Tabard Gardens Community Allotments

I had a great day on the allotment today. Its the first time I’ve seen it since the end of June and it is at a peak of green abundance. We dodged the showers to dig up the potatoes which fill half a sack and I’m pretty sure will make it to the September Open Day when we can cook and/or distribute them. There were also a few onions and shallots left in the big bed so they are safely stored too.

There were self-seeded tomato plants everywhere (probably from seeds in the compost last year) so we have transplanted quite a lot and supported them with canes so we may yet still get some toms if the sun ever comes out again. I was chuffed to see the dwarf sunflowers and camilias I planted are attracting loads of insects and bees. Not so great are the affids and blackfly munching up the french beans.

Helena spent a lot of time tidying up one of the soft fruit cages and making loads of new strawberry plants from the runners of the old ones. If we can get the greenhouse glazed before winter, these will be good for planting out next year. We also added a tarpaulin to the little plastic greenhouse as the hard weather has finally punched hundreds of little holes in the roof. 

Some of the growbags look pretty overgrown and scary. Please shout if anyone wants help with taming their bag. Hopefully, lots of Grow Baggers will come to the meeting on Sunday 5th September so we can discuss whether the bag scheme is working and what people want to do next.

Miriam is going away for a couple of months and has offered whatever is growing to us all as she wont be here to enjoy it. This means her Sunday watering slot may need covering too.

Best wishes

Genevieve

Douglas made these fantastic benches for the allotments. Just right for relaxing on under the shady tree.

A lovely sunny afternoon spent shifting soil, levelling the ground for the greenhouse, planting out herbs, facepainting and fun! Many thanks to everyone who came along to help.

A beautiful hot June day on the allotment, we planted herbs and began levelling the ground for our greenhouse.

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Despite the rain a rugged band of volunteers turned up for our May Open Day.
We moved almost all of the soil onto the allotments to create some new growbags.
Thanks to everyone who turned up to help and especially Snezana the face painter, Denise from BOST running the children’s activities and Dean for sorting the refreshments.

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There’s been a lot of progress on creating the mosaic for the herb spiral at the center of the allotment. Jay, our wonderfull mosaic artist has been running workshops at Hankey Hall for residents to work on mosaics, both for the allotment and for themselves.
There’s still a bit more to do and Jay has opened the doors of her studio in the Elephant and Castle shopping Centre for anyone interested to come along and help finish it off.

Come and help finish the mosaic on:

Wed 12pm -6pm, Thurs and Fri 10pm – 2pm and 4pm -8pm or Sat 12pm – 6pm
Give Jay a call first if you’re planning a visit to make sure she’s there on: 07908211680

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Thanks everyone for all the help with clearing the soft fruit cages and strawberry planting.

Welcome to Claire and Andrew in Geoffrey House.

Big thanks to Jay and John for turning out after a morning workshop for St George’s Day, to start grouting in the herb spiral mosaic.

First crop of Grow Bag Guardians: