Experimental allotment network
Last week the JCB came....
Last week the JCB finally came as promised to "strip off the vegetation" of the plots where the road is going to go...
Someone told me a tragic story on Saturday evening - he described an elderly gentleman standing there waving his arms at the driver crying "Don't do this to me!" - everyone had had plenty of warning (and many of us had done as much in preparation as possible!) but he obviously hadn't expected to have his years of work stripped to bare earth in a matter of minutes - including his building and fences. I can sympathise - looking at the overgrown fields full of dead blackberry and long grass, plot after plot with various fences, sheds and piles of rubbish, and many many tall scraggly gone to seed veges - I think my instinct was to measure it in how long it would take to clear it by hand - without an army of men it would have taken months if not years - not so with a large JCB and a dumper... you couldn't imagine that the whole lot would be gone in 1 or 2 day's work!
Now where their lovely private fenced garden that had taken years of work was is just that - bare earth.
It must have been like watching your family being shot by some invading army!
I'd met him and his wife at the seed store a couple of weeks ago and offered to help them move their stuff, but she thanked me and said they'd probably be OK - as far as I know they hadn't moved much, if anything.
I was in two of the neighbouring (abandoned) plots about 2 nights before the JCB came, with my fork and wheelbarrow, digging out as many Strawberry, Garlic and Onion and Rhubarb plants as I could find - until way after dark, because that was all the time I had. I felt very greedy taking so many, and I felt like I was being sneaky, almost stealing - taking these plants from someone's garden when I didn't even know who had grown them... but I'm so glad I did now - I went back on Saturday evening - and I had to look carefully to figure out where those plants had been - it's bare earth from one end of the road to the other - if I hadn't taken those plants when I did they'd all be in the middle of a mountain of scraped up and dumped "vegetation", rubbish and earth now - if they survive my hurried transplanting and the fact that I had to water them in the middle of one of our hottest days so far this year, then I've saved them!
Thank you George for telling me to take the beautiful topsoil from your old plot, and thank you Viktor the JCB driver for bringing two whole dumper loads of it and putting it on the end of my plot - that must be more than 100 wheelbarrow loads - it would have taken a week to move that much by hand - and it only took them 15 minutes or so! 4 years of endlessly digging yard scrapings in every time you turned the ground, and piling it up between potato rows. He showed me a patch of what it *HAD* been like - literally rock hard clay that took a pick to break up (I couldn't dig my fork into it!) is now thick reddy brown soil so soft it runs like sawdust. I just hope you didn't spray if full of Roundup and things - scary to wonder what's in it when you advise me to use Roundup on the grass on my plot! - I'm not about to spray any poison where I want to grow my food thanks!
Someone told me a tragic story on Saturday evening - he described an elderly gentleman standing there waving his arms at the driver crying "Don't do this to me!" - everyone had had plenty of warning (and many of us had done as much in preparation as possible!) but he obviously hadn't expected to have his years of work stripped to bare earth in a matter of minutes - including his building and fences. I can sympathise - looking at the overgrown fields full of dead blackberry and long grass, plot after plot with various fences, sheds and piles of rubbish, and many many tall scraggly gone to seed veges - I think my instinct was to measure it in how long it would take to clear it by hand - without an army of men it would have taken months if not years - not so with a large JCB and a dumper... you couldn't imagine that the whole lot would be gone in 1 or 2 day's work!
Now where their lovely private fenced garden that had taken years of work was is just that - bare earth.
It must have been like watching your family being shot by some invading army!
I'd met him and his wife at the seed store a couple of weeks ago and offered to help them move their stuff, but she thanked me and said they'd probably be OK - as far as I know they hadn't moved much, if anything.
I was in two of the neighbouring (abandoned) plots about 2 nights before the JCB came, with my fork and wheelbarrow, digging out as many Strawberry, Garlic and Onion and Rhubarb plants as I could find - until way after dark, because that was all the time I had. I felt very greedy taking so many, and I felt like I was being sneaky, almost stealing - taking these plants from someone's garden when I didn't even know who had grown them... but I'm so glad I did now - I went back on Saturday evening - and I had to look carefully to figure out where those plants had been - it's bare earth from one end of the road to the other - if I hadn't taken those plants when I did they'd all be in the middle of a mountain of scraped up and dumped "vegetation", rubbish and earth now - if they survive my hurried transplanting and the fact that I had to water them in the middle of one of our hottest days so far this year, then I've saved them!
Thank you George for telling me to take the beautiful topsoil from your old plot, and thank you Viktor the JCB driver for bringing two whole dumper loads of it and putting it on the end of my plot - that must be more than 100 wheelbarrow loads - it would have taken a week to move that much by hand - and it only took them 15 minutes or so! 4 years of endlessly digging yard scrapings in every time you turned the ground, and piling it up between potato rows. He showed me a patch of what it *HAD* been like - literally rock hard clay that took a pick to break up (I couldn't dig my fork into it!) is now thick reddy brown soil so soft it runs like sawdust. I just hope you didn't spray if full of Roundup and things - scary to wonder what's in it when you advise me to use Roundup on the grass on my plot! - I'm not about to spray any poison where I want to grow my food thanks!
Add a Comment
About
Badge
© 2009 Created by Ed Mitchell on Ning. Create Your Own Social Network
You need to be a member of Allotnet to add comments!
Join this social network