January and February 2013 - Pots, visits, potatoes and plans!

Busy as usual, but not on the plot - and not many updates here due to some technical difficulties, we are back on track now!

So - the highlights from the January and February unfold as follows;

• Trip to Morden Hall Park to get out into nature again and see the river, tree's and wildlife still hanging in over the end of the winter (info here: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/morden-hall-park/ ) We also brought some seeds and our seed potatoes from the large garden shop at Morden Hall.

Choosing the seeds to buy at Morden Hall

• Trip to the Natural History Museum to see the scientists at work in the Darwin Centre, and to find out more about insects, bugs and how they work (info here: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/darwin-centre-visitors/index.html )

At the Darwin Centre in the Natural History Museum



Bugs at the Darwin Centre



• Planning what will go where and why! We spent a whole day (with breaks) discussing what we like to eat, what we should grow to sell, and why moving the type of plants from one bed to another each year in a cycle (crop rotation, below) makes plants grow better and more healthy

Thanks to http://aeronvale-allotments.org.uk/basics_preparation.htm for this diagram!

• A trip to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill to see the British Wildlife Photography exhibition on show, and have a look at what they were growing and going to grow in their extensive gardens (more info at http://www.horniman.ac.uk/ )

• Drawing our favourite fruit; the leaves and the fruits. A study in the shape and recognition of the plants, to help us to know what to look out for when we are on the allotment and in gardens. Before drawing the fruit, we also had a look at the fruit tree's in the local garden centre.

Taking a look at the fruit tree's in a local garden centre to decide which ones would suit our plot and be the ones the members would like to eat the most...

Drawing our favourite fruits 

• Pot painting and decorating! Getting our pots all jazzed up ready for planting...

Here are some other photos from January and February>>

Feeding the birds on the site...

More soon!

December 2012 - Visit to the plot, the Garden Museum, and the National History Museum trip

Site Visit:

Some Photo's of the frost at the allotment in December first;

The old committee hut at the allotment 

Frost on a strawberry plant at the plot

A young garlic plant in the frosty soil

Visit to the Garden Museum, 6 December 2012

We headed up to the Garden Museum which is at Lambeth Palace, to take a look around the museum and the gardens, which were being sorted out ready for spring.
We found that there was an excellent exhibition on about the history of gardens and allotments in England, and we chose our favourite paintings, as you will see below.

Inside the Garden Museum

'A garden in Lambeth' 1942, George Fisher Gilmour

'Mr Sabatino' 1999, Jason Orton

'Allotments' 1990, Richard Thorn

In the gardens...

Some tools on show in the museum...

Visit to the Natural History Museum, 20 December 2012

We decided to stay in the warm and venture to South Kensington for a visit to the Natural History Museum. Not all of the members had visited before, and even for the people who had, it was a chance to explore some more...

At the top floor with the section of Sequoia tree

Some of the rocks the group liked...

The group before leaving the museum

Thursday November 22nd - the last working day up at the plot...

We started the day at the cafe for a cup of tea before heading to the allotment and facing the colder weather...

Our first job was to clear the old brassica bed of weeds, as you can see from these photo's below;

We found this huge long happy worm too....

We turned the grass onto itself to expose the roots and allow the green tops to compost below the soil

 And we cut the paths straight too...

Finally we used a dibber to make holes in which we planted the beans we brought from the garden centre

Below: we are pinning the strawberry runners to the soil to allow them to root in...

We then took a break to get warm in the community building... one of the team took the time to draw this Magpie Moth from a book from the community library...

And lastly we chose some seeds from the catalogue using the money we won from the competitions in the summer at the Rosendale Allotment...