Wednesday, 30th March

Hope you remembered to put your clock forward at the weekend. It's now officially Spring and things are certainly coming on. My tomato seedlings are about 2 inches tall and my leeks about 1 inch tall. My surfinias are growing strong and I might even have saved a few busy lizzies from that miserable batch I bought cheap in Tesco's. The weather in the last week has been pretty good for gardening and plants have enjoyed the conditions - my rhubarb is ready for picking now and I'm still eating last year's from the freezer. I got quite a bit done last week both in the garden at home and on the allotment. I'm still hacking back and taking bagfuls of stuff to the tip; my latest target is an overgrown hypericum - about 6-7 foot high - much of which has died in the middle.

This week has not seen me so active as we've had workmen in. I won't go into details but it's costing money. When the last one left this morning I was glad to get down to the allotment and take it out on the soil. I've also started a new compost bin. There was hardly anybody there, weird, like a ghost town of ramshackle wooden buildings (sheds!) and glasshouses. Eventually I spotted one or two others but the weather had definitely turned and a bit of a cold breeze was blowing across the site. It wasn't much fun really and I was guiltily glad when it started to rain and I had an excuse to go home. Spike had the cheek to say I had encouraged it to rain by watering a few things on my plot. Luckily the rain had stopped by the time I went for a quick afternoon stroll later on. We were going to go up to Highdown Gardens from the Titnore Lane end but decided it might be too slippery up the grass bit (wimps!) so turned round at Titnore Lane and went back to base.

I saw more people last night than either at the allotment this morning or in our walking group this afternoon. Yes, it was Pub Night and a jolly good turn-out too. One of the main topics of the day was an impending trip to Brussels again - we went there last year - and we've discovered another gardening festival on the outskirts of the city we can visit while there. I expect we'll be sharing photos at the next Pub Night.

Wednesday, 23rd March

I got my strawberry plants in at last. Ian gave me them last Autumn but I like to take my time over these things and get it right. Half of them are Marshmallow and half are Marshmarvel. I bet they don't do half as well as Ian's but I have given them a sporting chance. My soll is rather heavy so I took inspiration from one of our newer tenants to give them better drainage. This is his plot in the picture. As you can see, the whole plot looks like it's been earther up for potatoes but rather enthusiastically. This is how he's always done it before and it works for him so I thought, "Why not?" as it can only help to save my strawberries from sitting in the mud. I must stress, however, that although I copied the idea I did scale it down somewhat and planted my strawbwrries on mounds no more than 6 inches high.

It's been lovely weather on the plot recently and I have been down a few times. There's definitely more people about but I think the 2 in the next picture are definitely taking advantage of the good weather in a much more relaxed fashion than most I have encountered recently.

And who can blame them? I'm not one for sitting in the sun myself but I did go for a leisurely stroll round Whitebeam Woods and Longcroft Park this afternoon in the sunshine. I've also been enjoying it in the back garden at home putting together a cold frame at a very leisurely pace. Just got the lights to put on now. I've also been repotting a few containers but I must admit my greatest source of entertainment recenly (Schadenfreude, I must admit) came courtesy of a delivery of furniture - lots of it - to a neighbour. It wouldn't go through the door. Took them about an hour in the end as they had to empty the garage of junk, go through it and then through the French windows round the back. Then they had to put everything back in the garage afterwards. I daren't laugh too loud though, I'm afraid, as I've got a new fireplace arriving in a couple of weeks!

Friday, 18th March

Things are definitely turning yellow in our garden: primroses, daffodils, forsythia and I have some yellow spotted evergreens such as eleagnus, euonymous and aucuba. Must be Spring; well, I thought so until they forecast another frost for tonight. Still, it's been bright enough to get me out and about. Last weekend Mrs N and I together with a couple of friends went for a walk round Warnham Nature Reserve followed by a late pub lunch. It's only just up the A24 and a lovely little spot to take the kids too. Theres' a lake with hides and woodlands and we were lucky to see herons both on the water and up in the trees. In the woodlands they also have bird feeding stations where I clocked several types of tits and finches and also some pheasants amongst other things. Didn't spot anything exotic but how would I know if I did?

The weather has also encouraged me out into the back garden, the tip and the allotment. The back garden is being invaded by ivy from next door and it's climbing all through our large eleagnus so I decided to get in there and attack it with my bare hands. If you don't know, eleagnus are very thorny so I emerged with bloody scratches to my ear and hands. Still it was satisfactory to fill several more compost bags with unwanted ivy - hence the trip to the tip. What wasn't so satisfying was to be bitten on the knee by something while grovelling around under the shrub. I didn't notice at the time but for a couple of days my knee was rather uncomfortable and showed a marked reluctance to bend. Aah!

