Tag: Bowbrook Allotment Community

The Wonder of Willows – part three

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 26, 2015
4 Comments on The Wonder of Willows – part three

So for the third in my posts about the wonder of willows we move to our allotment community garden site, Bowbrook Allotment Community (www.bowbrookallotments.co.uk)

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Here we grow many different varieties of Salix, willows with different habits, leaf shapes and in particular coloured bark. but before I move on to look at these I thought I would reminisce a little and cast my mind back to my childhood where willows played an important role. I lived in the vale of the River Severn in Gloucestershire and here, the lowland nature of the farmland meant that ditches had been dug for centuries around field boundaries to help with drainage.These ditches, and indeed every stream and brook was flanked with willows. These were pollarded and regularly harvested to be used by local craftsmen and women, the basket makers, trug makers and hurdle makers amongst them. But to me as a country lad they meant places to search for wildlife, to hide from the fishes I was angling for and in the case of the old giant hollow trunked willows they were dens to hide in. Below is a picture of a little clump of such pollarded willows in Herefordshire we spoted on our journey back from Croft Castle.

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Most of our allotment willows grow in our Withy Bed designed to help drain a particularly wet patch of land but mostly to provide vivid colours when they are stripped of their leaves in the autumn and winter months. We also grow them to help drain a wet part of our Winter Garden. The photo below was taken looking through the willows towards the white barked Betulas and the coloured stems of the Cornus (Dogwoods). As well as draining this area so effectively they add so much winter structure and colour of their own to the picture. In the second picture of these same willows you can see they have just been subject to their annual haircut.

The contorted willow below is one of two being trained up tall to weep over the top of the path behind the Winter Bed to form an archway.

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Each spring as the weather gets a little more conducive to outside work a group of us have our work cut out pruning so many willows, some we coppice and others we pollard at different heights. We have about twenty different cultivars here to enable us to achieve the effects that we are after. It takes a small team of volunteers a day’s work to get the task completed, resulting in some aching backs the following day. The first pair of photos shows a pair of before and after shots of one of our yellow stemmed coppiced willows.

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We set off with a wide range of pruners from small secateurs up to hefty loppers and slowly move from one end of the Withy Bed to the other with a good few tea breaks. We find it helpful to be bendy and wriggly to get in among the willows, bending low to the coppiced stools and reaching high to the tallest pollards and every combination in between.

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The prunings created when we cut them are used around the site to make structures and to create plant supports. But for this year many have been used while developing our new wildlife pond. The photos below show the prunings being kept fresh by being lain into the pond and illustrate the range of colours available to us.

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We have Violet Willow growing in the allotment’s Spring Garden which was a cutting off our tree at home and after four years it is a beautiful specimen which has sparkling silver catkins in Spring.

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Last year we created a Fedge with the prunings to give us a brightly coloured living willow fence. This acts as a useful windbreak and also hides part of the site’s manure/compost compound. In the winter when I took these pics it doesn’t hide much but the diamond shaped trellice effect shows up.

The final post in this series about willows will show how we have used some prunings from home and from the allotments to create a children’s play feature.

Tags Bowbrook Allotment Community, communal gardens, community gardening, community spirit, pruning, recycling, recycling in the garden, willow, willow features

allotments bird watching birds community gardening conservation diy garden buildings garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening irises log piles natural pest control recycling renovation Shrewsbury Shropshire trees water garden water in the garden wildlife

The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part two

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 24, 2015
6 Comments on The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part two

As promised we make a return visit to see the work we have been doing on the development of our pond and hide at our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community. In this part we shall look at our hide, some tree surgery and our new duck tube.

So first let us return to our new hide. If you remember those pictures of us rolling the battered and rather shaky old shed you will be surprised by the photos of it finished. So how about a before and after pair of pics? We made the hide for our allotment youngsters, our Roots and Shoots group, to give them the chance to secretly and quietly watch the life of our pond. With this in mind we set to work on our renovation which took an amazingly large number of volunteer hours.

