Bower Ashton store
Is open on Sunday mornings 10.30 - 11.30 selling the same stock as the Alderman Moores stores.
Stores Stop Press
Silver sand and horticultural grit are available in 25 Kg bags at £3.50 and £4 respectively. (Use mixed with compost to make a well draining planting medium for
seeds). Get in a supply now, ready for sowing seeds and taking cuttings at home or in the greenhouse next year, or use when planting alpines or other plants that like
well-drained winter conditions eg lavender, thyme, cistus, or use the sand as part of lawn maintenance.
210L (45 gal) water butts (including lid & tap) still available at the knockdown price of £22. If you want one,order it from the stores and pay the cost in advance. Our gallant waterbutt team
will then purchase and collect them and deliver them either to the stores, or to your allotment if you can make arrangements to be there.
Auction of tools
There will be an auction of tools at Alderman Moores Store at 12 noon on Sunday June 17th The tools include a strimmer and rotovator which are surplus to allotment committee needs and are sold as seen. If you have items you want to sell — bring them along.
Site Inspections
Well done — the majority of plots were well under way at the first site inspection — I had far fewer letters to write and mostly they were about shed maintenance rather than lack of cultivation. At the second site inspection only a handful of plot- holders failed to pass muster. Keep it up.
Third site inspection coming up soon. I anticipate that the inspection teams will recommend some exceptionally good plots to go forward to the Bristol City Council judging panel (see Bristol Flower Show - Allotments Fair info below), and that they will also recommend some first year plotholders for HWDAA awards for dedication and innovation in their first year! Also they will be recommending the best plots for judging for our own ‘best association plot’ award — the Harry Green shield.
Shed Preservatives
I have had one or two moans about having to apply shed preservative, and no doubt others are quietly fuming about this unpopular subject, but I am afraid that it is required under the terms of the tenancy agreement (along with other shed maintenance,
e.g. roofing felt). This is because HWDAA supplies the sheds and needs them maintained so that they do not have to be replaced (at significant expense to the Association) when a new tenant takes over. If you want to check the exact requirements, see information bulletin dated 5th December 2002 which is issued with new tenant packs — consult a copy in the stores if you don’t have one. It is possible that if you
have used transparent or very light shed paint, our inspection teams could not tell that preservative had been applied. Unfortunately, however, this provides no protection from the ravages of ultra-violet light, which hardens and cracks the wood. It is therefore essential that only dark pigment preservatives are used. From the Association’s viewpoint, failure to undertake this simple task raises doubts as to the tenant’s commitment to the plot, since the painting of a shed should take no more than about an hour. Frequency depends on the weather to which the shed has been subjected, and how shaded each side is, but once every other year would probably suffice.
Ponds
Although beloved of those seeking frogs / toads / newts to help reduce the slug population, they can be a health hazard if too deep or ill-defined or allowed to become overgrown. And children have been known to drown in them (fortunately not on any of our sites). For all these reasons, I suggest they are not much more than 6 inches deep and are clearly marked by a surround of bricks/stones/a low wall (with gaps to allow the frogs to get out).
Rent Discounts
People wishing to apply for a discount on their allotment rent must fill out an ‘Allotment Rent Reduction Application Form’. Our Secretary has a
few of the forms, or else you can phone the Allotments Office, Bristol City Council (922 3737) to get them direct. Remember that the allotments office is only open to callers by appointment at very limited times. The completed form
and supporting documentation must be with the Council Allotments Office by the 15th September 2007 at the very latest, otherwise the reduction cannot be sanctioned and you will have to pay the full plot rent for the year.
NB DO NOT return the form to HW&DAA. It will not be forwarded to the Allotments Office.
Bristol Flower Show — Allotments Fair
The flower show takes place on the Downs on 17th
— 19th August (Friday — Sunday). All our Sites
have been entered for the ‘table of allotment produce’ class, and we hope to build on the successes of previous years. Speak to your site rep now if you are able to help, either with supplying fruit,
vegtables, herbs and flowers, or with assembling the stand on the 16th August (the site reps are always very keen to recruit people with artistic / design flair as well as humble suppliers, fetchers and carriers).
