New life is being blown in the Cleveleys Avenue Allotments Blogsite. The blog has been dormant for a while – since the first post way back in 2008, in fact.
They have now blow the dust off, spruce it up and made it a resource for plotholders of Cleveleys Avenue Allotments and for those interested in allotmenting.
Click link to find out more…
Christopher and Thomas have worked together over 2 years to develop innovative projects based upon small scale urban agriculture with the support of AMAS.
If you would like to know more visit their website for more information and exciting ideas.
If you are not already aware, we bring to your attention an
excellent feature in the Manchester Evening News in regards to the
fantastic work done by AMAS members for this years Tatton Show.
GARDENING IS BLOOMING HARD WORK BUT I LOVE IT.
Barbara Hammond doesn’t let the vandals, a slipped disc, 10 children or the ‘great’ British weather deter her from gardening on her beloved allotment. Now she’s showing off the fruits of her labours at this year’s RHS Flower Show, writes David Henry.
For a women who spends of her life on an allotment, Barbara Hammond seems surprisingly unenthusiastic about gardening “You get a lot of Heartbreak,” she says. “Its soul destroying at time. You get disheartened by the weather, the slugs and the Vandals.
Her allotment in Bradford, East Manchester has been repeatedly targeted by thugs. “They get in all the time. They come in and trash the place. It’s just something else that you have to live with.”
Others may be put off by such setbacks but Barbara has fighting sprit. “Whey do I carry on? Well, if you fall over you get up and walk again, don’t you? You get up and carry on walking and you watch where you but your feet most time. That’s gardening.”
Barbara, who at 69, describes herself as an “old lady”, hat the energy of a woman half her age. She’s as tough as the old boots she wears to dig her plot.
Covered in muck, she spends her days on her plot, chain-smoking while tending to her plants. Born in Hackney, she’s lived in Manchester for 15 years but her accent is pure East End, “I’m a Londoner, mate,” She Laughs.
She far removed for the stereotypical image of the Panama- hated gardening aficionado who flocks to the RHS Show at Tatton. But Barbara and her friends at the Manchester Associates of Allotment Societies, will be show that gardening should be for everyone.
“In a proper posh garden, the kids are told not to tread on the grass, not to touch the flowers, to stay away. “Well on this one, they come and have a go at gardening and they learn about it.”
She been growing plants for the show on her allotment plot for months. Not that it’s been easy. All gardeners will relate to the problems the weather has caused Barbara this year.
“It’s been horrendous. Too wet, too dry, too hot, too cold. Things have come up too quickly and died off. Some other look nowhere near ready. Other have died too quickly. You’ve got to find what you can grow and stick to that. “
And Barbara doesn’t want to let the side down. She’ll be showing at Tatton alongside some of the biggest names in garden design at the flower show, which has bee billed the Chelsea of the North. She’s designed the allotment society’s garden with her friend Martin Oldham. It takes a huge amount of effort to prepare, and Barbara has struggled with a slipped disc. “I’ve been sleeping on a board for weeks.”
Not that she’ll let that stop her, gardening is a way of life even though she claims she’s no expert.
“It’s funny because when we’ve done the Tatton flower show before loads of adults come up to us and ask us all these questions, even though we do the children’s garden. It’s because they aren’t embarrassed to ask us but the won’t ask the posh gardeners.
“There’s no such thin as am expert. Anyone who says they are an expert gardener is a lair. Now things are happening all the time. It’s about experience.”
A retired pet show owner, it’s no wonder she escapes to her allotment every day as her home is overrun with animals.
Her collection includes 10 parrots and 12 snakes. She started gardening early. She was raised in an orphanage where she was expected to cook and clean for herself, and grow her own food.
“I had to do it. In them days you worked for your food. We had to grow everything – potatoes, carrots/ turnips, everything. And I had to do my own sowing and ironing. That was how it was back then.”
It sounds like a tough existence but it gave her skills for life and passion for gardening that has endured.
She passes it onto her children, all 10 of them. She worries today’s kids are getting the same education.
They have no idea. That’s why we do the garden at Tatton. We can show the, where plants and food comes from. We let them plant their own potatoes to show them they don’t come from Asda.”
Despite the weather, she’s managed to grow herbs, fruit and flowers to take to Tatton, most grown on her own plot on Philips Park in the shadow of Manchester’s Velodrome.
Allotments have become very popular in recent years.
There are 36 sites across in Manchester and 2,000 plotholders, with another 2,000 on a waiting list. In ages of austerity and with the growing importance placed on sustainability, allotments are suddenly on trend.
Barbara is sceptical. “They’re saying it’s popular but people come down, see the plots and think it’s great. What they don’t see is all the hard work, the heartbreaking work, in the rain and cold. It’s not all goo weather, and it’s tough.”
