"When proud pied April dress’d in all his trim hath put a spirit of youth in every thing", says the Bard, who lived down the Stratford Road somewhere apparently. Pied means having patches of more than one colour, especially white - which is very accurate. After four months of monotone browny grey, the hawthorn's out!
And the flowering cherry!
And the tulips and violets seem to appear from nowhere!
But enough of the flowery stuff - the work must go on. Your old school allotmenteer doesn't muck about. Dig the whole plot over , then think what to plant.
Others take it one step at a time. Plant a section, mulch it, have a bit of a think...
Don't you just love the "use a bit of old stick and the seed packet" approach to labelling the rows? That's the proper allotment way - home made and on the cheap. Speaking of which look at this exemplary cloche system for protecting broad beans.
Isn't that brilliant? Never mind no expense spared - this is just no expense. Ditto - see below- this high-tech individual cloching system using a couple of existing fenceposts, old bamboo canes, clothes pegs and sawn off plastic bottles. It's so well-covered neither I nor the badger/muntjac/pigeons can see what's inside.
There's creativity in evidence everywhere on site. Test question - how do you combine a kids wellie store with an apple tree espalier? Simple.
We're creative, but also very hard-headed. Especially about rubbish - see below. We need to spread this message across the whole site, so do make a sign of your own if you feel the urge...
April MasterClass - 22nd April
There's no better time to learn from the master. Don't google - ask Oz! Here's the programme
10.15/10.30 Meet in pavilion or Teaching Plot
General Chat and Some Best Buys as trialled by Which Gardening.
Salad Potatoes
Onions from sets
Courgettes
Dark Leaved Dahlias
Patio Plants for Scent
Organic Slug & Snail control
Practical Stuff:
Seed Bed Preparation and seed sowing outdoors and in
pots/trays. Pricking-out and growing on.
Date for diary - May Meeting Sat 20th
Events in the Clubhouse
First big event of the Spring was the great Easter Monday curry afternoon. Your editor would have taken pics but couldnt find anywhere to park. It was PACKED. Three kinds of curry, wide range of craft beer, dominoes in the corner, knockout pool at the other end, rain outside so you couldn't work even if you wanted to. Heaven. Many thanks to Dougie and Mike for the excellent and varied curry offer and the tireless bar volunteers for providing something cooling to go with it .
And there's more to come....
8th May, 8th May, 8th May
It's a long weekend (thanks, your Kingship) and you're thinking of spending the Sunday enjoying some quality time down the plot. Do it - and don't miss these happenings!
PLANT FAIR . Please bring your surplus seedlings or cuttings in pots of any size to the seedstore from 1.00 that afternoon. We will then sell them on at bargain prices to raise funds for the site. Or just come and buy, then go either back to your plot to plant them immediately or to the bar to celebrate.
PIZZA! The boys are back - serving delicious pizza from 1.00.
Friday evening opening.
Hurrah! Those wonderful volunteers behind the bar have given up even more of their time so we can enjoy a richly deserved drink on a Friday. 6.00 - 9.00 p.m. Dates so far agreed, 26th May 13th June, 28th July, 28th August.
Other stuff
Annual General Meeting
- date for your diary 1st July - 10.30 a.m. at the Clubhouse. This is your Association and although the heroic team of volunteer committee members (may have mentioned them before) do their best to represent you for twelve months of the year, this is your only chance to express your support for them and what they're doing (or to vote them off if you don't like what they're doing). It's a chance for the chairman to set out what's been done in the past year in your name and what the plans are for the next year. Please, please please turn up if you can. We could be losing some members of the Committee and we have lots of new plotholders to welcome so it would be great to engage more of you in what we do. Coming on to the committee is just one way to support us; there are other ways you can volunteer to help which take up much less time, whether it's giving us practical help on the website, staffing the seedstore on the odd Saturday or Sunday, helping out behind the bar, being a rep for your Zone (we have vacancies) joining a work party (watch out for the tree planting news in the next Newsletter) or just coming to the AGM and contributing to the discussion on what our priorities are.
Plot inspections
- as reported in the last Newsletter. Likely date for inspections is now week commencing 24th April.