link) who have produced a report on the values of ecotherapy (that's the last clicky link for now). I've contacted the BTCV (who run the Green Gym licence scheme) to see if there might be any scope in us pursuing the idea of a licence.