What allotment holders do when it rains

And rains, and rains and rains …

Well, some of us are honing our crime-scene skills like Garden Punks Chris and Katie who’ve been on the trail of a seed thief. Others are counting their seed potatoes or weeding out the couch grass.

We are trying to re-roof 201’s shed. Compared to the tiny shed on Duncan’s plot, 201’s shed is palatial: we’re calling it ‘The Swiss Chalet’ – but it don’t half leak! There are three reasons for this:

1 – the holes rubbed in the roofing felt by the branches of the pear tree means that the rain comes straight through the roof and drips down the rafters

2 – the blocked guttering and stolen water butt that mean a trickle of rain runs down the side of the shed and seeps mordantly into a puddle that then travels up the side of the shed by capillary action

3 – the eejits who nailed a batten to the shed roof, with three nails, meaning there are three routes via which miniscule amounts of water can sink through the roof and drip to the shed floor.

And a wet shed is a miserable thing. So we’ve spent the weekend trying to lay roofing felt in the driving rain, while getting our eyes (and other bits of anatomy) poked by sharp bits of pear tree. Which makes it all the more galling when you see that one of your neighbours is so far ahead of the game that they’ve dug over all their summer beds already … honestly, some people are just too organised for their own good!

Labels: allotment-autumn, allotment-beds, allotment-rain, allotment-shed

Allotment sheds …

Or, if you prefer, what goes up had better not come down! Because on Saturday, when the weather was glorious and the team was foregathered in one place (‘the team’ is what we rather grandiosely call it when the three of us are on the plot at the same time) it was the right time to put up Duncan’s shed.

The shed has been a bit of a saga – there were several attempted deliveries that didn’t work out, and then a second shed arrived after the first one, for no discernable reason at all, and then the shed had to be painted with some form of preservative, and as Duncan doesn’t have anywhere to store and paint a shed, and we do, it had to come to our house, then it had to go back to the plot, then we had to buy paving … you get the picture – it’s been one of those projects that seemed to go on forever without actually progressing.

And then, suddenly, it did. It’s a very small shed, and there are two quite large men in ‘the team’ so my role was limited to making tea and doing a bit of digging over what will become the bed for the over-wintering broad beans, while they did all the levelling and hammering, and cursing and tearing up of instructions (they were actually completely the wrong instructions, for an entirely different shed, so it’s not as drastic as it sounds) and then suddenly, there was a avocado and lavender coloured shed where no shed had been before ….

And the first of the garlic has poked its head above the soil where, it seems to me, I only planted it only hours ago. No sign of the seed onions or the onion sets yet, but I am living in hope of them appearing any minute.

Labels: allotment-broad-beans, allotment-garlic, allotment-onions, allotment-shed

Allotment sheds

This is what everything at our allotment looked like, and felt like, today – covered in fat drops of rain that make fruit slip from your fingers as you tried to pick it, dropped on your head and neck at unexpected moments when you were digging, or made the grass slippery underfoot so that as you carried tools and pallets and posts to and fro. Not a great deal of fun, to be honest.

But it had to be done, because next Sunday – come hell or high water (and high water looks considerably more likely!) we are going to put up El Shed! Yes, the partly-painted shed is to be in place by the end of next weekend, and that’s that.

So today we had to get a couple of things done, to whit: clearing out some slimy old lettuce to make room for the overwintering onions (so far we have the onion seeds but not the sets or the two kinds of garlic - hard neck and soft neck) and banging in some pallets along the side of the allotment where the prevailing wind whistles across with Siberian bitterness. Duncan busied himself with digging over the ground where the shed will stand, and I did a soil pH test which confirmed what we already knew – our soil is neutral!

Labels: allotment-fruit, allotment-shed, allotment-winter-onions

Curry, National Allotment Week, August sowings

Well the curry was good – not superb but definitely good. Since then I’ve tried the Green & Black’s courgette cake, which IS superb and been introduced to the sneaky world of ‘extending’ meat.

Sounds very dubious doesn’t it? But our grandmothers knew that meat was the most expensive part of any meal, so they worked out many sneaky ways of stretching the meat to make it seem like more to the hungry mouths around their tables. One way was to grate vegetables and mix them with minced meat … and I have discovered that if you grate some peeled overgrown courgette into beef mince, it makes a very nice moist cottage pie and nobody is any the wiser!

