Snow's Gone- Business As Usual!

In the last post I gave you a tour of the area immediately bordering the allotment site, and included some pictures of the site under a thick blanket of the white stuff.  All was sweetness and light!  What a difference  when we went up at the weekend with the snow mostly melted. What the snow had made into beautiful pillowy hummocks revealed itself: quite a quantity of plastic and other detritus which seemed not to be of use.

I'm not being harsh about this- I really don't want to be a judgemental allotment fascist and I know allotments aren't all about beauty, it's just it was kind of nice, during the wintry weather, not to be reminded of how much plastic finds itself at a loose end on some plots.  The good thing here is that the plastic is being used again, not immediately going into landfill, and sometimes I guess it just piles up....  however I have noticed that bags and bottles get blown around the site or perhaps relocated by foxes.

We are guilty ourselves of leaving rubbish on the plot that should be taken down the dump, particularly the old carpets and plastic bin bag path liners we took up.  But we have tucked it out of the way, and it can't be seen from the main path. 

At our recent visit we were told that every one of the sheds had been broken into and all the doors left wide open. The same was true of ours, and just with all the rest, nothing had been taken.  I was thinking it may have been people trying to bed down in the harsh weather but there was no sign of this either.
Later I found a knife plunged into the ice of a water tank:

I guess there are some mysteries that will never be solved!

By the way I'd be interested to know if anyone has any views on walking on other peoples' plots- I stepped about 3 feet into our neighbours to close their open shed door and this was not considered "not done" by the some other plot holders. In fact they seemed quite horrified and said they weren't going to do the same for their neighbours. I am all for only going on to a plot if invited, and understand you could be accused of something if seen on another person's plot, but surely you should be allowed to do something to help your neighbour? Leaving a shed wide open cannot be a good thing..... I'd hope someone would do the same thing for me under the circumstances.  

Round and About the Allotment in the Snow

Here's some snaps taken en route to the allotment, on the plot, and on the way home in the snow. I know fresh snow makes everything look good but looking at these pictures makes me grateful for the walk to the plot- which is just down our road then through the park, and feels rural in the heart of London. 

The avenue of trees leading to the allotment   



The park we pass through to get there

Around the allotment site itself all is leafy- a tiny nature reserve and the brook on one side, a park and playing fields on the other two, and a quiet no-through road to the fourth side.  It cheers me up!

 The brook to one side of the allotments 

 

                                          A view through the little nature reserve next door

Just two other sets of footprints beside ours at the allotments: but plenty of fox tracks

Our plot under a snowy blanket

"You are joking if you think we are leaving the greenhouse in this!"

 Up to his neck in it

 Past the wood and the trees in the nature reserve on the way home

It's not to say the area around our site doesn't get its fair share of rubbish dumped and graffiti, but really it is a well used and well appreciated bit of greenspace.  It's great for wildlife too, and I hope our little plot, in time, might add a tiny bit to the understated beauty to be found here. 

Ice Age

"Come on Motorbike Boy- we can skate on the allotment lake!"

"I can't man- I'm stuck in this drift!"

Meanwhile, the garlic and some onions and shallots are poking up through the snow. In this picture you can see the partial germination- the sticks are over the ones that have come up (to protect them from the birds) but in a lot of the bed there is no growth yet. Maybe it'll come  later maybe not.

Finally here is a novel and warm way of taking materials to the allotment. We got this big cardboard box off a neighbour to use as path base. It was easier than trying to carry it. We attracted many (quite obviously) admiring glances. 

No Business Like Snow Business

Only us up the plot today, it was lovely in the wintery weather! Lots of fox footprints, but surprisingly few birds. We put our some old fruit and some crusts for them. 

This little fellow lives on a neighbouring plot. The snow suits him.

No digging today.  I wouldn't dream of destroying the perfection of the lovely white blanketing snow.  I did a little rooting around yesterday when it was just frosty, then afterwards read conflicting reports about whether digging in frost was a crime against humanity or merely pointless. Personally I found it much easier than digging in the wet, and anyway I only turned over a bit of earth to let the robin get at some worms and insects.  I don't think the potential for the destruction of the soil structure on the tiny bit I did was anything to get too worried about.

Good to see some bulbs pushing up through the snow.  Some we planted, some were planted by our predecessor so I can't wait to see what they are. The soil in the pots of peas in the greenhouse was pretty much frozen solid today, so will that spell the end for them, and finish off what the mice started?.......  

Hope everyone is snug and all gardens and allotments are safe and beautiful in the winter weather! 

Allotment Presents

We were very lucky to have some lovely allotment themed Christmas presents for us, and for the plot.   It is really nice to think that our friends and family are getting involved in our "allotment journey".  Thanks everyone!

As well as the great books, tokens, seeds, tools and paper potter, and mug it is also lovely to get advice from those with their own plots and veg gardens. This goes for both friends and family and strangers!  I am finding other people's blogs a really useful source of ideas and practical advice.   I'm really not that hot on using Blogger's features so I haven't made a visible list of blogs I really like or anything like that yet.  Hopefully this year I'll get to grips with it, but I also want to get the plot up and running!

A rather tenuous link to my next picture- it was an additional "present" that appeared when preparing some food at Christmas. It's not from the plot, but hopefully next year the greenhouse will see some of its ilk.  Do you know what it is?

  

Blank Canvas and Mouse Attack

As one of my fellow (experienced!) allotment bloggers kindly commented:  in 2013, the first full year at the allotment, we will have a blank canvas at the plot to fill as we wish.  We can decide what we want to plant and where, we can dream and plan! This is very exciting, but, I hope sensibly, tempered with the knowledge that a full size plot is a large area to initially fill, keep weed and pest free, productive and enjoyable.

Here we are assessing some of the space! Actually it's where we put the fruit bushes, so it won't look like blank space once the leaves are out in the Spring.

We had some fantastic allotment themed presents at Christmas (I'll write more about these later) and one was a bundle of seeds, some of which are not bog standard varieties, so they are food for thought and will definitely form part of blank canvas in-filling! 

Mouse food

And talking of food you may remember that the mice had a good old go at the peas in the greenhouse, and a pot of bulbs I'd left in there. (They also demolished the broad bean seedlings some time ago- see the picture above).  It's an instructive early warning of pests to come I reckon. I have taken the advice of another (experienced!) fellow allotment blogger (and thanks for the comments I have received so far they are really helpful and encouraging) and sprayed a little WD-40 around the pea plants-  it seemed to work and stopped the mice- hurray! Spurred on by this I got a bit carried away the next time I was at the plot and sprayed it liberally in the greenhouse in my excitement, over some of the plants themselves, so next time I go down I'll have to see if the mice have killed the plants or my foolishly over-zealous attack methods have! Oops!  I will be keeping that can handy for the time being though.....