Another site bites the dust

To this

From this

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Barnett Wood Lane allotments have been sold to developers. Nothing new in that, but it came as a bolt from the blue for the tenants, and had them scrambling to form an association to fight their corner. The allotments, properly called 'The Barnett Wood Lane Poor Allotments', are in the north of the district at Leatherhead but still part of the Mole Valley District Council, hence my interest. It is a big site of just over 9 acres with 103 plots and was indeed even bigger until a smaller section across the lane was sold for housing a few years back. It is unfortunately next to an even bigger area of open land owed by Oxford University and the two sites make 30 acres of prime building land, enough for 500 houses!

 

When the rumours first surfaced 6 months ago it came across pretty much as a 'done deal' with preferred bidders etc. And when the deal was voted through the Council chamber without a single objection that belief was sadly confirmed. After all £21 million comes in handy when your cash strapped and the Government has capped your ability to raise revenue. Luckily for the allotment holders the developers will have to stump up the cash to provide a new site, although where and what the land will be like is anybody's guess. At least now they are an association they can put pressure on the developers and the council to get decent facilities such as secure fencing, water AND electricity, and maybe a community building as well. They may also like to drop the POOR label, as although on the one hand you can date the allotments to 100 years plus it also implies they are given as charity by those on high. How about Allotment and Leisure Gardens instead.

 

Talking about 'those on high' it makes me wonder if they have ever given a thought as to where the food they eat comes from, perhaps they don't need to. It seems that the food we eat and where we live are well and truly divorced, for example Egyptian  new potatoes grown in sand and watered by artisan wells are packed in imported Irish peat and exported to a supermarket near you, but not near enough however that you will not need to use a good drop of fossil fuel to get them!

 

The growth of our urban areas have for centuries squeezed food growing further away from the populations that needed the food to eat. Fulham was once famous for cabbage and turnips and was called 'the market garden of London', Chelsea had huge asparagus beds, Kensington had acres of nurseries (if your not sure where that is think of the Royal Albert Hall and the Natural History Museum). In fact it was said that the roads leading west out of  London were lined with nurseries and gardens all the way to Heathrow, and you know what's there now!

 

Allotment holders are tenants with no security of tenure. Even those on the old Manor Gardens Allotments, given in perpetuity by the owner Rt. Hon. Major Villiers 100 years ago could not resist the power of the Olympic Park Authority when it was wanted for the games.

 

It's all progress of course, but with the need to house people there should surely be a need to provide land for tilling and relaxing, taking time out from the routine of life and appreciate that our food need not come from another continent but from our own hands. It is somehow ironic that the week Barnett Wood Lane Poor Allotments has learned its fate, Leatherhead has announced it is to open its first Food Bank.

Dorking in lockdown

 

the professional race

police have a good time too

Or so the letters page of our esteemed local newspaper would have us believe. Today the RideLondon 100 charity and London-Surrey Classic race takes place and just as when the Olympic cycle race came through Dorking last year a number of roads have been closed to traffic. It is such a shame that people should see it as an attack on their personal freedom with emotive remarks like 'inprisond' and 'kettled in our own homes', but then drivers have had a pathological hatred of cyclists for years. One often quoted remark is 'they do not pay any road tax' but then again neither do the motorists. They pay a Vehicle Tax, and the link between that and road maintenance ended way back in the late 1930's. It is instead the responsibility tax payers at National level and local tax payers at County level, so everyone pays in one way or another.

 

 

On a tour with a very young Rob

20,000 riders will be coming through Dorking, some rather faster than others, but 100 miles is not to be taken lightly, as I know. Many years ago I liked to cycle on a lovely touring bike called a Raliegh Royal, mainly on Sunday mornings around the Surrey Hills, with rides up to 60 miles. The longest trip I ever did was to Dymchurch, and at 75 miles, it was about 6 too long. Ah well the scenery was nice even if my knee thought otherwise. The significance is that 20,000 people will be able to enjoy Surrey without the fear of being run off the road, and it doesn't end there as yesterday 8 miles of road in central London was closed to traffic (which has a horrendously high death rate among cyclists) and an estimated 50,000 enjoyed a stress free ride around London's landmarks.

 

Boris Johnson may appear to be a buffoon (he does actually ruffle his hair before going on camera) but what he is doing for cyclists gets a thumbs up from me at least. As for me, well now days it more sedate on a mountain bike pulling my Veelar trailer full of tools to the allotment, keeping off the road as far as possible.

 

As the cyclists leave Dorking they will pass its most iconic landmark, The Dorking Cockerel. We have had it on the roundabout that is the crossing point of the A25 and A24 for six years now and was its self the subject of many complaints from the 'town that likes to say no' as a waste of public money. It was in fact financed by the civic development fund from nearby flats and public subscription (the reception after the unveiling was very nice). The 'Dorking' chicken is said to have been introduced by the Romans and is distinctive by having five toes and being good for both eggs and the table, it was widely farmed in the area but now only bred by enthusiasts. Our neighbour kept a few until the fox called, but that cockerel was a thing to be reckoned with. 

 

For Prince George

The statue is now a well established, and dare I say loved, feature in the town attracting the attention of Dorking's guerilla knitters who adorn it on special days through out the year, the last one was to celebrate the birth of Prince George with a pair of blue booties. Even the Council has stopped warning them of their mischievous misdeeds, so maybe there is hope for Dorking and with luck the RideLondon event will continue for years to come.

 

Easter bonnet

Queens Diamond Jubilee

Warm sunshine and Soft rain

2012 and all that

just can't get the help nowdays

I wish! Nature it is said usually compensates, but this is damned ridiculous. After last years abundance of rain we now have clear blue skies with not a drop of the wet stuff in sight. The chalky clay of our allotment has done its 'thing' and turned from the sticky mud of winter to rock hard, with cracks. Not that we are short of water by any means as sweet clear mains water is piped to the allotment courtesy of the council for which we are charged accordingly the following year.

 

 

 

 

 

The water is piped to four stand pipes set equidistant across the allotment and each stand pipe has a large water tank to dunk our water cans in. It is convenient and so far I've not found it tiring, using two 10ltr cans to keep me balanced I find watering my 10 rods takes less than an hour. The problem is that the pipe supplying the water is too small, so if all taps are ON the pressure drops for each tap in the line, and the last one barely gets a trickle coming out. So it very much relies  on ensuring that the tanks are kept full.

 

Now just suppose that someone wants to use a hose! or even two!! With 4 stand pipes and 75 plots this can, and does, restrict the amount of water available for the rest. Woe betide if another turns on a tap to fill the tank as the huffy sprayer bares down on them demanding 'fair shares for all'. This has happened as I scrapped the bottom of two tanks and having finished, left the site, the sprayer still hard at it, as they were when I arrived.

 

I have never understood why when you are growing vegetables you would also want to water the weeds, the path, the grass, the sky. The last bits not true, but maybe the process is so mesmerising that they sort of reach a state of Zen, an inner place to contemplate the world and its mysteries. When on the other hand delivering the water to the plant you want to grow makes so much more sense. Ah, ever the pragmatist. Such a dull boy.

 

The funny thing is that a sprayer never connects cause and effect. If the tank is empty because they can not be filled owing to the hose being on the tap it is therefore not their fault that the tank is empty as they have been using the hose and not the water can. What a long sentence! makes me breathless just reading it. I have lately been reading a book by Roy Lacy of his time on the Cowpasture (that's the books name) allotments just outside Felixstowe. The average annual rainfall in East Anglia is a miserly 20.5'' and they had no water on site at all! Makes you think doesn't it.

 

The weatherman, or should that be person? informs us that the jet stream has shifted to the south and thunderstorms are due. That's not to say we in the S.E. will get any but it would sure be appreciated.

 

 

Dorking gets a pumpkin patch

No not the town because as we all know Dorking likes to say NO, it's like a default setting here. I really mean the Dorking Allotment Holders Association, hereafter, for ever, referred to as DAHA.