But back to allotmenteering – did you notice National Allotment Week? No, nor did I. It’s a shame not more is done to celebrate allotments on a national scale, I think. Perhaps next year we could have a blogfest for National Allotment Week, with each of us showcasing our allotment site – what do you think? We celebrated in style, if very locally, because Duncan’s shed arrived! It’s got to be wood-preserved before it goes up to the allotment (my job, as I love painting wood) and we’ve also got to clear the ground and put down some kind of hardstanding but it feels great to know that we’re about to set up our very own (well, Duncan’s very own) shed.

Seeds I’m planning to plant this month:

• Mustard greens – because they are hardy and keep producing new leaves, assuming you harvest them regularly, even in terrible weather
• Kale - to overwinter in a polytunnel because that way we’ll get for delicious green stuff through until next spring
• Winter radish - for soups, stews and stir-fries

Labels: allotment-august-sowings, allotment-autumn, allotment-courgettes, allotment-kale, allotment-mustard-greens, allotment-shed, allotment-winter-radish, national-allotment-week

Sheds, security and villains

After the summer months many people will lock allotment equipment in their shed because it won’t be used until the following spring. Local police forces are reminding householders, and allotment holders, to pay attention on their shed security.

Garden equipment can be expensive to replace and more alarmingly, many of the tools stored in a shed could be used by a housebreaker to gain entry to a property. Spades, screwdrivers and hammers have all been used to overcome the security of homes, so it is vitally important that the shed and its contents are as secure as possible. It is also important that to check the security of the shed regularly, because if the worst happens and it is broken into, it is important the police are advised as soon as possible. If you’re not going to be visiting your allotment so often in winter, perhaps you can arrange with another allotment holder that you’ll check his/her shed whenever you go to the site and he or she will check yours whenever they visit.

There are various styles of locks available. One of the most common is a padlock and hasp, but the type used and how they are fitted to the shed means the level of security varies greatly from minimal to very secure. For maximum safety, the hasp should be attached to a secure mounting point, such as a solid piece of wood attached to the interior of the shed, as the shell of the shed is relatively weak. The hasp itself should also have concealed fixings or recessed bolts. For additional security the use of a closed shackle padlock should be considered as they offer greater security than standard a padlock. An alternative is a mortice style lock specifically for sheds; this style of lock also offers relatively good security.

If you have a shed with a window, consider placing a screen or blind on the inside – if people can’t see in, they are less tempted to break in, as they don’t know if it will be worth their trouble.

Labels: allotment-break-ins, allotment-security, allotment-shed

Shed aesthetics – the name’s the thing

Have you named your allotment shed? This is one of those issues that seems to divide allotment owners pretty evenly in two, with half thinking that not naming a shed would be like not naming a dog, and the other half thinking that such behaviour is twee and rather suspect.

It’s odd, one of those cultural behaviours that is entirely British and eccentric. I can’t imagine people in France ever stopping to consider if they should give their shed a moniker, can you? I haven’t ever named a shed, but if I did, this would be the name I’d choose. And it’s a bit like the issue of plot numbers; another cultural practice that varies from place to place and yet has quite clear conventions.

A lot of the plots on my allotment site have number-plate numbers. That is, they’ve gone down to the local number-plate maker and had their plot number stuck to a yellow car number-plate in black numerals. Just a mile away, all the plot numbers are painted on bits of wood and over in the next county, plot numbers are displayed vertically on the gate-post – they might be plastic numbers nailed on, or painted numbers, but they are on the post, not put up as a separate sign.

In Dorset I know of an allotment site where most of the numbers are done in pokerwork on slices of tree trunk – presumably there’s a resident poker-worker and tree-feller who does great business, and in Yorkshire there’s at least one local council that provides plastic laminated plot numbers (for a fee, presumably).

All fascinating stuff – perhaps I should write a thesis …

Labels: allotment-appearance, allotment-shed

Shed Aesthetics – the real tin lizzy

I’ll tell you what you don’t see often these days; the old Anderson Shelters that used to be found on allotments (and being used as pigpens) right up until, I suppose, the late seventies.

An Anderson Shelter was made from six curved sheets bolted together at the top, with steel plates at either end – they were half buried in the ground with earth heaped on top. The entrance was protected by a steel shield and an earthen blast wall. Why? To protect the great British Public from Hitler’s dastardly air raids, of course

Anderson Shelters were given free to people receiving the dole while men who earned more than £5.00 (ah, inflation!) a week could buy one for £7.00. By the end of 1939, around two million families had shelters in their gardens.

