There were some beautifully mild and sunny days this winter and we made the most of them down on the Weald. A core group of volunteers worked to clear a corner of the site designated for bird and insect friendly planting. Special Branch Tree Nursery supplied us with a hawthorn and a baby rowan tree to accompany the spindle, guelder rose and buddleia already there. Honeysuckles, ivy and perennial sweet peas will clamber over the boundary pallet fence. We also picked up some Salix Daphnoides at Seedy Sunday – a beautiful purple-violet willow with pretty fluffy catkins. This will be grown for willow weaving material whilst the catkins provide a late winter nectar source for early insects.
Another major task this winter was to start to raise the vegetable beds. The wet winters leave the clay soil heavy and sticky so by building the beds up we hope to improve drainage. Wood was found lying around the site and some was flotsam washed up on the beach. We were able to top up the beds with some couch grass sods cleared the previous winter and left in a pile to rot down to a wonderfully crumbly mix of loam and humus.
With the warmer days of spring beckoning we look forward to a busy if not frenzied period of seed sowing and planting supported hopefully by a willing band of volunteers. The allotment has joined the Heritage Seed Library this year giving us some new varieties to try out such as the parsnip “Guernsey”, a French heirloom variety considered by Guernsey farmers to be the most nutritious root known to them and the Hutterite Soup dwarf French bean. The Hutterites are a pacifist sect now living mostly in Canada, the bean is said to be perfect for creamy soups.