Whenever we go by the pond we can’t help but smile at the transformation! As you can see the old hide was firstly repainted outside by my young apprentice Thomas before we handed it over to two volunteer helpers Sean and his Dad Vince. They are great carpenters so brilliant volunteer helpers to have on board. They put fresh felt on the roof and fabricated a strong framework inside the shed. They made a concrete and slab base and placed the newly strengthen shed on a framework of wooden struts.

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Thomas returned to give the shed another coat of wood preserver and I added a sign I created from wooden letters. It began to look the part from the outside but even more so once the two men added a new sheet of perspex to the window and added two hatches for clear viewing on dry days. These can be seen in the photo below.

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Within a few weeks Sean and Vince with extra help from Sean’s children had put up a noticeboard, made a kneeling bench and shelf for leaning on when the children used the hatches and window. The pictures below show first the bench and secondly the view the children get from the hatch.

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This is the view our Roots and Shoots youngsters will get as they open the hide door. You will see that Jude and I have added identification charts for birds and dragonflies and damselflies and a poster displaying the life on and under the surface of a pond. We also made a little bookcase from a vegetable crate and placed in it some wildlife books for youngsters. We also mounted a whiteboard on which we are inviting the children to note their observations. The final touches are a pair of binoculars a notebook for children to jot down their nature notes.

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Last job of course was a celebratory cup of coffee perching on the children’s bench and admiring everyone’s handiwork and great efforts.

Now let us enjoy a bit of tree surgery carried out so professionally by some more of our volunteers, Pete and Mike. As mentioned in part one we have a few elderly Ash trees around the pond which for safety sake need remedial work. Earlier on we managed to pull down broken branches that had rotted but got tangled in the lower branches as they fell, but this day was a day for the chain saw attachment on our strimmer head to get in the action. One large branch hung right over the pond to the far bank and was slowly splitting so getting lower and lower. The final cut shows the weakness.

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First Mike and Pete looked and stared and studied! They needed a strategy!!

This strategy involved rope thrown up and over a much higher and stronger upper bough, with which they could keep control of the branch once it was sawn through.

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Attachment attached and they were off!

The cut bough hanging obediently could then be pulled in and dealt with on dry land. It will soon be seating for the youngsters, edging for borders and parts of insect homes and log piles and brash heaps to help attract ads shelter wildlife. We discovered an awful lot of rot within the bough so it was great relief to see it down. Trouble is there are a few more going the same way.

Finally we need to look at our duck tube! The photo below shows why we need one! A pair of Mallards patiently waiting!

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Just follow the picture sequence below and watch Mike’s adventure. Before we made the dam and changed the drainage around it to gain depth for wildlfie the pond was rarely more than 6 inches or so deep!

He is a good chap is Mike! What would we do without him? And below the duck tube in pride of place in the pond in a position where the children can watch activity from their new hide. Brilliant!

We still have further work on the pond mostly planting but we have a plan for a floating island to give wildlife somewhere to find safety and shade. Pete and Mike have a plan as you might have guessed! But of course that may be the subject of a future post visiting our super wildlife pond! One piece of info I have not mentioned are the dimensions of the area, useful I think to put things in perspective and to emphasise the size of the project. The pool is 22 yards long by 11 yards at its widest point, and the marsh area at the one end is 9 yards by 7 yards at the widest point. Around the pool and marsh between the pond and the fence, the walk around together with the planted areas vary from 3 yards to 5 yards. Quite a size!

Tags beneficial insects, Bowbrook Allotment Community, communal gardens, community, community gardening, community spirit, duck tube, garden insects, garden wildlife, insect homes, insect shelters, mallards, wetland wildlife, wildlife gardening, wildlife ponds, wildlife shelters

allotments bird watching birds community gardening conservation diy garden buildings garden photography garden ponds garden pools garden wildlife gardening gardens irises log piles natural pest control recycling renovation Shropshire trees

The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part one

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date March 22, 2015
5 Comments on The wildlife pond and hide at BAC – part one

When Bowbrook Allotment Community first opened we had a old farm pond on our boundary fence but it was fenced off and we had no access to it. After a few years though as the site was extended on the pond side it was integrated into our gardens and the town council put a low security fence around it with a lockable gate. We then had to wait for it to be released into our care which finally happened early in the winter of 2014. This is the story of what we have done to it so far and about our plans for its future.

