A Saturday outing at last (other than a DIY Store)

Today we downed tools after lunch and went to an open day at the local allotment in Harlestone Road. I was always keen to see behind the often large hedgerow type fences and maybe to meet a allotment gardener so this was the perfect opportunity. Jessica and Andrew also fancy having an allotment, even though they do have a small veg garden. So off we all went, squeezing into the Fiat 500 (the back seat is out of their car is out as it is usd for carting goods home from the DIY stores.)



This allotment garden has up to 185 allotments available for rent at £30 per year for a 10 pole plot (this equates to 250 sq metres). There seemed to be quite a number of allotments available so the open day was to increase awareness and hopefully sign up some new gardeners.

A quick search on the internet gave me a brief history of the allotments and the following piece is taken from the Northampton website:

"An allotment is a small piece of usually public land to rent for gardening -traditionally for growing vegetables. Each site usually has a number of individual allotments. In Britain the allotments originated from the 18th century Enclosure Act which took away common land from poor people and stopped them growing their food. The current national group is the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners. There are similar systems in Europe where the origins were the recreational and in the USA where it is called community gardening."



I was also interested in the imperial measure of a pole. The following extract explains exactly how it came about. I don't think any modern gardener would be needing to worry about the pole being long enough to control his oxen while ploughing up their plot!



Rods, poles and perches are different names for the same unit. Medieval ploughing was done with oxen, up to 4 pairs at a time. The ploughman handled the plough. His boy controlled the oxen using a stick, which had to be long enough to reach all the oxen. This was the rod, pole or perch. It was an obvious implement to measure the fields, such as 4 poles to the chain. A BBC webpage about allotments says that "an allotment plot is 10 poles" and claims that "A pole is measured as the length from the back of the plough to the nose of the ox". I suppose that if you wanted to control the front ox, you needed a pole long enough to reach! The perch was used in the reign of Henry II (1154-1189), the pole since the 16C, and the rod since 1450. In the 16th century the lawful rod was decreed to be the combined length of the left feet of 16 men as they left church on a Sunday morning. In North Devon there is a tradition that fencing, that is to say the cutting and laying of a hedge, would be done at so much a land yard, which seemed to be about 5 paces or 5.5 yards, which would equate to a rod, pole or perch. An earlier name for a rod was a gyrd which is the derivation of a yard.



As we wandered around the allotments we could see a range of gardening skills, as well as a range of crops that were being grown. Some of the gardeners were on site and very willing to show us their gardens and talk about their efforts.

Many of the gardens were new,with only a couple of year's development on them. One lady we spoke to had only been doing their one two years. They got it in the October and spent the winter getting it ready for growing. It is quite an achievement to see how much they growing in such a short space of time. The following photo is of an area similar to what their 10 pole looked like when they started.

It wasn't long before they rented the next plot too, so now like many others they have 20 pole,or a double plot. She spoke about being a novice but really enjoying it, as did her children and husband. Much better than cycling on a bike in a gym. Most people have built a shed on site and either a poly tunnel or glass house. Pests come in the form of grazing deer and pigeons so netting is used extensively.

The next person we spoke to had started four years ago and also had a double plot. He was self sufficient in veg for his family as well as some fruit like berries, plums and some apples. He was waiting patiently for his asparagus patch to produce and was also pleased with his globe artichokes. Water is supplied but many were also collecting it off the roof of their sheds

One man was a pioneer and was only growing grapes. He had a double plot with 5 or 6 different varieties and over 200 plants. He was making up to 70 bottles of wine last season and we were suitably impressed with the tastings. He said that lots of people scoffed at him when he first started his project, a bit like Alan Brady at Gibson Valley in Central and look what happened there!

All in all it was a great wee outing, finishing with Jessica and Andrew putting their name down. We will watch with interest.

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