I've also been busy inside: I've been fiddling about with the website and a section on the self-management of allotments should appear in the near future. And a group of us got together this week to produce a questionnaire about it which we hope will appear in your April Plotholder. Please try to get it back to us by the 8th May then we should be able to get the results into the June Plotholder.

Friday, 11th March

Yet another hectic week in the Ned household though I can't really put it all down to gardening. Last weekend I went to Southampton and saw a Spitfire. That wasn't the purpose of my visit although I knew it would be flying overhead around half past 11 so at the appointed hour I stepped outside with my camera and listened. Unfortunately it was very cloudy and I only got a glimpse of it in the distance. But then, in the afternoon, when we were out shopping it appeared overhead twisting and turning, diving and looping. Apparently it was a lady pilot but I couldn't actually see that from my angle. Must be one of the few times I'm glad I went shopping though. Then when I got back home on Sunday afternoon there was a message waiting for me telling me there had been vandalism on West Tarring allotments. Seems they cut a hole in the chain link fencing and attacked several sheds. At first sight it was not obvious but as I walked round you could see where they'd forced locks on several sheds. Strange thing is, we've had no reports of anything taken!

Tuesday night there was a committee meeting and it was decided to put a satisfaction questionnaire in your next Plotholder so look out for it and let us know what you think. Are you a satisfied person?

The weather's been a bit better, hasn't it? I've actually put in a few shifts on the allotment and what a surprise when I went there! A brand new concrete path leading from the gate in Bolsover Road down to the first trough. Better than those old bits of rubber or whatever they were - they were lethal in Winter when it got icy. Today I planted my plum tree on the plot. I had to dig up some rhubarb to make way for it so I hope it does well. If it does half as well as the rhubarb I'll be well pleased.

Indoors I've got my first tomato seeds germinating and the surfinias look good but the bargain busy lizzies didn't turn out to be such a bargain and despite my best efforts most of them have copped it. Also indoors tonight sees the return of Gardeners' World and a comeback for Monty Don. Bye, Toby!

Saturday, 5th March

What do you know? As soon as I remove all the fleece from the plants in the greenhouse, Jack Frost makes an unwelcome return! What have I got in there? A 20 yr old orange tree, several pelargoniums and fuchsias, succulents and some spikey things in pots. Some look OK but the trailing pelargoniums do not look good (i.e.alive). On the brighter side it has been bright and dry and I have been able to do a bit of work in the back garden. I've also sown some seeds indoors, like my tomatoes and leeks, and I managed to buy some reduced price tiny busy lizzies in Tesco's. They do not look very healthy but they only cost 50p. I'm nursing them along with a bit of bottom heat and today I moved them into a full sized seed tray.

I'm still trying to clear an area at home for my recently acquired cold frame which is bigger than my old one which I've had to shift for it. When I tried to move it I didn't remember I'd anchored it to the ground and so had to dig it out which took a while longer than I'd anticipated. Then I had to dig up some things nearby to make more room the toughest of which was a cotoneaster horizontalis. It wasn't very big as I've kept it trimmed back but it had a healthy root system which I might have been pleased with under different circumstances. And I've mown the lawn! Only the little front one but it was starting to look more like a paddock than a lawn. I only used a hover on it and it does look a tad better now but oh, the moss! And there are bare patches. I'm not sure what to do right now as I'm sure moss killer would not be very effective this early in the year but if I try to rake it out I'll just end up spreading it everywhere. Looks like another excuse for doing nothing but watching and waiting. I'm good at that.

Wednesday, 2nd March

Last night I went to the talk organised by Worthing Borough Council at the Town Hall about the devolved management of allotments. Personally, and this is only my opinion, I thought it was a shambles. No attempt was made at the beginning to place the talk in context or explain why the council had organised it. This was bound to cause unease.

The speaker, Paul Neary, of the Allotments Regeneration Initiative, certainly knew his stuff but he was no natural speaker. He was not helped by the failure to provide him with a microphone which meant that people were frustrated at not being able to hear what was being said. It seems the council were completely taken aback by a turnout of about 100 people and had not prepared adequately. No attempt was made to explain the area of discussion and so to some extent the meeting was hi-jacked by people with axes to grind, particularly about allotment rents and costings. The suspicion is that the council wants to throw over the management of the allotments to the tenants just to save a few thousand quid whereas if some background to this stage of development had been given at the start of the evening and an explanation of why this presentation had been arranged many fears would have been allayed.

In the end I thought Councillor Oakley did a good job to get something positive from the meeting, gaining approval to set up a sub-committee made up of himself, Councillor Donin and about half a dozen plot holders from various sites to investigate the options in more detail before calling another open meeting.

A less biased report of the evening appears on our News page and in due course we shall publish a section on this site devoted to the self-management of allotments and what it entails.

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