Diggers came in and scooped out all sorts of rubbish thrown into the pond by the farmer over the years, rusted coils of barbed wire, rotting fence posts, old metal fences, branches and boughs of trees. The old puddled clay layer was exposed and smoothed off. The aroma was disgusting! Sadly there was little sign of plant or animal life in the pond. At least all this disturbance didn’t upset the wildlife, the birds soon returned to the trees.

As a community garden determined to increase the biodiversity in our 6 acres there was no question that it would become a wildlife pond. To begin with we had to recontour the area between the pond itself and the fence to make passage around it easier and safer. It was hard graft and took a lot of volunteer hours to get it done.This will enable us to keep a path mown all the way around the pond for maintenance and enjoyment. But first we must rotavate the pathway to prepare it for grass seed sowing as soon as the weather allows.

You can see from the group of photos below the area we have to work with and the work we have done so far, the lopping of the trees, the path leveling and the preparation of the bog garden. The pond itself is about 20 x 10 metres and the marshy patch about 8 x 7 metres so pretty impressive! And then there is a margin area varying in width between just over a metre to about 4 metres. W have set ourselves a mammoth task! But we have allowed ourselves a year to get it right. So far things are moving along much more quickly than anticipated as opportunities have come our way.

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The next photo shows the bog area at the end of the pond where the drainage pipes from adjacent farm land brought the water into the pond. This was a steep sided marsh area with a tiny stream meadering through it. We have piped the water below the area now and re-contoured the sides to make it safer. This area will be planted with native and other wildlife attracting plants such as King Cup, Liatris, Yellow Flag and Flowering Rush.

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We have recently started the planting and will soon be adding far more. Some we will get as donations from our members and neighbours but others we will get from local nurseries once they have got their stocks out. So far we have planted different sorts of Irises, Water Mint, Water Forget-me-Not, Bog Beans and oxygenators. The first pair of pics shows Jude collecting plants from our pond at home and the second pair shows Sherlie planting some in the new pond.

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Several mature Ash trees surround the pond so some surgery was required to let more light in and help plants grow healthily. The bough below was slowly collapsing right over the water across to the far bank so caused us great concern. We had to cut it before it fell! We need to look after the health and safety of our members. I shall show this work in part two.

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We have put up nest boxes, created a bird feeding station and are creating lots of mini-beast and amphibian habitats. Several are up in the group of Ashes that border one end of the pond.

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We have created extra wildlife habitats and shelters along the perimeter fence creating them from recycled items and natural materials. Probably one of the most exciting elements of the whole project has been the creation of a bird hide for the children to use. This began as a battered old shed donated to us by a plot holder and transformed into a rather fine hide complete with a noticeboard for recording,some identification charts and a small library of identification books. Two plotholders, Sean and his dad Vince volunteered to carry out the conversion and soon other family members joined in. The finished hide was way beyond our expectations as they managed to fit a kneeling bench down the one side to enable children to look through the hatches they had constructed. For wet days when the hatches need to stay closed they added a perspex window. All this from my very simple plans and drawings!

Here we are moving the old shed from one side of the site to the other in true Roman style, rolling it along on round stakes. It proved a great adventure as it kept trying to change shape and the door constantly flew open.

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And here is the shed now transformed into a hide, just like the ugly duckling turning into a swan. The rest of the story of how the transformation came about will be in part two.

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Wherever the pathway gets close to the bank we have planted a low boundary hedge from willows harvested on site and have woven whips of different coloured willows from the brightest yellow to the darkest black through it. Similarly at the outlet end where water drains to prevent flooding, we have a steep area bank which we have given a similar low willow fence and we are slowly planting up the slopes with small ground covering shrubs that also attract bees, butterflies and hoverflies.

