Gardening Blog
Allotment Diary
April 14, 2009: greener gardening
Nothing goes to waste on an allotment, says Terry Walton - old double glazing units, tea trays, buckets - everything is recycled and put to good use once more
Over the weekend there was an Easter parade passing through the clanging gates of our allotment. The weather was superb bringing masses of gardeners back to their roots. No splendid Easter bonnets on show but the usual collection of flat caps and other gardening headgear to protect that thinning pate from the mid-day sun.
The purchases of seed potatoes and onion sets which left the allotment store back in February are now returning to be planted with gusto. These latecomers doing their utmost to catch up with the veterans who have already made all their sowings.
Areas of ground are forked over into a fine tilth and these little beauties are lost below the soil. Sowings of early carrots, beetroot and peas are lovingly sprinkled into their own little furrows and covered with a light dusting of soil.
At the end of three days of fervent activity there seems to be little to show above ground and there appears to be nothing but disturbed soil. But below the surface, hidden in its dark depths, new life is beginning and seeds are germinating sending roots deep into the soil. Time will reveal all and before long, new green shoots of life will appear all around the plot. All that is required now is patience and vigilance while waiting for these new arrivals.
All too soon the weekend had passed and the allotment returned to its normality leaving just its daily inhabitants to work on the plots at a more leisurely pace. There will be those frequent social breaks to drink a cup of tea and put the world’s problems to rights.
In my early days of allotment keeping there were very few buildings to occupy part of your little plot of ten perch (300 square yards) as all of your ground was required to supply the food needed to supplement your budget. Nowadays not a plot exists without its own custom-made shed and greenhouse. The shed is a must to keep all of those gadgets and bits and pieces that gardeners collect. To the discerning eye of a gardener other people's discarded bits and pieces can be put to unique use. Trays, old buckets, pieces of wood, plastic sheeting and many other throwaways find a home in this shed. Maybe they never see the light of day ever again but there may be a future unknown use!
The greenhouse however is another matter and many of these built on our site have risen like a phoenix from the ashes. Many old double glazing units have been salvaged from a skip and crafted into a suitable home for our precious plants. My greenhouse started life as a 'prefab', one of those temporary houses that were erected during the war years. Without this structure it would not be possible to raise these early plants to steal a march on nature. Also there would not be the abundance of crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers during the summer on this wet, Welsh hillside.
There is something in a gardener’s nature that is surely inbred that hates waste and finds a use to recycle much of other people's throwaways. It is common to compost all waste food materials to make that wonderful material to add back to the soil. But on an allotment it goes much further than that and most discarded materials find some use in the gardener’s eternal plan.
Useful links
- April 7, 2009: Easter 'eggs on' the gardeners
- Terry Walton's weekly allotment diary
- Val Bourne on growing interesting varieties of vegetables
- When to start growing vegetables
- Vegetable growing masterclass
- How to grow your own salad leaves
- Chat to other gardeners at Saga Zone
My Life On A Hillside Allotment
Terry Walton is a regular contributor to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and has written a book called My Life on a Hillside Allotment, published by Bantam Press. The book is available from Amazon.
