Big stain

Weather: the bitter east wind still blowing, bars of snow still lingering on the opposite side of the valley. Very hazy and patchy sun. 10 degrees on the west facing side of the shed.

Back up to the plot, to get the shed painted up with some wood preservative. It'd been dry as a bone for five years and possibly more, with nothing done to it. Even after one coat, it's looking a lot better...

I still need to fix back on a side-panel of the front fence, and then paint that with preservative too.

The basic compost bin is slotted and nailed together, and now just needs a piece of carpet cut and nailed as a semi-waterproof base layer, and a stained top with a bit of a board fixed to it, to keep it from getting drenched by downpours...

Nothing to put in it yet, but I can hope :)

Some things are starting to grow leaves, including the gooseberries which have their leaves out already...

It seems the frosts are gone, but the April showers are struggling to arrive. It'll be interesting to see what happens when things get a wetting. Lots of dormant weed seeds sprouting, I'd suspect :( But I guess that's good, as I can clear them off before I start planting.

Set up your stall in Stoke town

Denise O'Sullivan's Pop-up Emporium now has booking forms for those wishing to take stalls at the big London Road Festival in Stoke town in June 2013. For those unfamiliar with the area, that's the town which sits below my plot on the Richmond St. Allotments.

Pre-spring visits

Weather: bitterly cold and strong NE wind, but sunny during the days. Frosts at night.

Back up to the plot after a month away, on Wednesday and Friday of this last week. The plot was not much changed, as nothing much is growing yet due to the intense and regular night frosts. The frosts have continued with intensity throughout March, and there was another -2 on Friday night. The snow is still lingering on the hilltops across the valley, and also on the sheltered parts of the bank at the edge of the allotments site. There was not a whit of weed growth to see, but I did a bit of hoe work anyway — just to discourage a few hardy weeds that might be sheltering just under the soil.

Up at the top of my plot there are now clearly about five patches of rhubarb coming through, ready to spurt once the frosts have gone. Also at the top, a small patch of nettles had started. A dock had also started to show signs of life. These were also discouraged with some hoe work, although of course it's really their roots which need digging out.

I was very pleased to find that Gareth has kindly provided my plot with a lovely new fence and a latching gate. Ingeniously made from old pallets and a pole he found discarded in the street...

He also gave me a tub of wood preservative, which I can use on my (very dried out) small shed, so it will match the fence.

The wood preservative also came in handy in constructing my own new compost-heap container out of old pallets — pictures of that will be here when it's finished. It's cut, nailed, and stained, but just needs a top cover to be made and stained for it now, to help keep rain off the top.

I've also purchased some basic seeds for things I'll actually eat: broad beans, courgettes, wild rocket, perpetual spinach. Plus some garlic bulbs and small onion bulbs. The seed potatoes are still covered up in the shed, raised up in the midst of some mounded netting, and (hopefully) protected from the frost.

I also discovered that Stoke town does have a basic garden centre after all, in the form of a wing of the Poundstretcher (opposite the independent second-hand record shop). Quite a bit of stock in there, at better prices than B&Q. Although no large bags of general pelleted fertiliser, sadly, or I would have had one.

Stoke Council now encouraging self-management of allotments

There has been what appears to be a significant change in allotments policy at Stoke-on-Trent City Council. The Council are now going to be actively encouraging self-management of sites, with the aim that...

"over the next five years 75 per cent of sites will have accepted a degree of shared management."

Why are they doing this? Presumably to reduce the number of hours that staff have to spend managing allotments, when autonomous committees could do a better job. But note also that user-managed sites are not counted when compiling the city's official allotments waiting-list figures. So the waiting-list will probably appear to go down. I wonder if this effect may: 1) benefit the Council politically in the elections of 2015; and 2) lessen public demands for establishing new allotments in the city, meaning the Council has more spare land to sell off to developers?

Gardeners’ Question Time in Stoke

BBC Radio 4's "Gardeners’ Question Time" programme will be coming to Stoke-on-Trent on Tuesday 28th May 2013. Venue is Harpfield Primary School on the corner of Palmers Green (off Hartshill Road), Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent.

Market forces

A unwanted municipal 18-hole golf course in Stoke-on-Trent has been given Council permission to be turned into a "community market garden", which sounds like good news. I think that means it's to be a huge allotments site which grows commercially? But I'd guess also with community features, like work for agricultural apprentices, work activities for the disabled, maybe a petting zoo for the local kids etc.

Urbivore, who are taking over the site, are advertising now for a Head Gardener and a Horticultural Trainer. Bizarrely, they've illustrated the job ads with a picture of "beautiful Cannock Chase". Erm, wrong place, lads...

Planting 400 native trees

Message about an event at my Richmond St. allotments this Saturday...

"Tree Planting on Saturday 16th March 2013, 10am-12 noon.

Please come along and lend a hand, even if it's only for half an hour.

We have over 400 native species saplings to plant as a hedge, so any help would be really appreciated!

Meet you at the top path!"

Penkhull Folk Week

Very near to my allotments site, and earthy enough to mention here: the Penkhull Folk Week music festival * 16th-24th March 2013 *

Stoke-on-Trent is having the city's first multi-day folk festival for 20 years (although an honorable mention should be made of the big one-day Folk Festival at the Irish Centre in Hartshill in 2004).

27 acts already booked, with more to come. Launches with Irish traditional musicians on St Patrick’s Day (17th March). Strictly limited number of early bird tickets on sale now at £30 - Greg Stephens on 01782 871691.

Hot stuff...

Weather: a gentle SW breeze. Very sunny and springlike. 10 degrees (15 degrees in the shed).

A perfect day for a bonfire, after the dry spell we've had lately. I heaped it up a bit, and dug into the centre, popped some newspaper and a few matches in there — and it went up like a rocket...

It all went perfectly, and I now have a nice ash mound for sprinkling around the gooseberries later in the month.

I thought I'd have to do a lot of hoe work, but the combination of dry weather and the cold nights means there has been very little growth on the dug-over plots.

I've paid my annual plot rent, and got my early seed potatoes stored in the shed and protected from frost. They'll be going in sometime in April.

Some pottery fragments I've so far found on the dug-over plot...

Interesting contrast between the blue Greek pattern and the French fleur-de-lyes. The two bottom fragments are old clay pipe stems.

And some spring buds by the shed...

I also managed to get rid of the big black bin bag of litter I'd collected on various litter-picking ventures along the roadside fence, as the committee currently have a handy skip on the site.

Beehive Inn

My photo of the Beehive Inn at Hartshill near the Richmond St. allotments. Last time I looked this is where the allotment holder meetings and committee AGM is held. Feel free to use this picture — it's licensed as Creative Commons Attribution...