First ever open day on our allotment site

I'd been so busy with work, family and getting the plot ready for our first Allotment Open Day, I didn't even notice our allotment committee had put an advert in the paper about it.

I was late turning up on Saturday - rushed out to the plot, anticipating rain but instead met with a constant stream of well-wishing visitors - all interested in what we were growing, how we were growing it, and why - visiting dignitaries included a trained herbalist and a local government representative. (I'd been talking to the poor chap about rabbit manure and related topics for about twenty minutes before I realised who he was...)

All afternoon I waxed (happily) lyrical about the challenges of converting a derelict plot (ORGANICALLY of course) - the advantages of mulching, the dangers of frost, foxes, mice, pigeons, slugs and what to do about them. It was great to stop for a coffee and chat for a little while, instead of labouring...

Even if I do say so myself - everything looked pretty good on the plot. There were even a few concrete illustrations of our allotment plotting skills. I was just about to showcase the mini-pond when a shining new froglet had the foresight to climb out of the washing up bowl onto a stone - as if to demonstrate the point!

I made a pretty good pitch for Garden Organic too - handing out some leaflets, listing the many benefits of being a member and sharing fond memories of the chocolate bread and butter pudding I consumed at their first class restaurant at Ryton where I did my training to become a mentor for the Garden Organic Food for All programme (the training took place at the training centre, I mean - not in the restaurant....)

During the course of the day I realised how proud we should be - after all we're one of the largest sites in Britain. About half the visitors were allotment holders from other sites comparing notes - or people who wanted a plot.

Whilst mulling over the best time to prune cherry plums we talked hard politics too...everyone noticed we've still got lots of derelict plots on site, and no-one (including me) can come up with a good enough excuse as to why the council hasn't done anything about this situation.

The derelict plot next door (the one I photographed for this blog back in March) STILL doesn't have an owner - and there are more of these - around twenty I would guess. It's crazy - I don't understand it - we have a huge waiting list. And judging by all the visitors to our site there are loads of people who are desperate for a plot, bless them.

Still, there's talk of progress in other directions. A composting toilet! That would be an improvement - as we have around 200 plots and no 'facilities'. I tried to explain how difficult this is for all kinds of visitors (families with toddlers, those with disabilities in the family to name just a few). Yup. Composting toilet(s)? are the way to go!

The day was rounded off by a lovely barbecue - so thanks to the committee. Met a lovely lady from a local housing trust who talked a lot of sense and has a wonderful vision of where we might go from here...

Looking back - it is less than ten years since our site was under threat from being sold off and turned into a tennis court. This was documented in local newspapers.

I had the good fortune to meet one of the people who played a substantial part in saving our skins. Our friend told me how 'the powers-that-be' had tried to keep the sell off plan hush, hush. But this 'local hero' saved the day. He used his rights under the Freedom of Information Act to secure documentation of a secret council meeting. When the news came out - and with the spade-work-support of plot holders and nearby residents - the political 'tide' was turned.

So thanks to 'Mr. Hero' and all the other people who took part in the struggle. Without you - we wouldn't have fresh new potatoes for tea today...and I for one don't know what I'd do without the plot...

For those who'd like to know more about the current status of allotment waiting lists in England - check out the survey 'Allotment Waiting lists in England' on the NSLAG (National Society of Leisure and Allotment Gardeners) website, written by Margaret Campbell and Ian Campbell and supported by Transition Town West Kirby in conjunction with the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners.

Tadpoles!

Looks like some of our tadpoles have made it. The water in our mini-pond looks quite clear. Needs a bit of topping up with rain water when it gets hot. So far so good. For those who've just tuned in to this blog, here are the posts which describe how we constructed it (and where we got the idea from).

Building a Mini-Pond Part III

Pond plus frogspawn safely installed. Will post soon about ongoing fruit and vegetable activities!

Building a Mini-Pond Part II

First construction phase of mini-pond Mark 2. Two washing up bowls side by side. Some nettles (for the sake of wildlife) and a little chickweed visible.

The bowls contain a little washed gravel. We chose a light colour for the bowls so that we could see the frogspawn better.