 

DAHA is a friendly group interested in providing help and advice to allotment holders as well as organising events and representing their interests with the landowners, the local council. Of the 289 plots on five sites only about a third are members, the rest seem to think that at £3 per annum it is too much or poor value. It's the culture of 'what do I get out of it'. It reminds me of that great speech John F Kennedy made 'ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country'. They don't make Presidents like that anymore, no wonder they killed him. Americans seem to like their Presidents to be either tricky, have dementia or be unable to find the 'on' switch on a Segway or the way out of a room. I seem to be wandering here so lets get back to the subject.

 

For the last five years DAHA has put on a Pumpkin Show in Dorking, and very popular it has become too. The venue gets a display of pumpkins, squashes and gourds outside to pull the punters in (it's all free, by the way) which have been donated by Tozers the seed company based in Cobham www.tozerseed.com. but sadly because of the appalling weather conditions last year they could not help this year, so what to do led to a discussion between Chris Dale, Chairman of DAHA, and Alaster Calder, Dorking's very own pumpkin guru and inspiration behind the show. They decide to approach Mole Valley District Council to see if there were any suitable areas within Dorking they could grow the shows display.

 

A meeting with Jack Straw, planning policy manager, identified an unused section of the Ashcombe School site that could be used, and so it was on to the schools Head Master, David Blow, and community governor, Phil May, to get permission. They were supportive providing there were no objections from surrounding residents (see first line). Anybody would think DAHA intended to drill for oil but after promising to get on site from the most awkward point imaginable and staying well away from back garden fences there was an agreement and a one year lease was signed with Surrey County Council.

 

Chris surveys the pumpkin patch

Now the fun started and a call went out for volunteers to clear 3ft high couch grass off an area for sixty or so pumpkins. The usual suspects (or mugs) turned up and jolly hard work it was too, especially digging through the mat of rhizomes and rubble to plant them in. The thought that we're getting too old for this and many hands make light work was like the wind whispering in the poplars, but the few conquered all and the job was done. No need for horlicks tonight.

 

Only another 60 to go

The seed for the pumpkins came from two sources, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. www.rareseeds.com and The Real Seed Catalogue www.realseed.co.uk. They have great names like Blue Banana, Honey Boat Delicata, Freaky Tom and my personal favourite Red Warty Thing, but as Sods law always prevails in such matters they were planted at the start of an unprecedented heat wave for little ole England with temperatures  hitting 32C and no end in sight. Of course there's no water on site so it has to be lugged to the 'most awkward point imaginable' and that has fallen to poor old Chris who has the key. If they get away as mine have done on plot 59 then the display will be as good as any at this years pumpkin show.

 

'There is no greater poem than a tree'

Liriodendron tulipifera

 

 

The Tulip Tree has flowered. It seems not that long ago that it was planted, and some nine or ten years is very early for it to flower, but for six years it has been enclosed within the chicken run and has had a regular supply of high powered guano ever since. As the seasons came and went it changed from just looking handsome to looking magnificent and I have become immensely proud of it as I tell my neighbour on who's boarder it lives. Alas he seems less concerned with its beauty and more with the fact that it could reach a height of 36 metres. Ah, but I say, by then we will not be around and it will be someone else's problem.

 

Ginko biloba

Wisteria alba

Cercis siliquastrum

In the belief that squeezing a quart into a pint pot should never be a draw back to planting trees I have enthusiastically planted (and removed) a great many. Some for no greater reason than that I read  the three most common trees to be found in nurseries that are also found in fossil records, are the Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides),Ginko biloba and Magnolia! Another for sentimental reasons is a Wisteria Alba, though since it has never flowered I have no idea if it is indeed white. It came home from Kew Gardens, with Rob, as a whip and then moved with us to Dorking and with nowhere in particular to put it, ended up in the middle of the shrub bed, and just grew, into a tree. The Judas Tree (Cercis siliquastrum) happened because of a lovely story of the old water mill near by. Many years ago the mill had a huge Judas tree that fell in a storm, so the Miller had it cut into boards and made into his dinning table. A new tree has grown from the base and from the size of its parents remains, it was indeed a big tree.

