Allotment Visit

A friend took me up to visit her allotment on Thursday. I have always loved allotments. They are the very epitome of creativity. These ones are on a large and undulating site so you don't see the whole thing at once, many of its mysteries and marvels being over the next  hill. The afternoon was sunny and plenty of allotment holders had come to air their children or check their sprouts or start chitting their potatoes. An allotment site is a community in its own right. People lend hose connectors, hand out advice, admire your plants (and sometimes  complain about your bonfires.) There is company, especially for those who have been locked down alone,  and a palpable feeling of promise. 

These plots are an outlet  for invention and recycling. And they are so amazingly diverse. Some are all straight lines and raised beds while others are a jumble of different plants and ideas. 

Eco-toilet

There were one or two little hut-like structures I didn't recognise: they were eco toilets.  I much admired a full size plastic nymph reclining against a trellis. 

Gothicised bench

Stacking chairs

Seating of every imaginable kind is popular although you don't often see people actually sitting down. And seeing the contentment on people's faces and the enormous scope for learning and creating, I thought again, as I often do, how important it is that people should have somewhere to grow things and that we have no right to be building thousands of  blocks of tiny flats with often not even a balcony to grow anything on.  

Recycled water tanks can provide good containers for long rooted vegetables like carrots

My friend has had her allotment for three years now and what started off as a muddy wasteland is now a patchwork of fertile beds where she grows a remarkable assortment of vegetables, fruit and flowers for picking. Everything flourishes for her. We had a Thermos of tea and two Italian pastries in the sun and, what's more, it was the first time I'd been out since my vaccination: I had a perfectly lovely afternoon. 

A use for everything, protective fleece, variety of pots, raised beds, water butt, gas cylinder to stop the door shaking in the wind, kneeler/stool. 

As for my own garden -  the big bright yellow King Alfred daffodils are often the first to flower - and here they are. The hellebores are flourishing: in the garden they always face downwards so I pick the flowers without their stems and float them in a bowl of water and then  I can see their faces. 

Hellebores - facing up

King Alfred daffodil

The primroses are beginning to come out in earnest and there are signs of the species tulips which are always early. I am happy to see that the cutting I took of  Daphne odora at a permaculture evening class in Camden three years ago actually has buds. 

In fact the most interesting things are perhaps the various buds that haven't yet converted into maturity: the sticky buds on my neighbour's conker tree; the furry buds on my magnolia and the tight little bunches of buds on the pulmonarias. Their spotty leaves make a a pretty framework round them.

Magnolia stellata

Pulmonaria

  Horse chestnut