In addition to the site-as-a-whole stands, over the summer, judges visit allotments over the whole of Bristol and award prizes (on Flower Show Sunday) for:
• Best kept Allotment,
• Most Ecological Plot,
• Most Innovative or Unusual Plot,
• Best First Year Tenanted Plot,
• Best Scarecrow (a new class!)
During site inspections, we make a note of plots to put forward for the judging panel to consider for the first 4 categories, but you have to enter for the scarecrow class — details in March newsletter.
In addition to these pure allotment categories, you can of course enter for individual classes — see Dorothy Bowles’ article about this in the March newsletter (copy on
this website if you’ve lost it).
Reminder
Please do not go onto other people’s plots (yourself, your children or helpers or dogs) without an invitation. And especially, do not do anything on someone else’s plot without express permission, even if you think it’s helpful. This is very obvious, but the reason I have to mention it is that I have had a report that a plotholder discovered that someone else had sprayed some weedkiller on some (low) nettles growing around their shed and pond. Although sure that this intrusion was meant to be helpful, the plotholder gardens organically and wanted to remove the nettles by hand — and unfortunately the spray had also killed off a pond edging plant. As we garden at close quarters, we have to be able to trust each other, including being sure that no- one will go on to our plot in our absence. But I hope this reminder will not dampen the community spirit on the sites — one of the joys of an allotment is having people help each other out, and also being able to walk around (keeping to the pathways and haulingways) to look at other plots to get ideas and inspiration and advice.
I regret to have to announce the death of Ray Glanville, a stalwart tenant on Alderman Moores. He was a tenant for 33 years, during which Plot 271 was always immaculate and an object lesson to us all. A quiet, kindly and unassuming man, he will be sorely missed. His son Mark has aided him over the last few years and now appears to be following in his father’s footsteps. For those who are reluctant to maintain an adjacent hedge, I commend them to AM 271.
Bob Franks
For Computer Users
Email addresses
Unless you have a rooted objection, please could you provide me with your email address so that the committee can make swift and secure personal contact on matters affecting your plot, and for general allotment business only (eg sending newsletters). This will not be made available to anyone outside the committee. Send an email via the website, or to
Bob Corfield.
HWDAA website has useful information such as contact details for committee members, stores’ opening times and details of stock and prices. It also has useful links to other sites including Gardeners World and the 24 hour and 5 day weather forecasts for Bristol from the BBC. http://tinyurl.com/29hysn/hwdaa.htm
There are several interactive features, including a direct email link to the newsletter editor and other committee members. You can post notices, e.g. items for sale, announcements (subject to validation by the webmaster), you can make suggestions for items to stock in the stores, and there is a NEW blog area which is a forum where you can post queries about allotmenteering and where the experts can reply or comment on previous entries.
If you have some other digital photos of the Stores opening, or indeed any fine photos of interest to other plotholders (digital only of course), email them to me to post on the website
Bob Corfield
HWDAA webmaster
Home made Fertilisers
Making fertiliser from plants and manure already on our plots is a way of feeding crops naturally and cheaply. Here are some recipes for liquid feeds.
LIQUID MANURE -
make from any animal manure (horse, cow, poultry, sheep, goat, pigs, pigeons) provided the animals have been bedded on straw litter, not woodchip.
Equipment: - Hessian sack eg large potato sack - Large stone - Large water butt preferably with a tap - String and Baton
Method:
1. Put stone in bottom of sack and then put in about 40 litres of well rotted manure. Tie the top of the sack
2. Tie a baton! broom handle to the top of the sack and suspend inside the butt. Fill the butt with water.
3. Leave to ferment for 7 days - squeeze occasionally
4. Draw off the resulting liquid and dilute with water in the following ratios:
Cow / horse origin I : Water 2 Pig / goat I Fowl origin I : Water 3
5. The same sack of manure can be used to make a second batch of liquid fertiliser before you discard it on the compost heap
COMFREY LIQUID FEED -
Make this from comfrey leaves in Spring and Summer.
