The Plot Thickens

Notice how the weeds have grown this week? OK, so much of it’s my own stupid fault. Last year was such a total disaster weather-wise that I managed to let all the weeds set seed and now I’ve a veritable fort-knox of a seed bank.

I guess most of us are on nodding terms with couch, and as a weed of uncultivated heavy clay it deserves respect, but on my light sandy soil it really is ridiculously easy to lift out. Creeping buttercup is a mild anoyance, as is black bindweed, but I turned the whole plot over in the autumn and the emerging buttercup is easy enough to prise out now, and last year’s bindweed makes no effort at all to hide itself when I’m turning the bed over and this fierce spring sunshine does the business on it if I just throw it on the dug surface.

More trying are the bindweed seedlings that are just now emerging in profusion around my over-wintering onions. I really should learn to use a hoe, but my weeding technique is stone-age - I just pull everything up by hand. It all depends on why you garden I suppose, but I just kind of enjoy weeding like this.

So anywho, what’s really bothersome for me right now is chickweed. It’s such an innocuous little weed but it grows fast and creates a damptastic biodome around the onions like Lindford Christie’s nylon socks.

I have other weeds, and I’ll look them up sometime so I can tell you what they are, but one that does deserve an honorable mention is groundsel. It doesn’t do much really and it’s easy to pull up, but it has my grudging respect because even when I’ve pulled it up and left it drying in the sun it just carries on like nothing’s happened and sets seed, just to annoy me with it’s pointless existence.

View Larger MapThis is my allotment site on Google. The imagery is only a couple of years old. It’s the middle of summer so vacant plots show up well. You can see that almost half the plots are free. Today there’s a waiting list of half a dozen. Newbury is well provided with allotments and our biggest site still has vacant plots, but that’s pretty unusual now. I’ve heard stories of 10 year waiting lists in parts of the country.

Will this popularity continue? I’d be interested to know what is motivating the new generation of allotmenteers.

Earthwoman asked about the feasibility of coppice on an allotment plot. These three hazels were planted something like ten years ago now. They take a few years to establish but they would quite happily produce poles now if they were coppiced. I expect four or five years would be a reasonable cycle. Unfortunately these trees aren’t on my plot any more and my allotment rules don’t actually allow me to grow trees - I guess the council turn a blind eye to these. I’m working on the idea for a site orchard but at the moment it’s been turned down.

Jane Perrone over at Horticultural is thinking about toddler-proofing a garden. This is the water feature in my back garden. Safety is a concern with water and a waterless pond has its place. The stones and pottery fish are supported on a wire mesh and there’s a small pump in the water-filled sump. The cable comes up through a hole in the bottom of the pot, up the side and over the top of the liner. There’s a trickle of water comes out of the fishes mouths so you get the sight and sound of moving water without the risk.

First of May and the bluebells are just about at their peak. The photo was taken on the road into Great Bedwyn. A good bluebell wood is West Wood just south of Clatford outside Marlborough. I hope to get there over the weekend.