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We stored the willow prunings we had after coppicing and pollarding our “Withy Bed”. The photo shows these awaiting action and illustrate just how many colours of willow we have to play with

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A recent job was to make barley straw pouches to drop in the water to help keep down the growth of algae and blanket weed – a good organic solution. Look closely at the picture below to see if you can spot one.

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We know there are some critters who are looking forward to us finishing or at least being somewhere near a livable place for them. the resident group of Weasels, our Mallard families and the site’s frogs. We must pamper to their needs as they entertain us and do much of our pest controlling.

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The bird in the fourth of the above photos though arrived amid mixed feelings from us all. Our Grey Heron is most definitely a handsome bird but he is a threat to our fish. We have a small population of native Rudd in the pond brought in as eggs on the feet of the ducks. Sadly until we get some plant cover for them to seek refuge beneath they will soon be wiped out by the Heron. The photo was taken on a member’s mobile phone through our green fence.

In part two we will look at details of how the hide ended up, some of our tree surgery work and the adventures we had putting in our duck tube.

Tags beneficial insects, Bowbrook Allotment Community, communal gardens, community gardening, community spirit, garden pond, garden projects, garden wildlife, insect homes, insect hotels, insect shelters, insects, wildlife gardening, wildlife ponds

allotments colours community gardening flowering bulbs fruit and veg garden photography gardens irises light light quality meadows NGS ornamental trees and shrubs shrubs spring bulbs Winter Gardening winter gardens

The Allotments at Rest

We took a walk around our allotment site today to see what was going on and check that everything was okay. We had just watched the site on TV as we featured on a BBC2 series called the Great British Garden Revival. I filmed with Dermuid Gavin a feature on wildlife gardening. It was a strange experience seeing our allotment site on the screen but even stranger seeing our own plot being used as an example of a wildlife friendly garden.

For today’s wander we arrived during a period of sunshine with a clear blue sky over our heads, but by the time we were half way around the clouds had arrived and we were subjected to light but very cold rain. The pure white catkins of the Violet willow in the Spring Garden sit like droplets of rain water after a storm. They are bright enough to be visible from a long way away. They draw attention to themselves very well!

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Probably the brightest of winter colours on any veg plot is provided by Swiss Chard especially the cultivar called Bright Lights. Light catches on the textured leaves emphasising their undulating surface. The other crops still in evidence are sprouts that have overwintered and the new fresh foliage of the Globe Artichoke. These leaves now just a few inches long will expand to a massive few feet in length and the plants will reach a good nine or ten feet in height. Their purple, teasel like flowers will delight our pollinators the butterflies, bees and hoverflies and the seed heads that follow will be a magnet to greedy Goldfinches and Linnets in the autumn. Perhaps the strongest pattern of all was found on Tom’s plot, where he has set out all the old clay drainage pipes that he dug up from his plot.

Both the male and female catkins glow purple on the Alders in the Autumn Garden where their neighbours the Buddlejas are showing fresh foliage with their texture like reptilian skin.

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Last year’s plants in the meadows and borders are now skeletons of their former selves. There is a strong structure linked with subtle beauty in these spent seed heads.

The wildlife shelters sitting in the orchards and meadows hide so many hibernating creatures. They shelter creatures from the winter cold and house anything from the tiniest insects up to amphibians such as frogs, toads and newts, birds like Wrens and Dunnock and mammals including our confident Weasels. A lost glove adds a splash of colour! In our “Dedge” the bright colours of the various Lichen, yellows, chartreuse and greens, glow however dull the light is.

A few spring flowering bulbs are showing spears of green piercing the cold soil. Some are even flowering such as the diminutive Iris reticula and Snowdrops.

Variegated foliage always looks good in the winter when the silver or gold stripes, spots or squiggles shine against deep green backgrounds.

Perhaps it is only right that the most colourful and interesting garden of all at the moment is our Winter Garden. The coloured stems of different forms of Cornus and Salix give us reds, oranges, greens and yellows and even black. The white stemmed Birches are now over 20 feet tall and they dominate this garden. Euphorbias and Hellebores give colour at close to ground level, while the Viburnum bodnantense “Dawn” and Cornus mas provide pink and chartreuse at eye level. Both these shrubs are also powerfully scented.