Used some woodchip to surround the bowls, with some stones round. The two flat stones at the front form a small seat for my daughter to sit on whilst she watches the pond life.
There are flowers planted round the outside and on the outer edge of the wildlife corner the heap is framed by a some beautiful, fairly low informal copper beech bushes.


As you can see, there is no 'fence' at the front of this arrangement. I wonder if the Parks and Gardens department are going to insist that we have one. With two washing up bowl size mini-ponds? It would seem ridiculous to me. We're meeting them at 2.p.m. I'll keep you posted.

How to make a Mini Pond (Part I)

I was thinking - there are probably lots of blog readers out there who would like a pond on their plot or in their garden.

Like me, you may have come across bureaucratic challenges on this one (see previous pond posts and comments). So what's a workable answer for busy people like us who need to press on with fruit and veg planting at this hectic time of year, but still want a home for their frog spawn?

Make a mini pond! Surely no-one can complain a very tiny pond is a health and safety risk, can they? I've found some step-by-step instructions on the BBC Wales 'Wild about Nature' website. You need an old sink, or a washing up bowl and some gravel to start with. I'm going to try this tomorrow. I've got two old ones I could re-use.

I've also found out that the Allotments Regeneration Initiative have a brilliant new site. For a small fee they'll send out fact sheets. They have one on 'Health and Safety on allotments: advice on activities requiring special management'. They say:

'Low fencing should not be necessary around a pond or water feature unless there is a drop from a well-used edge into deep water (more than 1.5m). Low fencing around a pond draws attention to the hazard but might not necessarily prevent access to the pond - it is only a partial solution and can lead to a false sense of security...'

(There's a mismatch of information going on here as it was the council who sent me the ARI leaflet and Parks and Gardens insisted that I would need a fence for the first pond design I suggested - and there's no way that was 1.5 m deep - more like four inches.)

No matter. ARI also specifically advocate the use of washing up bowls for small ponds. Hooray! We might get our pond after all! Although I don't know how I'm going to afford the architect's fees to draw up the plans which I still need to submit to our council.

For your further delight and entertainment I'm including here a few more links to lovely frog and pond websites: Turning Earth has great pictures of happy tadpoles and frogs in a mini pond in Yorkshire.

Froglife is great too. Includes answers to burning topical questions such as 'I feel I've got too much frog spawn, what can I do?'

Sustainable Development Policy and Your Council?

When I had a call from Parks and Gardens today I was still holding out some hope that local government might be paying more than lip service to the UNCED agreements (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development including Local Agenda 21) the spirit of which at least should have filtered down to elected representatives and our civil servants. How wrong I was.

The issue at hand was the planned wildlife pond. We met in the car park on site to discuss it. As you'll remember, my plans for this were featured in blog posts recently, together with a photograph.

Since we were dealing with health and safety issues, as we were walking up to the plot I thought I would take the opportunity of explaining to Parks and Gardens how I had removed around three hundred bags of broken glass and rubble from my plot in the past three years. Single handedly. So I know something about health and safety. When I referred to the history of the plot Parks 'lady' said: 'Did you inspect the plot when you took it on?'. At first I wondered why she was asking this question - then I realised it seemed she was trying to spell it out to me that she felt the council had no liability (or indeed any interest) whatsoever in issues like this.

While this may be true legally (I don't know at this point) - it seems to bypass the issue that with peak oil and food shortages (and given the fact that as Tim Lang said in his video in a previous post - Britain is only growing 5 per cent of it's own fruit) local government should be doing all that it can to encourage people to grow their own. Offering plots which are derelict as mine was (unused for fifteen years at least) does not fit this particular bill.

On the way to my plot Parks 'lady' then proceeds to explain to me what Health and Safety issues are, and what my tenancy agreement means. I nod my head at first but then realise how incredibly patronising she is, and tell her so.

We're walking past a huge water butt which I had always been worried about when my daughter was smaller. It's quite clearly a death trap for small children. The last time I mentioned it to the council they came back with the unhelpful comment that parents were responsible for the safety of their children at all times. Gosh. As if we didn't know that, eh?

Parks lady was taking great pains to emphasise that she was only interested in 'my child's safety'. So I took the opportunity of asking her what she though of above mentioned water butt. I don't think she liked what I was saying so far and labelled me as 'aggressive'. Funny that. My friends call me 'feisty'. I'm assertive, I emphasised. (As soon as you disagree with them they label you as 'aggressive'. A good way of dismissing what you are saying? ASSERTIVE, I said again.

