Open days

 

Nerve centre DAHA command

 

 

 

 

allotment veg

and tea and cake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every year DAHA hold an open day on one of the five allotments that are in Mole Valley District Council control. The objective is to raise awareness of allotments and get people interested in growing their own food, or anything else for that matter (though the council might object to a plot full of hemp) and put their name on the waiting list. A healthy waiting list after all is a good argument that allotment sites are a community asset and worth protecting.

 

This year it was the turn of St Paul's Allotment Gardens which lie, as the name suggest, close to the church of St Pauls and next to the Church school of the same name. Behind it are the Glory Woods, which were given to the town of Dorking by the Duke of Newcastle in 1929. 32 acres of the most natural woodland that you will ever find in Surrey.

 

What I like about this site of 83 plots is that they are allowed to have sheds, which we are not on Ranmore. There is nothing more typical of an allotment than its shed, to the point that people wax lyrical about them, paint them, draw them, and take pictures of them. they can be brand new but are more likely to be, in the best tradition of 'make do and mend', created out of anything at hand. Some were once Anderson air raid shelters and look ready for another conflict while others are just simply falling down. Officialdom see them as an eyesore and ugly but each has the character of its creator stamped on it.

 

The plots also reflect the people that tend them. One is quite literally a garden with lawn flower beds fruit cage and vegetable patch that would not be out of place in any semi in England, only these plot holders live in a terraced house in the middle of Dorking. Another is a secluded chalet with picket fence and honeysuckle and roses for family time together. Others are there to fight the good fight against slug and weed to grow food that is free of chemicals and not irradiated so it still looks great after weeks in the fridge. There are apple trees old beyond years, rosehips and sunflowers, water tanks made from old baths and scarecrows watching over kiddies toys. If anything could be greater than the sum of it parts then this is it.