Elsewhere the coloured stems of a Salix in our Withy Bed shines gold and the Cornus “Midwinter Fire” glow like flames.

Our tour finishes off with a look at this year’s major project, our wildlife pond. We inherited this large farm pond in the summer and are busy tidying up around it in readiness of the work that lies ahead.

This little character is hidden for most of the year under a patch of Chrysanthemums grown for cutting but in winter he appears to cheer us all up.

I shall finish this post with a couple of bright jewels.

Tags allotments, birches, Bowbrook Allotment Community, Bowbrook Allotments, communal gardens, community gardening, cornus, dogwoods, fruit and vegetable growing, salix, scent, scent in the garden, scented plants, willows, winter, winter garden, winter gardening, winter gardens

allotments community gardening Shrewsbury Shropshire winter gardens

Celebrating Winter – Part Two

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 25, 2014
1 Comment on Celebrating Winter – Part Two

Welcome back to part two of my Winter Celebration post. Our celebrations are a good illustration of true community spirit and show how people with a common purpose, in this case allotment gardening, can come together in friendship.

We return to our allotment community garden Winter Celebration as the light fades. The children share their Christmas excitement by playing games organised by Liz one of our committee members and ably helped out by fellow committee member Anne.

First up was a game of “Pin the red nose on Rudolf” which proved a difficult challenge!

Races followed which were accompanied with loud laughter and shrieks of delight!

But things didn’t always go according to plan!

Little Edward was amused and amazed by it all.

The BBQ was soon glowing and the fire pit beginning to show flames.

All the lanterns and candles were lit alongside the main grass pathway. They looked great! At times the air was full of smoke from the BBQ and fire pit. The willow decoration making went on under artificial lighting.

Muffins and crumpets were toasted on the glowing embers of the BBQ and spread with butter and home made jams, brought in by the committee.

Little Ella carried her own lights around with her. She glowed wherever she went. We finished the day of celebration by taking a wander around the site by candle light carrying our lanterns and torches and enjoying seeing the decorated sheds in the dark. Ella and her red lights led the way.

To finish my pair of posts about our Winter Celebration I will leave you with two photos, the first shows our tree with our lanterns down the central pathway and the second the dying embers of the fire pit as we lock up to go home.

The day after we returned to complete the tidying up. At every one of our seasonal celebrations we finish late and we are always too tired to get all the tidying up completed so back we go the following morning. Jude and I arrived to find that other committee members had already got plenty done. We had to use wheelbarrows to collect up the lanterns and jam jars which held the candles, as we had so many.

Tags Bowbrook Allotment Community, celebrations, Christmas Trees, communal gardens, community, community spirit, winter, winter garden

allotments community gardening Shropshire Winter Gardening

Celebrating Winter – Part One

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date December 23, 2014
3 Comments on Celebrating Winter – Part One

This is the first of my special posts for Christmas. Part two will arrive in your inbox on Christmas Day.

Our Winter Celebration at our allotment community garden was a true winter wonder! We celebrate each season on the allotments when we get together as a community. We have children’s activities and games, and seasonal family activities as well as some sort of barbeque.

We have a close relationship with a local nursery called Love Plants and they often help us by donating plants when we create new gardens. For our Winter Celebration they donated a fine specimen of a Nordman Fir. We thought it would be fun if everyone who came to the celebrations brought along a tree decoration and added it. It was hard to imagine how it would turn out. We collected it wrapped in netting and fitted into a heavy log.

Our celebrations began at 2:00 and as visitors arrived they added their tree decorations to our Nordman Fir.

By the time darkness fell the tree was well covered and looking mighty bright. One member even added a string of lights to the tree, so when it got dark the tree glowed beautifully.

As well as a Christmas Tree we also had a Tree of Wishes and Memories. We provided parcel lables on which members and visitors could write down their thoughts for Christmas and the New Year, expressing their wishes and writing down their memories. The photo shows Pete tying his on.