Then she said the death trap water butt was the 'City Council's responsibility'. My first thought at hearing this was 'I thought you WERE the City Council and even if you're not, you're still council...how about passing the message on...?) Then I realised of course they were passing the buck. In 25 days time round here there is a restructuring of the whole thing to create a new unitary authority so the City Council will no longer exist anyway.

So, we get to my plot-and-a-half, I take them round a bit, show them all the small trees, neat beds ready to go. On the way I point out an apparently derelict plot next to ours and the difficulties this will cause us this season as all the seeds on it are going to blow over. According to the council there are no derelict plots right now. What about this one, I say:

Rosebay Willow herb. The lot. More 'non-derelict and used plots in the background'. We have a huge waiting list and I've raised this issue too.

Then we come to my wildlife patch at the front. I explain how I plan to recycle an old paddling pool and edge it with available materials. As you can see from my previous posts it doesn't look amazing at the moment, but that's because it's a WILD LIFE corner. It isn't supposed to be TIDY.

So, it was Parks 'gentlemen' turn to speak. He was wearing a sweatshirt which said 'recycle' on the front and back. I had already explained how I had salvaged the wee paddling pool from a skip. He actually stood there and asked me accusingly (and I felt in a bullying and aggressive tone) 'Why didn't you use pond liner?'

Things went downhill from there, I feel. I proceeded to point out the the basic tenants of sound environmental policy i.e. 1. Reduce 2. Re-use and 3. Recycle. I don't think he liked my highlighting the logo on his sweatshirt either.

Then he challenged my use of 'available' materials (i.e. branches and twigs) - 'Why didn't I use willow? he said' there is plenty of willow growing over there (and pointed). I had to set him straight on allotment policy, I'm afraid and said I wouldn't dream of picking other people's crops without asking, and anyway, I didn't see what was wrong with using materials that had been generated on my plot.

Park gent's next objection was that 'it didn't look very nice'. (I had thought the visit was about health and safety issues and not aesthetics, but there you go). Park gent knew the person who had had the plot before...Yes, I said, so do I - obviously I said, there aren't many flowers to see at this point but explained anyway about the brightly coloured flowers that edged the pile, and the carefully selected copper beech bushes which framed it (bought those at BTCV).

Next, the said pair wanted a 'plan' of the proposed pond. (I've sent the council three emails about it this week - they already had a photograph and measurements - but they still want a 'plan'. Maybe I should think about an architect?

What more do you need? I said, whipping my tape measure out, and measuring up. Shall I draw you one? (searching for the back of an envelope in my bag). There's not much to add, I said. Did a quick drawing and put the measurements on it, in front of them.

We need a 'fence' they said so that your child can't fall in. (Remember what the council said on past occasions about parents taking responsibility for their children at all times and the death trap water butt?). Well I said pointing to the twigs and branches pile - I was planning to sink the small paddling pool into the ground and draw the branches around it as a barrier. Would that be alright? No, they said.

Well then, I said, if I can't do it like that, will you tell me how I CAN do it. Well, said Park lady, picking up a stout twig, if they were sort of bending OVER the pond like this...'Can I take a photograph, I said, so that I will know how to do this). 'No' she said. 'You will only use it against us'. ?

Right, I said, there are some adaptations to be made, and as I said already it is not finished. So I'll finish it, won't fill it with water yet and we'll meet again, shall we, so that you can tell me what you think? They okayed this suggestion reluctantly and are coming again next week. I'll keep readers posted.

The shame of all this is, I wanted to get the frog spawn and plants in soon, otherwise it's going to be another whole year.

As my daughter and I rushed away for an appointment - I was still fuming but felt slightly better after meeting a fellow allotmenteer who said he'd exactly the same experiences (with those two from the council).

The joke of it is, there are loads of people on the site who already have bucket sized ponds not much smaller than the one I have, and even some people's drainage ditches are more of a health and safety risk than our proposal.

When will they realise that they should be enabling and assisting people instead of creating barriers at every opportunity. At the end of the meeting my daughter said: 'I didn't like them very much, mummy'. No, I said. I didn't either.