In March 1941 the government began issuing Morrison Shelters, which were named after the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison (grandfather of Peter Mandelson, but you knew that didn’t you?) the shelters were made of very heavy steel and could be put in the living room and used as a table. One wire side lifted up for people to crawl underneath and get inside. Morrison shelters were fairly large and provided sleeping space for two or three people but you couldn’t use them on an allotment as a shed!

Labels: allotment-building, allotment-shed, shed-aesthetics

Shed Aesthetics 2

The 'ice cream parlour' shed belongs to Keith, who is a lucky chap, as the allotment he shares with Chris as a co-worker actually backs onto Keith’s own garden. And the shed in question is called the ice cream shed because one of Keith’s allotment neighbours, Margaret, thought it looked like those ice cream kiosks you get on the seafront and made up the signs on the door which read Keith’s Amazing Architectural Ice Cream Parlour and a list saying Choc Ices, Knickerbocker Glories, Ice Cream Sundaes, Wafers and Ice Lollies and finally Ice Creams are offered free of charge but we hope you will consider standing on your head while you eat it!

Keith’s is an astonishingly tidy shed, unlike my own, which is the kind of shed Terry Pratchett talks about when he describes one as ‘the kind of place where, if you turned your back for a minute, the hosepipe would disentangle itself and tie the wheelbarrow to the bicycles’ or something of that nature.

I’d love to have a tidy shed, but it’s not in my nature. In fact it seems beyond me to have a shed that you can turn round it without knocking something over, and rather horribly, a mouse crawled into the footings in July and died (or maybe drowned!) so the whole place is permeated by the smell of decomposing mouse, liberally topped with copious libations of Jeyes Fluid to render the place a bit more nose-acceptable. It’s one of those things that happens from time to time, isn’t it - mouse decease – I mean, and you just have to either accept a rather rancid couple of weeks, or tear the shed down to the foundations to find the sad little corpse. Being a tough cookie, I splash the Jeyes Fluid around, telling myself it’s a fine disinfectant and wood preservative as well as an odour blocker, and get on with sorting my autumn bulbs.

Perhaps though, there’s another way - what would you do?

Labels: allotment-building, allotment-mouse, allotment-shed

Allotment Aesthetics - Sheds

Well, what’s yours like? The shed is something that really gives away the personality, and purposes, of an allotment holder. There are severely practical sheds, weirdly personal sheds, artistic sheds, sheds that you suspect are actually more comfortable (and more lived in!) than the allotment holder’s home, and collapsing sheds.

My own shed is nothing special, mainly because I spend most of my time haunting other people’s sheds, poking in their corners and cupboards and making a nuisance of myself under the claim that ‘I’m going to write about this!’

Some sheds are well insulated, so that even through the winter, the resident can be cosy inside – does that mean they have an unhappy home life or are just sensibly comfort loving? Lots of sheds have solar panels now and most sheds have a kettle and some mugs, but one that I know of contains a bread maker. The allotment holder sets his bread off overnight and wanders down to the allotment the next morning to treat himself to a slice of still-warm bread and butter for breakfast – and yes, we do all hang around his door waiting to see if we’re going to be the lucky ones who get to share the loaf! I’ve been to a shed that contains a potter’s wheel and another that held a loom (and to be honest, not much else, a loom takes up a lot of room!) and I can think of at least a dozen sheds that have bunches of herbs hanging from the ceiling so that each time you enter them the fragrances of the garden overwhelm you.

Some of my recent favourites include a corrugated iron shed at Hurstpierpoint allotments that reminded me of the tool sheds that one finds everywhere in Trinidad, a ‘boat’ shed, that was just a fibreglass boat turned on end with a door fitted, and Louise’s shed, which has been painted a glorious pea green and contains, as well as tools and other allotment stuff, bits of her artwork and – always – a lovely bunch of flowers.

But this one, you’ve got to admit, beats them all hollow – half Tardis, half 1960s style icon, there is something ineffably cool and groovy about the red telephone box, and using it to store your rakes, hoes and spades is rather cool and groovy too.

Labels: allotment-secrets, allotment-shed, garden-shed, telephone-box