As with all our seasonal celebrations our Tea Committee set up shop with the help of a generator, a tea urn, camping gas cookers and lots more. Being cold, they planned to serve tea, coffee and hot chocolate drinks at. The committee members brought in home made soups to be shared. With allotments to produce the ingredients the soups just had to be tasty. They were wonderful! The photos below show Wendy starting to set out the tea shop and Michael getting the generators started.

Our friend and fellow plot holder Sherlie, a retired florist planned to show visitors how to create Christmas decorations from willow and other natural materials. Before members arrived she set up a display of her work and gathered materials.

Once proceedings got under way lots of people were tempted to have a go.

At our Autumn Celebrations we challenged members to decorate their sheds for a “Spooky Shed” competition. For our Winter Celebrations the challenge was to create sheds dressed for Christmas. The results were amazingly creative and original. In the couple of hours leading up to our celebrations members got creative with their sheds.

Here are a few shots of the sheds including the winning ones.

One family even decided to wrap their shed up as one massive present!

Christmas Greetings appeared everywhere, on plots, on sheds and alongside paths and lanterns and lights adorned many plots.

Jude organised an activity for adults and children alike, making bird cakes to keep the birds well-fed over the winter. Lots of people joined in and got very sticky hands. The allotment birds are going to be very well fed this winter!

We had a BBQ all ready to go and a fire pit ready to be lit when darkness fell. Here are Michael and Ian relaxing as they wait to light up the fire pit. We shall pick up the story of our day of celebrations in part two.

Tags allotments, Bowbrook Allotment Community, Bowbrook Allotments, celebrations, Christmas Trees, community gardening, community spirit, winter

allotments community gardening Shrewsbury Shropshire

Three Crazy Days at the Allotments – Part 3

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 31, 2014
1 Comment on Three Crazy Days at the Allotments – Part 3

Part three of our crazy days at the allotments series of posts and we found ourselves back on site at 9:30 clearing up from our Halloween celebrations the night before and getting ready for our “Learn the Ropes” morning.

Arriving at the allotment site the morning following our Halloween celebrations, we were all exhausted but we had another activity day planned for the members. The site had a definite “morning after” look to it. Rather bedraggled and tired like us. Notice how long the shadows are in the pictures.

The rain had lashed down all night and the wind had howled around our communal huts. We had been so lucky with the weather the evening before, with not a drop of rain to spoil our fun. The area which was a hive of activity the night before looked deserted as we cleared up ready for the arrival of members who were attending our “Learn the Ropes” session and a “Walk and Talk” session around the site. We had a busy half hour but we were ready and raring to go.

We got all the machinery out for Michael to demonstrate with and got the bacon sizzling away on our gas rings just as the first members arrived. Tea and coffee were ready for serving to keep everyone warm. We even had a few minutes to treat ourselves to a quick coffee before our members arrived.

As members gathered around Michael bacon butties and hot drinks were served. Everyone was keen to see Michael demonstrate how the lawn mowers, strimmers and rotovators work and teach everyone how to use them safely and properly.

This is what being a community garden is all about. In the photos below we have three generations of one family coming along to our activities. They had been at our Halloween Day and returned to our “Learn the Ropes” session the following morning. Phil on the left has an allotment on our site and he has brought along his daughter and grand-daughter.

We had a good morning but we were glad to pack up and make our way home after our three very busy days at the allotments.

The day ended with the dismantling of the gazebos which had served us so well. When the last one was down a voice came from inside. “Help. I am still in here!” We had left Michael inside when we lowered the frame and canvas. He was in there to make sure the frame folded up properly. He had just spent the morning demonstrating our equipment to members and then we shut him up inside a gazebo! Still, it was good to end with a laugh.

Tags allotments, Bowbrook Allotment Community, Bowbrook Allotments, communal gardens, community gardening, community spirit, Halloween

allotments community gardening Shrewsbury Shropshire

Three Crazy Days at the Allotments – Part 2

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 28, 2014

Welcome back to part two of my “Three Crazy Days at the Allotments” series of posts and in this one we are celebrating Halloween. We do this every year as it is a good excuse to have a BBQ, make our sheds look weird and to get together socially before the weather changes.