But she is fully signed up to the green agenda and an ardent recycler, using anything from children’s toys to guttering for her plants. She’s even been given plant pots by the police.
“I’ve got some from the Old Bill. They are from the raids they have done. Obviously, we don’t get whatever was in them.” She laughs.
Barbara is clearly committed gardener and committed to passing on her passion to the next generation.
No matter what obstacles she faces, from the weather to the local vandals, she never considers giving up her allotment.
Walking around her plot, she proudly points out Russian strawberries, a myriad of exotic herbs and her treasured radishes. “I get pleasure from seeing nothing become something”, she says, “That’s what gardening should be.”
There have been allotments at Cleveleys Avenue for just over 100 years and this year an old tradition was revived with the Plots of the Year Awards.
The aim is to promote good practice on our allotments, to encourage involvement with the community and recognise great growing! It is open to any plot holder at Cleveleys, with awards for Best-Kept Established Plot and Most Promising New Plot
Competition was fierce for the best-kept established plot category as there were 64 individual plots to choose from.
Maggie has had this plot for only two years after waiting a long time for one. She had never grown much herself but her mother is a keen grower and Maggie was used to eating home-grown produce in her childhood. Her mother’s practical help and advice proved invaluable when Maggie first got her plot but now Maggie is flying solo and her mother comes just as an honoured guest.
This small plot is brimming with over 20 different varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruit mainly in raised beds (of which Maggie is a big fan) surrounded by paths, covered with woodchip to suppress weeds. She makes her own compost, grows comfrey to make liquid fertiliser and is currently planning how best to collect rainwater from her shed roof.
Maggie is very keen on companion planting and would particularly recommend planting French marigolds with broad beans. She has had no blackfly on her broad beans this year although neighbouring plots have!
Another top tip is to plant potatoes through black membrane which keeps in moisture, suppresses weeds and avoids the need to earth up the potatoes.
A neighbouring plotholder grew scorzonera last year and, after tasting it, Maggie liked it so much she decided to give it a go herself this year. In fact, the single best thing about the allotments is, she says,”Chatting to other plotholders, swapping ideas and getting advice.”
Three friends with three adjoining half plots made big decision a few years ago and decided to cultivate their plots as one large plot, sharing the work and the produce. They say that a particular advantage is that it makes it so much easier to rotate crops.
They grow a wide range of fruit and vegetables and have on-site composting. They already collect rainwater and are hoping to set up a system to collect run-off from their greenhouse soon. An outstanding feature of their plot this year is the very large bean arch – made (in the best allotment tradition) from an old child’s swing.
Naturally, if you are thinking of following suit you would need to get on really well with your allotment partners. It certainly helped that Steve, Helen and Paula already knew each other before they got their individual allotments way back in the days when the waiting list, if not exactly non-existent, was much shorter than it is today. But sharing has certainly worked well for them and they would recommend it to others.
2011 was a very good year for people on our waiting list with an exceptionally high number of new plots available, thanks largely to the newly reclaimed area which provided six individual plots (as well as the communal plot) out of the grand total of 13 new plots. The standard too was exceptionally high, so much so that the committee felt it was a great pity each of the newcomers could not be awarded a prize.
The single most amazing thing about this plot is that Marc has only had it for a little over four months. In that time, mostly single-handed, he has taken an overgrown piece of wasteland and created an allotment which is a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach!
He was so pleased to get the plot that he started digging the very next day. He says that he has enjoyed every minute of it so far, despite it being back-breaking work at times. One day he dug out more than 60 house bricks, most of which now form his signature winding path.
Marc’s parents were part of “The Good Life” generation and he grew up with goats, chickens and growing all their own fruit and vegetables. But, he says, “I never thought I’d have a chance to cultivate my own plot in the city until recently.”
Four months later almost all the plot is now under cultivation. In a shady corner at the top of the plot is the latest addition – a salvaged corner bath which is now a wildlife pond. The next step, he says, is to install a shed with rainwater collection facilities and to plant some fruit trees on dwarf-rooting stock.
In just under 9 months an enthusiastic and energetic group of 13 people have transformed their share of the wilderness which was the newly-reclaimed area into a productive model allotment producing over 30 varieties of vegetables, fruit and herbs.
In the autumn and through the depths of the winter they laboured hard removing rubble, bricks, plastic and glass, some of which had been buried there years before. One of the group estimated that they removed over 100 barrow loads of rubble. And not all went to the skip as they were keen to recycle as much as they could so, for example, all their paths use bricks dug up on the site.
As well as all the usual plants, they have also experimented with less common varieties such as winter purslane and asparagus peas. They have installed a shed and a greenhouse (now full of tomatoes, aubergines and peppers). They have added water collection systems to the shed and greenhouse and have set up their own composting facilities.
So enjoyable has the experience been that all the group plan to stay on for a second year!