Equipment- Bucket with lid / water butt with tap, stone / slab (depending on the amount you want to make!)
Method:
1. Pack fresh cut comfrey leaves into the butt or bucket to about 3/4 full, weigh down with stone or small concrete slab and top up with water.
2. Leave to ferment for 3-4 weeks in summer, twice as long in winter.
3. Draw off liquid and dilute with water 1:20
Be warned — the black liquid produced is VERY FOUL SMELLING so don’t place the fermenting liquid near a sitting area. But don’t be put off by this, it’s highly nutritious for plants!
4. Use the remains of the leaves as an activator on the compost heap.
NETTLE LIQUID FEED -
Make this from nettle leaves in April and May. (Remember this one for next year!) This can also be used as a greenfly pesticide, as well as a feed.
Equipment- Water butt with tap / bucket, stone / slab
Method:
1. Fill the butt / bucket three-quarter full with fresh green nettles tops, weigh down with stone / slab, fill up with water.
2. Leave to ferment for 14 days.
3. Draw off the liquid and dilute in equal parts with water (ie 50:50) before use.
5. Compost the plant residue when the liquid is drawn off.
General Points for all liquid feeds
Use as a liquid fertiliser on the soil or grow bags, or as a foliar feed (ie apply using a fine rose setting or spray until the liquid runs off the leaves)
- If in doubt, dilute on the weak side
- Plants will benefit from a weak solution twice a week rather than one strong application per week.
- Always moisten the soil/compost before applying liquid feed.
- Beware of using foliar feed in bright sunshine as scorch may occur on the leaves.
- Use as a supplement to other feeds, eg bonemeal, as P (phosphorus) and K (potassium) may not be as well represented in these home made fertilisers as N (nitrogen)
Comfrey, Rhubarb, Nettle + Horseradish LEAVES -
decompose readily, so are a useful quick acting fertilizer. If chopped up they decompose even quicker.
a) Spread leaves (nb no nettle or horseradish stems) in a 10-15 cm layer around onions, beans, potatoes, tomatoes and soft fruit plants to provide a top dressing / mulch.
b) Dig leaves directly into soil, or lay in trenches, before planting seeds or plants.
Gill Crawley
(committee environment rep)
From your Editor
MANURE
New source
Collect some very well-rotted (2 years old) horse manure, consisting mainly of droppings collected from the field + some wood shavings, from Nancy Jennings in Dundry, just south of Bristol. Contact her by email nancy@dotmoth.co.uk or phone
0117 978 0696 to arrange a suitable time. She’s asking for £5 to pay for her time in showing you the place etc. but you can collect as much as you want — bring own shovel, bags and gloves! Cars can be driven right up to the heap in dry weather.
Manure from Grange Farm
Rita and Derek will not be delivering manure in September, but there is plenty available now, so you can order it now or arrange for delivery later on in August.
Woodchips and Bristol City Council
In the last newsletter I mentioned that the Council’s woodchip stock is no longer available to purchase. This is because they are using the chips to fuel a biomass boiler for sustainable heating in the greenhouses at their Blaise plant nursery for flowers and other bedding plants. Think of this as you admire the roundabouts etc in the city.
Rats
If you have a rat problem, contact Brian Gorrigan (AM 116, tel: 963 4811) if you are on Alderman Moores, or Pete Sinclair (963 8366) if you are on any other site. Remember that turning the compost heap(s) regularly disturbs them and perhaps puts them off nesting there.
But spare a thought for poor Indian farmers in the north east state of Mizoram who are facing famine due to a rat plague. It’s linked to the flowering of a rare species of bamboo in the forests there, the melocanna baccifera, which flowers every 48 years or so, dropping millions of protein-rich seeds that are devoured by the rats, causing a population explosion. When the seed supply is exhausted, the rats move to crops and granaries. The last plague was in 1958/9 and before that 1911. The flowering started in May 2006 and this year the prospects of famine have been worsened by the fact that many farmers have decided not to plant rice and grains because they are resigned to their cops being destroyed by the hordes of rats. The local government are offering a reward for rats tails and apparently nearly half a million tails have already been handed in.