This year we decided to hold competitions for preserves, the weirdest vegetables, the best carved pumpkin lanterns and also invited members to decorate their sheds so that we could find one suitable to be hailed “The Spookiest Shed”. We set the afternoon and evening going with games for the children.

Our members had been so busy beforehand and the judges had a hard time selecting winners in all the competitions. The photos below shows the table where members dropped off their entries into the preserves and weird veggies competitions.

The competitions were judged as the BBQ was warming up. In the first photo one of our members, who likes to be known as Mrs Anna, is judging the Pumpkin Lantern competition. As you can see there were some very imaginative ideas. To her left is one of our youngest allotment members Edward, who danced his way through the afternoon but found a few moments to help our judge out. He did have to stop now and again for a rest and an occasional snooze. Pumpkins appeared all over the site – one member even decorated her compost heap with lots of small pumpkins. And of course Mrs Anna was appropriately dressed as one when she carried out her judging.

The tea shop awaited its first customers, as in the background members can be seen arriving. The communal huts were decorated to welcome everyone. As well as all the children who dressed up many adults joined in. It took a long time for us to work out who the ghost was!

I went round for a quick look at the Spooky Sheds while it was still just about light, to find so many different ideas.

The winning shed was this one which was decorated around every side of the shed itself, across the bench and down the plot to where the skeleton was rising out of the ground. On another plot a hand with one finger missing was rising from a plant pot.

One plot holder managed to co-ordinate her decoration with the berries of the Firethorn climbing up her shed. In another shed we found a witch had set up home!

As with all our seasonal celebrations we found time for a BBQ. As the light continued to fade we “sparked up” our seasonal lamps. Glowing skulls!

Some members took the chance to get dressed for the occasion. Here is Liz, our youngest committee member and Wendy who is one of our founder members.

Wendy has formed our tea committee with her neighbouring plot holder Dee and we can see them here enjoying their BBQ while taking a break from their tea and coffee making duties.

As the light faded, the children were getting increasingly excited in anticipation of the usual finale to out Halloween celebrations, our walkabout with our pumpkin lanterns. We trailed around the site looking at all the decorated sheds. One plot holder had even left a big tray of sweets on the bench for the wanderers. We were joined on our walk by real bats flying about our heads.

So one day we were celebrating the success of Shrewsbury in the Britain in Bloom awards and our essential role in it and the next we were letting our hair down and celebrating Halloween. Crazy lot really! It just shows how much fun gardening can be.

In the third and final post in this series about our allotments we found ourselves back there on day 3 and back in work mode.

Tags allotments, autumn, Bowbrook Allotment Community, Bowbrook Allotments, celebrations, communal gardens, community gardening, community spirit, garden sheds, Halloween

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Three Crazy Days at the Allotments – Day 1.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date October 26, 2014
7 Comments on Three Crazy Days at the Allotments – Day 1.

It is early autumn and we have just finished three crazy days on our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community. Three very exciting days. It all began with measuring sunflowers for our annual Sunflower Competition where we determine which child and which adult has grown the tallest plant and the biggest flower. Just like last year the children showed the adults up when it came to growing giant sunflowers. For Little Henry here it was quite an effort to inspect his flowers. His plants outshone all others, children’s and adult’s alike, with the tallest plant towering to almost 3 metres and the width of his largest flower head measuring 33cm. We definitely have a gardener of the future here!

While measuring the sunflowers my mobile kept ringing and as we wished to concentrate on the the job in hand I left it ringing each time until we stopped for our afternoon tea break. It was a most unexpected phone call when I did answer it, all about the BBC trying to organise for one of their film crews to film on the allotments starting at 5:30 on Friday morning. This was because that night the RHS were holding their “Oscars”, the Britain in Bloom awards and Shrewsbury were in the running with 71 other towns and cities to be crowned Champion of Champions. They wanted to know if I could arrange for the results to be announced at the allotments, should Shrewsbury win, as we were a key part of Shrewsbury’s entry. This was all at the request of the RHS.

