Tag: Bowbrook Allotments

New Wildlife Pictures for the Allotments

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date January 12, 2014
5 Comments on New Wildlife Pictures for the Allotments

We have an interest trail on our allotment site with accompanying trail guide and also several quizzes for different ages of children. For one quiz we challenge the children to follow our trail keeping an eye out for the pictures of several creatures who live in the wildlife friendly green spaces. The pictures are found in the sort of habitat where each creature would live. The pics are just photocopies of pictures which are laminated so have a short life span. We seem forever to be having to replace them so decided to try a more permanent solution.

I have just finished creating paintings of the creatures onto marine plywood and varnished them so that they will last a long time. So here they are for you to look at. It seems a while since I included any of my paintings on a post so I shall have to try to include more this year. Being destined for the outdoors the signs needed to be waterproof and able to stand up to our open site. I decided my usual watercolours would bot suffice so I retuned to a medium that I had not used for decades, Acrylics. Once I started using them though the skills all came back – just like riding a bike!

The Greater Spotted Woodpecker and the Peacock Butterfly. I start with these two as they were the cause of strange happenings as I was painting them. As I finished the picture of the Woodpecker I held it up to show Jude and a real one flew across the garden and landed on a feeder where he proceeded to devour peanuts for a long while. This seemed a little coincidental but the Butterfly picture caused a similar happening. As I finished the painting again I held it up and as I did so a real Peacock Butterfly flew down and fluttered around me. Amazing! We can only presume it was hibernating in the roof of the conservatory where I was painting and for some reason woke up. I caught it gently and placed it carefully in the garage where we hope it has found another snug winter hibernation home.

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The Grasshopper and the Bumble Bee.

The Grass Snake and the Soldier Beetle.

The Bat and the Seven Spot Ladybird.

For my next batch I will try to depict a Damsel Fly, Dragonfly, Field Vole, some moths, more butterflies and some more birds especially birds of prey which have become a bit of a hallmark for our site.

Tags allotments, Bowbrook Allotments, community gardening, nature trails, wildlife, wildlife painting

allotments autumn community gardening diy garden buildings garden wildlife gardening gardens Land Art natural pest control recycling Shrewsbury wildlife

Pumpkins, a BBQ and Homes for Wildlife

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date November 5, 2013
5 Comments on Pumpkins, a BBQ and Homes for Wildlife

At the end of October we held our first ever family oriented working party social day at our allotments, Bowbrook Allotment Community. It was a great success even though the whole day was spent in wellies and waterproofs. The ground beneath our feet was saturated and occasional showers got us from above, but neither distracted us from our aims of the day.

We started just after one o’clock when a photographer from the local newspaper came to take some shots of families working together on our “Homes for Wildlife” projects and one of our most recent award, the RHS Britain in Bloom “National Award of Distinction” which we were awarded for our community involvement.

First task was to make some birdboxes and Wren Pouches. All the materials were collected together by one of our picnic benches and tools readied. It was heartening to see children, their parents and grandparents working together creating these nest boxes. Three generations together!

We made some hanging bug shelters too, created from broken flower pots, driftwood and bits of bark.

We wished also to make a couple of bug hotels, a small one along the fenceline and our most ambitious yet a 6 ft high creepy crawly cottage both based on recycled wooden pallets. We began with a stack of pallets and a collection of natural objects collected by allotment holders, sticks, old garden canes, stones, fir cones etc.

The “cottage” soon began to take shape as pallets were stacked and fixed together to give the basic structure.

All we have to do now is choose a name for our new insect home. We have challenged the youngsters from the allotments, our Roots and Shoots group, to choose a suitable one. So far we have a few ideas – “Minibeast Manor”, “Bugtique Hotel” and “Minibeast Metropolis”. The difficulty will be how to decide!

The smaller insect hotel was made from five pallets and again filled with objects that would provide shelter for wildlife. We finished it off with a stone pile, the perfect home for beetles.

The final jobs before our BBQ was to plant lots of acorns, sweet chestnuts and hazel nuts to grow on and plant in our hedgerows and to plant up a whole sack of daffodil bulbs alongside the paths in our meadows.

The BBQ brought us all back together and once darkness fell we lit our pumpkin lanterns. And we even found time for Jude to do some face painting.

As we enjoyed the BBQ the light disappeared and we prepared ourselves for the Twilight Walk, when we wandered around the site with lit pumpkins to light our way in search of sheds decorated as Spooky Sheds.

And as the night fell we disappeared into the gloom with our pumpkins to guide our way.

Tags allotments, bird boxes, Bowbrook Allotments, community gardening, garden wildlife, Halloween, insect homes, insects, organic gardening, outdoor sculpture, pumpkins, wildlife, wildlife shelters

allotments community gardening

New sheds for the lotties.

Post author By greenbenchramblings
Post date September 5, 2013
6 Comments on New sheds for the lotties.

We have been running out of storage for our communal equipment and bits and pieces at the allotment, so something just had to be done. We applied for a grant to purchase a couple of bike sheds which we could fit between our existing communal huts.

Can there really be a shed in that package? When unpacked there seemed so many pieces.

The base was put down, sand and ballast with paving slabs on top.

We soon set about painting all the individual pieces with a protective brown paint.

It was a job well done and we emailed fellow allotment committee member, Peter who was going to put them together for us.

The first shed looked good when he had finished constructing it and a group of us spent a morning loading it up with the materials and equipment we use on our community days. We were impressed with how much this little shed held.

The trouble was that once we had done this we had another to do, so the whole process started all over again! So, out come the paint brushes, screw drivers, …….