Worthing and District Allotments and Gardens Association

Monday, 31st January

Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend. Did you have a go? I did. I spent an hour glued to our kitchen window which looks out onto our back garden yesterday morning while I peeled and cut veg and stuff for Sunday dinner. You had to note how many different species you saw and the most you saw of any one species at the same time. So my list looks like: robin 1, pigeon 1, magpie 1,.....etc. The only birds I saw more than one of at any given time were blue tits (4) and blackbirds (2). And nothing exotic. We can usually rely on a few sparrows but not yesterday. Some did come out later but as they were outside my 60 minute window I couldn't count them. That was the nearest I got to gardening yesterday although I did have a good bonfire last night, getting rid of a lot of prunings and old boxes.

I went to the plot this morning and had to park in Melrose Avenue because of all the students' cars in Bolsover Road but I suppose the walk did me good. More than the digging did! I started with a fork but the ground is still very wet despite the rain holding off for a few days. Gave up and tried the spade but each spit weighed a ton and I had half the allotment stuck to my boots so I changed jobs again and set about some of my raspberry canes. As I looked up I saw someone wheeling a barrowload of manure from the direction of the stores so, quick, down tools and after the free manure. Wasn't a wasted morning entirely then but my new would-be strawberry bed still needs forking over if you're interested in working up a sweat to keep warm. Oh, and seed potatoes are now in.

Wednesday, 26th January

How cheerful! Our snowdrops are out. Not that surprising at this time of year, I suppose, but a welcome sight nevertheless. More surprising was the Viburnum Tinus "Eve Price" in bloom but I'm not grumbling. I noticed these two things this morning when I walked up the garden with the intention of turning my pruning activities to our crab apple. I have now finished our apple trees - well, as much as I intend doing this year; next year the Discovery will have to have major surgery to bring it under some sort of control and I'll remove a large section of it - so got out my ladder to tackle the crab. Well, my ladder isn't really big enough, I can't find anywhere obvious to lean it against, it was trying to rain and it wasn't really very nice at all so I wimped out and came in for a cup of tea. I didn't take nearly so much notice of these miserable conditons last night as Mrs N and I walked to the North Star for Pub Night. And what a jolly evening it was! About a dozen of us talked the evening away with topics of conversation covering holidays, the forthcoming Association dinner, the talk on the future of allotments on the 1st March at the Town Hall, trips to the cinema, allotment rents and Lez addressing the haggis. We also consumed a few beverages.

I have managed to do a few other jobs, most sicnificantly the taming of the blackberry, a huge bush in our garden which started off in a container but seems to have spread all over. Time for a serious haircut - with serious gloves because these things bite. I've still got a few other things to prune including my raspberries which responded very well to my universal 2ft cut last year when I couldn't remember which were Summer fruiting and which were Autumn fruiting. I think they'll get the same treatment this year and a dollop of sulphate of potash which I bought at our stores this weekend.

It did brighten up a little somewhat later in the morning so I decided to attack the ivy which has invaded from next door. I thought as the ground was rather wet the ivy would pull out pretty easily. Think again, Ned. By the time I'd filled a couple of big compost bags it was time for lunch. Could be doing that job for a few months, I think.

Thursday, 21st January

Went to visit the plot today. Thought I would try turning over more of the proposed strawberry plot. Ian gave me these plants last Autumn and I still haven't got them in. Theye're in my back garden at the moment so they should be OK but I really did envisage having them in the ground by now. After the first forkful I knew I'd made a mistake. The ground was still very soggy and it was almost impossible to separate the weeds from the clumps of wet clay. I did a little then shifted to another part of the plot to see if it was any better. Well, it turned over with a spade but it was heavy going. Not only that but there was a gentle ice-cold Northerly wind blowing ascross the flat arena of West Tarring. Most people had more sense - there was only a handful of other "enthusiasts" and they were doing more sensible things like planning their plot with tape measures, banging bits of wood together, picking veg, etc. Anything rather than digging. After an hour or so I gave up and went home.

This afternoon the sun appeared for a while so I thought I'd do a bit more apple tree pruning. I did but there wasn't much warmth in the sun and it didn't last long. As I write the temperature in my greenhouse now is 0.5°C so I've just had to nip out and light the paraffin heater. It's not going to get much warmer this week, I understand.

Tuesday night I attended a meeting of the council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee to see if they would accept the recommendations of a working group looking at the future of allotments in Worthing. To cut a long story short, they did. There was an amount of debate which was largely a waste of time as they voted strictly along party lines even though this was a totally non-political issue. There was a healthy presence of allotment holders, particularly of your Association Committee, and they made some good points. The report was recommended to the cabinet without amendment. One of the recommendations was that the council should have an allotments policy. Apparently up until now they've never had one!

The council want to save money on the running of the allotments, it seems. One option might be self-management. i.e. the allotments are managed by the tenants (YOU & ME) themselves. To explain this to us all they have invited a speaker, Paul Neary of the Allotments Regeneration Initiative and booked a large section of the Town Hall to accommodate us all on the 1st March at 6.00pm. There should be notices on all the allotment site notice boards to invite you to attend. I think we all should!

Monday, 17th January

Action of a sort this weekend, I suppose. I transported my £2 compost bin to the allotment and returned with my last 3 parsnips and a large saveloy Savoy cabbage for Sunday dinner. Stocks are definitely running low: no more parsnips, carrots or leeks, 4 Charlotte potatoes and a few scrawny "reject" onions that always get left till last. I've still got half a bucket of apples and one or two winter cabbages. Until the weekend I even had a few summer cabbages but they're way past their best so in the compost bin they went.

