FEBRUARY IN THE ALLOTMENT

The garden year is starting - for those who haven't started already. In addition to getting ready for planting and sowing in the next couple of months, now is the time to finish the winter sigging and check that all equipment is in good working order .

Birds

Keep feeding the birds. RSPB recommends that we feed our birds all year round. Use good quality bird food, including fat balls, to help build them up for the breeding season. Mixing Oyster grit with the seed helps female birds produce eggs with strong shells.

The good news for robins is that we can now buy frozen mealworms - their favourite food!

Valentine's Day is the start of National Bird Box Week, so try to find a good location in the allotment to site a bird box.

Ponds

If you have a pond on the allotment, make sure it is clean. Remove all those dead leaves and other debris in preparation for slug-eating frogs.

If you haven't got a pond, think about intalling one. My little "wildlife area" is less than 1m square. the smallest pond liner costs about £10, but an old baby bath or sink with the plug hole blocked will work just as well if you sink it into the ground.

The Vegetable Plot

Finish winter digging, and cover planting areas with fleece, cloches or clear polythene to warm the soil ready for planting those early crops.

• Early peas and broad beans can be sown now, and protected with fleece or cloches against sudden frosts, although many gardeners in the North prefer to wait until March.
• Lay early potatoes to chit in a well lit place indoors.
• Shallot planting begins towards mid-February
• Start planting soft fruit bushes, such as raspberries and currants, and plant fruit trees.
• Cover fruit bushes with etting to protect the buds from bird damage
• If you want to grow asparagus, prepare the site now, and order crowns for delivery in late March.
• Check any vegetable in store, and remove any showing signs of decay.

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GROW TO SHOW

The Newcastle Allotment and Garden Show receives an increasing number of entries each year into the unusual vegetables category.

If you are interested in this section, or in growing a few unusual vegetables just for pleasure, I recommend Simon Hickmott's excellent book, straight-forwardly called "Growing Unusual Vegetables" (£15.00 from Eco-logic books)

As an introduction to unusual and less-usual vegetables, we can start with the green plants which grow well in this UK but have fallen out of fashion or favour, probably because of the ease with which we can now obtain a variety of products from overseas. Think of the air-mils and pollution you could save by just growing a few unusual veggies yourself.

Winter Purslane

Miners' Lettuce

Claytonia

Winter leaves Spring leaves & flowers

(rotate as brassica)

Not called for our canny pityyakkers, I'm afraid, but rather for the Californian GoldMiners, as this plant originated in the US, growing in the shady parts of the desert areas. It grows well in the UK, particularly in sand soils, but will tolerate heavy soil as long as it does not become waterlogged.

It is a perennial, very hardy, and will provide salad leaves practically all year round. Hickmott describes the leaves as "succulent and juicy, with a pleasant crispness".

Sow: Late August/ early September or Spring.

Shade loving, so purslane is an excellent plant to grow in those troublesome shady areas under trees etc.

Sowing can be done by simply broadcasting and lightly raking in the seeds, or it can be sown in rows about 20 cm apart. Make a very shallow drill and cover with a sprinkling of soil.

Seeds are small and light, so mixing with a little sand as for carrots may help.

Care: Very little required, apart from weeding. For good large leaves, thin the plants to about 10cm apart.

Harvest: Snip leaves from plant with knife or scissors as soon as they are large enough. Do not remove too many from any one plant. The flowers which appear in the spring can be eaten with the surrounding leaf.

Pink Purslane

Very similar to Winter Purslane, and often seen in the ornamental rock garden, this hardy perrenial can be eaten as a salad leaf or lightly steamed.

Little Moor Allotments, Newcastle

Welcome to Newcastle Allotments Working Group Blog. Here you will find extracts from DIG THIS!, the Newcastle Allotment News Letter. In particular, we hope to bring you some ideas for growing unusual vegetables, both for your delectation and delight, and to present at the allotment and gardening shows in your part of the country.

Please post your seasonal tips and hints. Please also post questions to see if our visitors can provide the answers.

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About The Working Group - a fully constituted voluntary organisation.

Newcastle is the only place in Britain where the general management of its allotment sites is in the hands of the allotment gardeners themselves.

In 1999 Newcastle City Council disbanded the Allotments Sub-Committee and handed the day-to-day running of its 65 sites to a newly elected Allotments Working Group with the professional support and advice of the authority’s allotments officer.

The group allocates the annual allotments budget – the greater part of which is always devoted to fence repairs, replacement and maintenance, and are always looking for ideas to promote allotment gardening, improve site management and attract more people to take up the hobby.

Visit the Newcastle Allotments Website.

http://www.newcastleallotments.co.uk/

DIG THIS! November 2005

GRANDSTAND ROAD ALLOTMENTS

The Freemen of Newcastle have decided to close down Grandstand Road allotments, a tiny well-kept site with just seven plots tucked away in a corner of Duke’s Moor.

These allotments have been in use for well over half a century, every garden is occupied and cultivated, and all seven plot-holders have made it clear that they want to stay.

Less than ten years ago Mr. Leonard Fenwick, spokesman for the Freemen, told the High Court: “Allotments are a key area and well-established feature on the urban fringe areas of the Town Moor. These are primarily areas of little value for grazing cattle but very suitable for open space recreation” and “security of tenure is only at risk where there is evidence of a respective allotment association not maintaining a site to set standards.”

Well organised and used sites, he added, were “part and parcel of the future of Newcastle Town Moor as a protected open space.”

In spite of his assurances no fewer than five sites have been closed down by the Freemen in recent years with the loss of hundreds of plots.

This leaves something like 1,000 acres of open moor on which the freemen are allowed by Act of Parliament to let out grazing for a maximum of 800 cattle, making it probably the most under-used resource in Newcastle.

The closure of Grandstand Road will add less than one third of an acre to this vast pasture – not even enough to feed a single cow.

So what’s it really about? Well, Mr. Fenwick has been quoted in both the Evening Chronicle and The Journal as saying this move is part of a “structured environmental programme”

Quite what this has to do with the Freemen’s right to graze cows is a bit of a mystery to members of Newcastle Allotments Working Group, so we have written to the freemen asking for a meeting at which they can explain the programme and its implications, and give us an opportunity to comment. At the time of going to press we are still awaiting a reply.

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION

http://www.petitionthem.com/default.asp?sect=detail&pet=2106

CALL FOR RECIPES

NAWG is seeking new, original and exiting recipes for vegetable and fruit dishes. Please post them here. http://allotmentrecipes.blogspot.com/