Sean's allotment May - week 3

Sean is planting pumpkins, clearing the plot and feeding the cat! Watch out for a very brief appearance from you know who!

My rain dance seems to have worked

The weather forecast was spot on. Lots of rain was predicted to start falling through the night and then through the day, though on a lighter scale. It was predicted to finish by 4pm. I could have set my watch by it! I'm pleased to say the ground has now had a good watering and the water butts are nearly full. The new drainage has worked as well. The plants needed a good watering - and they got it. The drawback now is that we are expecting a few days of relatively cold weather though at the moment, with the rain now gone, the sky is blue and the sun is shining.

Crystal Palace Food Market

When I was in London over the weekend I went along to the Crystal Palace food market, held on Saturday. It was organised by a group of local residents who call themselves Crystal Palace Transition Town. The group came together to promote sustainable living and local food production. They have also taken over a number of small, unused and sometimes derelict plots of land around Crystal Palace to turn them into gardens.

Those of you who know me will know that I am a keen advocate for self-reliance, sustainability and helping others to help themselves. This market was very much along these lines. Unfortunately I got there late as I was delayed by other factors and arrived an hour before the market was due to close. It was raining but that didn't seem to be dampening spirits. And it looked like most stalls had largely sold out. I spoke to one stall holder who was down to her last jar of honey. Typically, when two beekeepers are together at the moment, the conversation quickly turns to how dreadful the weather was in 2012 and 2013 has to be a better year for the bees and the honey crop.

The markets are going to be held fortnightly. There's more on their website: http://www.crystalpalacetransition.org.uk/

Allotment meeting

My support for allotments in my home town of Gateshead is well known so when an allotment issue pops up, I am often contacted (wearig my local councillor hat) by residents and the media. A few weeks ago, the Council announced allotment rent rises that would mean some would be paying a rent 330% higher than they do now. Many concerned allotment holders very quickly got in touch with me once they were informed of the rise. To cut a long story short, after I raised concerns with officers of the council (and other councillors raised similar concerns) it was announced that the Council Cabinet would not consider the proposed rent rises but there would instead be consultation with recommendations for increases coming to the Council cabinet in June. The consultation closed just over a week ago. (For the record, my allotment is privately rented, as is Dad's.)

As part of the consultation, and at the request of some of the allotment holders, I hosted a meeting earlier this month at Gateshead Civic Centre which was attended by nearly 40 allotment tenants of the Council. The meeting was positive and a wide range of concerns about the management of the sites was raised. I have been pushing for the sites to be run by the allotment holders themselves rather than by the Council. Each site would choose a committee and officers and they would set the priorities for the site, decide what work needs to be done, set the rents accordingly, collect them and spend the money on maintaining the site and the priorities the officers have decided upon. Over the past decade there has very little Council investment and expenditure on the allotment sites though the Council does claim the service is subsidised. Any work that has taken place tends to be of a reactive nature - such as sorting out damage after a flood. This would change if the system I propose is adopted.

Generally, the idea of self-management was supported by the meeting as long as sites could move towards it at their own pace. After all, it will only work if there are allotment holders on each site prepared to come forwad to be officers. The meeting was also interested in moving forward with another idea I had - setting up a Gateshead-wide society to promote allotments and food growing in the borough. Hopefully, sometime this summer we will get an organisation in place.

Blossom

My trip to London gave me the chance to see how much sooner the growing season starts compared to back home in the North East of England. The photo above is of a cherry tree in blossom. Below is a crab apple tree. Both are in Crystal Palace. Having spent 2 years as a beekeeper, I am now much more aware of how important the blossom is, not just to fruit production, but to the honey crop as well. Blossom is a major source of nectar and pollen for the bees. Back in the North East, the blossom will be with us in large quantities soon, so I'm looking forward to the bees being our in large numbers in the coming weeks.

Taking shelter from the rain

If my hopes that a bit of rain on the allotment meant the end to the dry period of recent weeks, they were a bit premature. Yes, we had rain, but it wasn't very heavy or long lasting. Still, it was enough for my hens to take shelter, for a few minutes at least, and one of them made use of an upturned wheelbarrow.

The dry period continued into today. So, in sharp contrast to this time last year, we are facing a water shortage and plants outdoors are going to have to be watered with water brought over in carriers from the house.

Fox in the garden

Having endured the loss of two of my ducks to foxes on Monday night on the allotment back home in Sunniside, yesterday I had to endure a fox lazing itself in the sun in the garden of my house in London (see photo above). Urban foxes are the pampered city cousins of the rural ones we have back home. In London they can survive in unnaturally large numbers because people leave out food for them or people waste food (often in criminal quantities). Where wheelie bins are not provided and rubbish bags are put out for collection (as is the case in Crystal Palace where my London home is) foxes are free to rip them open and have a free meal.

Foxes here in London wander around in daylight in public areas. I saw one outside Crystal Palace Sainsburys earlier this week. Back home in Sunniside, they tend to avoid human contact and stay away from housing during daylight hours. What went wrong for us on Monday evening is that two of our ducks somehow didn't get back into the duck house before it was locked up by the friend looking after them in our absence. That was when they became vulnerable.

A number of people have contacted me when learning of our loss so rest assured, all the ducks and hens are safe at night time in their duck and hen houses. We have learnt a costly lesson not to let any difficult birds who don't want to go in for the night to stay out.