I've also belatedly started pruning my apple trees, the Howgate Wonder (cooker) first as it's the easiest. Could be a scaffolding job when it comes round to the Discovery. Anyway it's raining again now.

Still no sign of the onion seeds germinating but my garlic is shooting at last and one or two snowdrop flowers are showing. I think the only other thing my garden has in bloom at the moment is the big Mahonia bush which has been flowering for a couple of months or so - a very reliable performer.

Inside I've been trying to put together an Ikea bookcase. Whenever I do this self-assembly stuff I always swear "Never again!" but it's not like anybody's going to see it and it was only £20. It went together remarkably well until it came to the last bit, putting on the back. It was made of a foldy, cardboardy substance and pushing it along the grooves was like trying to thread cooked spaghetti through a keyhole. I managed it in the end but when I stood it up the back folded and collapsed. I laid it down to have another go, stood on the plinth and snapped it in half; well, it is only chipboard. Never again! I'd sooner go to the Council meeting tomorrow night.

Thursday, 13th January

Wet! Wet! Wet! Even our walking group was cancelled yesterday although I did manage to get a few things done before the rain came. A lady who's just moved house found a compost bin in her garden full to the brim and she has no use for it so I promised to empty it for her and get rid of it, kind hearted soul that I am. The top half of the bin contained nothing but grass clippings which had welded together whereas the bottom half seemed to be full of compacted earth. Not a worm in sight. Still I managed to remove about two thirds of it into 6 big compost bags before I'd had enough. "You can have the bin as well when it's empty," she said. Little did she know I'd ordered 2 compost bins just the day before but I have promised I'll find it a good home.

I can't really complain about the 2 bins I bought. They only cost me £3 (for the two!) and they arrived the next day. They're 220l plastic bins as pictured above and anyone can order them by going to http://www.wsussex.getcomposting.com but they are restricted to 2 per household. The first one costs £2 and you can get a second for £1. The catch? Well, you do have to pay £5 delivery so I ended up paying all of £8 for 2 bins.

All spend, isn't it? I've already shelled out £40 for the Association Dinner (Mrs N insisted on coming along too) - Jack tells me it's going very well - and another £40 for my allotment rental but I think my next sortie is free. I'm going to the council's Overview and Scutiny Committee meeting next Tuesday evening (details on our News page - it's open to anybody) to hear what they have to say about the future of allotments in Worthing. That should cheer me up no end. See you there?

Monday, 10th January

Where have I been? Well, I'd like to say I've been too busy on the allotment to write any notes but the weather has conspired to make that impossible. First the rain and then the thawed frost so my plot will be like a pudding. And what's the forescast fot the rest of the week? More rain! I have managed to get some jobs done: I finished raking and bagging up the leaves (8 bags) and belatedly got round to sowing some onions. The onions I sowed last year came to nothing and I dare say these will be the same but the seeds were free so I'll give it another go. They're in little glass-covered trays on the boiler at the moment.

One place Mrs N and I did go to last week was Brighton. Not for anything special apart for a prize for the Allotments Dinner lucky ticket draw, just a mosey around. It chucked it down so we took refuge in the Brighton museum as it was dry, warm, free and we'd never been there. I was a bit disapponted really as the collections came from all over the world and all periods even Egyptian mummies. Although there was a section on Brighton I expected it to be much more the centre of the exhibition. I mean I could see the relevance of Punch and Judy, Mods and Rockers gear and saucy seaside stuff but puppets from Burma and other exotic locations left me a little puzzled. If I wanted to see a good exhibition of such items I'd go to the British Museum or something.

We also spent an afternoon in Sevenoaks where I'd never been before. Quite quaint but I don't know that I'll be hurrying back. I think we'd have enjoyed the Knole park with its National Trust house and friendly deer if the house hadn't been closed, the ground hadn't been so muddy and the wind hadn't been so bitterly cold. On second thoughts I think I will return there and give it another chance on a better day.

Sunday, 2nd January 2011

Well, that's that then: Christmas and New Year over and done with for another year. And here in the Ned household a great time was had by one and all. Christmas was a family affair with sons and significant halves and grandmothers visiting whereas New Year was celebrated with a crowd of allotment friends round our place - a five-hour meal with people bringing different courses and drinks. And a picture quiz amongs other things. The biggest surprise of the evening was when Lez turned up in kilt and full regalia including a skean-dhu stuffed down his knee-length white stocking. Yes, you've guessed it - Lez is Scottish. He and his wife, Kate, also brought along a Black Bun which they cut once the New Year had been let in with a lump of coal. I don't have the recipe for Black Bun but its like an alcohol-fuelled rich Christmas cake enclosed in pastry which makes it look like a giant pork pie. Tastes lovely but you can't eat a lot of it, especially after 4 other courses and a few bottles of liquid refreshment. I do have the recipé, however, for one of the desserts, Chocolate Apple Betty (thank you, Lyn) which I've put on our Recipes page. Luckily I've still got a few cookers left over so maybe I could persuade Mrs N to give it a go. On the other hand New Year's Resolution says, "Back to healthy eating and lose some of that accumulated pork round the middle!"

I did make an effort this morning when I went to the allotment and forked over a bit of a large weedy area. Not much though; the soil is still very wet and heavy and it was hard going. 40 minutes and I'd had enough. There weren't many others knocking about and I'd thought on a sunny (-ish) morning it would be teeming with well intentioned allotmenteers determined to set off the New Year in style. Well, there was Spike, still building his greenhouse although the roof is now glazed, and one or two other die-hards but that was about it. And it wasn't long before there was one less.