Compost Tips
For those of you with a ‘special bucket’ in the shed here’s a tip from the ‘Thorny Problems’ page in the gardening section of the Saturday Telegraph;
one reader wrote concerned about the fate of all those useful red composting worms if, as is commonly recommended, “liquid personal waste” (i.e. urine) is used to pep up the action of compost heaps. Is it too acid and will it kill the worms? The answer is yes, liquid personal waste should be diluted 50:50 with water first to reduce its acidity. Bad news for the nation’s secret “compost accelerators”, who thought up until now that they were doing something helpful.
Allotments course
Theory on Weds evening and practical on Saturday mornings City of Bristol College —details coming out soon — contact 312 500 for brochure, Andy Coombe Ext 5884 for queries about horticultural courses.
Last year there was a financial incentive for allotment holders — you paid for the course, then reclaimed half or all your allotment rent for the year from the City Council Allotments Office (depending on whether you were an old hand, or a first year
plotholder), and this may apply again this September.
Other Courses starting September 2007
RHS level 2 Certificate in Horticulture (a mainly theoretical overview of everything to do with gardening, including propagation, plant biology, garden layout and design, ornamental horticulture, fruit + veg growing, soil science and general horticultural practice — very useful and interesting though much wider than you need for working an allotment).
Offered by
-Filton College (starting week beginning Sept 18th) at Bristol Zoo Tuesdays 9.30 — 2.30 (and as an evening course at 4 centres: Kingswood, Yate, Wise campus,
Thornbury) Contact Filton College (931 2121) for brochure and admission form, or Chris Viner, tutor, (330 1580) with queries.
-Bristol University Botanic Gardens (Weds 7 — 9.30) Course starting this Sept is full but you can go on the waiting list., contact courses coordinator 331 4906
- City of Bristol College (contact details above)
Filton College also offer these courses:
NPTC Level 1 Certificate in Horticultural Skills
You choose 12 out of a wide range of 53 short courses. Topics include, soils, propagation, turf, plant ID, tree and shrub planting, cultivation skills, tools and equipment, landscape construction techniques. Usually Mondays 9.30 - 2.30 at Hollywood Towers Nursery, Cribbs Causeway but may take place at other times and places depending on interest expressed.
City and Guilds Certificate in Gardening (Practical) Fridays 9.30 - 2.30 Venue Hollywood Towers Nursery. Optional units include soils, garden design, propagation, organic gardening, vegetable production, fruit production, and more!
City of Bristol College also offer other horticultural courses and details will be available in a week or so. Contact 312 5000.
WEA also have courses at Windmill City Farm — no details at the moment — but contact 0845 458
2758 in a month or so’s time.
Seasonal Recipe
I tried out this recipe — but without the borage followers as my borage plants are still tiny — was absolutely delicious and I’m looking forward to making it with the extra flower flavour later.
Gooseberry and borage flower fool (for 4)
1 lb (450g) red or green gooseberries
caster sugar to taste
7 fl oz (200 ml) crème fraiche
2 tablespoons borage flowers, prepared by removing the pistils and stamens (the whole of the black centre)
12 whole borage flowers for decoration
1. Cook the gooseberries in a large pan with tablespoons of water and a small amount of sugar. Stir from time to time. When soft, remove from heat and allow to cool. Check for sweetness, adding sugar if necessary.
2.Puree the gooseberries (in food processor, liquidizer, through sieve)
3. Mix half the fruit puree with the crème fraiche in a large mixing bowl.. Add the borage flowers.
4. Into four individual glasses or bowls, layer alternate spoonfuls of fruit puree and the crème fraiche mixture until full. Decorate each container with 3 whole flowers and chill in fridge before serving.
(from Cooking with Flowers by Jekka McVicar)
