Day One

Day One
Originally uploaded by LoopZilla.

Looking back a coupla months...

Catching up

9 weeks later
Originally uploaded by Marj Joly.

It's been a while since I wrote in this blog. Too long really. But the truth is I just didn;t feel like it. Moving plots was a traumatic experience. It took us about 4 weeks to remove the old shed, clear the junk off the plot before we could start work. Most of the digging has been done from early March. Once we cleared the rubbish the ground was too wet to dig. It also took a while to finally remove everything we wanted from the old plot, and luckily most of the things we have moved seem to be surviving. But the Fig and the Christmas tree are looking a bit peaky.

I was very sad to lose our old allotment, and it was as though six months of not being able to garden have all come out over the last few weeks.

But as you can see once we started digging, we didnt stop! About three quarters of the plot is now dug over, and half of that is planted. The rest has a great crop of Japanese Knotweed growing which will be treated later this year.

So apart from getting my thesis written I am obsessed completely with getting the most out of this plot - with thanks to Gordon, Mike, Joyce and Bruce for their help.

Our new Allotment

Our new Allotment
Originally uploaded by Marj Joly.

Well, things are getting better. We have now been offered one of the spare plots on the land unaffected by the works. We'd held onto them rather than letting them out last year, when we realised we would lose land. So although the plot is very overgrown and no one has managed to cope with it for several years, it is now ours! We are ready!

I also handed over a large part of the allotment administration on Friday. All of this means I can now focus on writing, and get some exercise as there is plenty of digging to do. I love digging. You get to know the soil, the existing plants and weeds, and it keeps you fit too.

Haiku

Feeling somewhat lighter today, after making some difficult decisions about doing less allotment administration, and concentrating more on PhD, oh and not applying for jobs just yet. With freedom comes some more haiku, written on my way to work.


Sunny morning
Cigarette smoke and perfume
Mingle in the train


Dark monolith looms
A man spits by my foot
Windy Corner

The arrival of the seed potatoes

The arrival of the seed potatoes
Originally uploaded by Marj Joly.

The organic seed potatoes have arrived! They look so nice. Lovely, lovely lovely potatoes. I wonder where you will end up being planted?

Administration and Haiku

Well, things are moving on, but it has been a week of intensive allotment administration and I'm tired. As well as trying to get three chapters of PhD completed to send to supervisors, there have been emails, and emails and more emails, and a few phone calls and texts - all to do with the allotment move. It's like having two full time jobs, except I don't get paid for one of them. Stress levels very high, and all I seem to do is moan. Will it get better? I hope so...I think so. I just want to get digging. Soon. Please.

Anyway the other thing is that we (Lansbury Voices) had the opening of the Renewability exhibition this week at Mile End Art Pavilion. Nice to see our haiku in the brochure and on their web site, but they only selected some of what we had written. The blog does not enable comments, so here is my other Haiku dedicated to our friend Mark at the Lea Rivers Trust.

Wooden Crocodile
Basking in the River Lea
Watch Out Geese!

The exhibition is on until February 11th.

Also just found that the leaflet that sussex wildlife trust produced with an image from our allotment is now online here. So the old allotment lives on!

After the storm

January Violets
Originally uploaded by Marj Joly.

These lovely violets are everywhere, and remind me I need to dig them up and take them to the new plot.

The mini greehouse did not survive the storm two days ago, but we can probably use parts of it for something or other. Beverley and John's greenhouse is shattered and they lost part of the shed roof, so at least we didnt do to badly. But the shed is going to have to come apart anyway soon when we move.

Dug up the last of the parsnips, am leaving the leeks until the last possible moment, but they are not doing very well, really.

Am fed up with allotment administration, it is never ending.

Potatoes Today!

It is done. The organic seed potatoes are now ordered!

Pink Fir Apple 2kg
Charlotte 3kg
Arran Victory 3 kg
Sante 3kg

This is twice as many as ordered last year, so am being very optimistic.

Once they arrive they will be chitted, and made ready for planting on our new allotment..

Where not to try and buy organic seed potatoes

Grey day on Highgate Hill
Originally uploaded by Marj Joly.

Yesterday, while visiting a garden centre in North London, somewhere not too far away from here, I spotted some seed potatoes. I thought great, potatoes will cheer me up! However they weren't organic but I thought, well maybe they will get some in soon, or have them somewhere else in the shop? I was wrong. The manager obviously disapproved. He told me he didn't think you could buy organic seed potatoes anywhere, and then unpleasantly told me that it was not what I put in the ground, it was what I did with it after that mattered. I don't think he liked it when I mentioned I normally got them from chase organics..but as I was here (buying some very expensive plant trays) thought I would ask. He went on to tell me how I did know that what I was buying was really organic! I replied how did I know that the seed potatoes he was selling were really good quality, and had not been treated with chemicals that I didn't want? I left the shop. I will not be going back there again.

When I go shopping I don't expect to be grilled on my beliefs like that. But then I have experienced strange attitudes in other shops in this part of London as well...it's like you go up the hill, and into another world. I'm better off staying at the bottom...and will continue to buy what I want online.

The allotment in 2006

The allotment in 2006
Originally uploaded by Marj Joly.

I put this together for our allotment stall in December.

Lost sleep

Well its 2.16am here in East London, and so far I've had no sleep. Part of this is because my neighbours downstairs are having a party which involves turning the music up loud from time to time just as you think you getting to sleep and playing some of their favourite tunes; wet, wet, wet is on currently, but we have had tina turner, rod stewart (definitely a favourite of downstairs), andy stewart and the proclaimers. Oh and there is lots of shouting too.

The other thing keeping me awake is worrying about the allotment society. I'm secretary of our Society, and there is so much to do at the moment in sorting out whats happening with our new land, and getting ready to give up some of our current land at the end of the month, and trying to keep on top of communicating this all to our members. I made a list to try and empty my mind, but there is too much noise downstairs to let me just sleep...maybe I should do some of it now? But I need to rest as am meeting some flickr friends tomorrow, which have been really looking forward to. Oh my god its the Proclaimers again...500 miles. I wish they were all 500 miles away right now.

Back to the allotments. We have made so many changes to get our Society back on track, after a period of several years where basically it stagnated. If for some reason we are unable to obtain more land a lot of people will be very unhappy. There have been allotments on our site for over 100 years, and from 300 plots in 1942, we are now down to 34. We have a waterside view, and can see the sky, which is something I associate with living in the countryside. Given we are not far from central London, that is pretty special. Please let it all be alright.

A New Year - A New Allotment?

A New Year - A New Allotment?
Originally uploaded by Marj Joly.

Part of our allotment site (including my own plot that I have had since around 1993) will be lost at the end of January 2007 due to the development of a lock and flood control system in the Prescott Channel.

However, we are hoping to gain land to replace land that is lost, shown here. There are a few things to sort out still, but I have loved my allotment, and really want to be able to keep on allotment gardening for ever. There is nothing like it. Lets hope it all works out.