A call at 10:00 in the evening informed us that Shrewsbury had indeed won and our allotment community gardens had been singled out for specific praise. The idea behind the early start was that the BBC wanted to announce the results during their early morning news coverage. The news was to be broadcast every half hour throughout the morning and they they wanted to film it all live from our site. Their “weather girl” was to make the announcement and talk to plot holders.

Our first job was to get the site opened to allow the crew to set up and get some BAC members there as well including a mum and her son. This involved getting up at 4:30! We did it but I still don’t know how! The first announcement of Shrewsbury’s success went out live and was filmed in the dark. Gradually throughout the period of filming the sun came up and the birds came to life. Our allotments looked great and we felt really proud. We had been singled out as a special element in our town’s success.

In the photos below Carol was learning her lines, consulting with the director and the lights were set up in the blackness.

Two plot holders featured in an early slot still in the gloom. Mandy and son Elliot did us proud, with Mandy extolling the virtues of the town and our allotments and Elliot speaking up for the children and their “Roots and Shoots” club.

The BBC outside broadcast studio in a van slowly emerged from the darkness as dawn broke.

Life got easier as the sun came up. Alongside the arrival of the light came a sudden burst of bird song which quickly grew to a crescendo.

I listened carefully to instructions from Carol with Mark and Gary from the town council property department alongside. Constant discussions went on between Carol, the camerman and the director.

We went home for a few hours rest before returning to prepare for our Halloween celebrations the following day. (see the next post for details of how it went)

The RHS sent me their press release which went out to the media and on their website on Friday just as filming had begun. As chairman of the allotments I felt so proud as I read it. Included was a photo of one of our families on their plot. The children live here with their parents but in this photo are their grandparents who come from their home in South Africa each summer and spend time on the family plot.

“RHS judges were impressed by the high quality and importance of horticulture in what is the home-town of the “grandfather of popular gardening”, Percy Thrower, and the birth-place of Charles Darwin.

One Shrewsbury project that stood out was Bowbrook Allotment Community Site. As well as accommodating 88 organic growing plots and an impressive series of nature trails, individual gardens have been created to educate young people about native plants, conservation and edible growing.”

To read what the world’s most important horticultural society had to write about us made me feel so proud of what our community has achieved so quickly. Just over 5 years ago all we had was a field and a vision.

My next post about our busy days on the allotments will be all about our celebration of Halloween, so some of the photos will be in the dark again. Night time darkness this time though instead of early morning!

Tags allotments, BBC, Bowbrook Allotment Community, Bowbrook Allotments, Britain in Bloom, community gardening, RHS, sunflowers

allotments autumn community gardening fruit and veg garden photography gardening gardens ornamental trees and shrubs trees

Crab Apple Jelly

We have a beautiful and very productive crab apple tree at the bottom of our garden. It provides useful shade in the summer for the chickens but for us it provides a wonderful and very heavy harvest. Being a Malus “Butterball” it has pendular branches each giving us masses of small yellow fruits which are all blushed orange or red. It is a beautiful ornamental tree as well as being productive.

We never need to harvest many branches so the majority of the fruit is left for the local Blackbirds and Mistle Thrushes early in the autumn and the few they leave will be gorged by visiting thrushes, the Redwings and Fieldfares from the colder continent.

This year we have decided to make Crab Apple Jelly flavoured with cloves to use up some of the fruit.

We have another much younger Crab Apple, a purely ornamental variety close to the path that meanders between the Bog Garden and the Prairie Garden. It has masses of scented pink and white flowers in early spring followed in late summer by orange/red tiny fruits. It grows among cerise flowered Lychnis coronaria and various ornamental grasses.

In the communal gardens at our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community, we grow several varieties of Crabs as ornamental trees and to act as reliable long flowering pollinators for our orchard apples. And they work. Since we added these Crab trees the yields from the orchards have noticeably increased.