 



Cornus kousa chinensis

Newer plantings at the front are the Japanese strawberry tree (Cornus kousa chinensis), after seeing a truly beautiful specimen at Wisley gardens, and a Handkerchief or Dove tree (Davidia involucrata) in the gardens at Nymans. Last of the exotics is the Golden rain tree (Koelreutria paniculata var. fastigia) because being columnar it fitted in. At the side is a large (and getting larger) Copper Beech of dubious origin being self sown so perhaps should be labelled f. purpurea. Now that's one that will be a headache, and soon. 



Davidia involucrata

 

The house being called Cherry Trees has of course to have Cherry trees in it, so dotted around are the usual Champagne, Flagpole, Pendula and Serrula Cherries. We do have one great leveller here and that is honey fungus. Never a year goes by without losing a tree or shrub. One minute they look fine and dandy and next they are as dead as the proverbial dodo. Its loss is of course really an opportunity - to plant something new!

 



Araucaria arucana

All the houses here have been built on what was once the immense estates of the Hope family (they of the diamond fame) called Deepdene, and the road that runs along side us was once the coach drive to the Mansion. As with all great estate owners at the time it was a matter of great pride to have the latest introductions sent back by plant hunters, and when you walk around you can still see them. One house has two Sequoia, both the giganteum and the sempervirens, luckily it also has grounds large enough to take them. There are also several Monkey puzzles (Araucaria araucana) of good size and many more that have self seeded. Maybe I should plant a Wollemi pine since its the same family (maybe not).  Close by is a Douglas Fir which is now the largest in Surrey even if it has lost its top, and a grove of gnarled Sweet Chestnut of immense girth. I can only admire the people who planted these trees knowing that they would never see them grow to maturity. If you want to see magnificent trees still in original settings of the great estates there are several worth a visit in the South East. Wakehurst Place, Sheffield Park, Nymans and Borde Hill, all in Sussex, and of course Kew Gardens in Surrey.

 

Books to recommend are,

Collins Tree Guide (complete field guide) by Owen Johnson & David More.

Remarkable Trees of the World & Meetings with Remarkable Trees, both by Thomas Pakenham.

The Heritage Trees Britain & N. Ireland, by Jon Stokes & Donald Rodger.

Trees, by Hugh Jonson.

Trees of India, by Dr Subhadra Menon.

The Book of Leaves, by Allen J Coombes. and

Foliage, a collection of the most beautiful photographs I've ever seen by Harold Feinstein that I picked up in the bargain bin on a visit to Mount Vernon.

 

 

 

Time for a rant

The allotment site has been raided again. Now there can not be an allotment site in the country that has not, and some could no doubt boast the number of times they have, but for us it is the 5th time in the 3 years since the site was reopened and it is beginning to feel like we are being harvested for our tools.

I have long since stopped leaving any tool that I would miss if stolen but unfortunately the newbies do, and fired with enthusiasm they leave some very nice shiny gear up there. The old cynic's amongst us will tell our bereft colleagues that they could buy them back if they go to the Sunday car boot sales, or if not theirs, someone else's.

Surrey has one of the lowest crime rates in the country and as a result the powers that be can show statistically that we no longer need so many police. The result is that Dorking's police station has closed along with its nearest neighbour in Leatherhead. We do however have a help desk in the Town Hall manned by Police Community Support Officers (PCSO's) who's role it is to provide a presence in order to reassure little old ladies they are safe and resolve issues on a local level. They do indeed look like the real thing and can issue a fine if your dog craps on the pavement but anything more serious a real policeman (they are the ones that race about in cars) is summoned. No use trying to report a crime to a PCSO as they will give you the number of a call centre to use and any way they have the rather disconcerting habit of referring to criminals as 'those naughty people'.

So how did all this come about? It seems Justice is rather an expensive commodity and it just happens that Surrey is one of the wealthiest counties in the country (22 millionaires in Leatherhead at the last count) who do not want to spend a penny more than they need to. Put another way, once you've got rich, you don't stay rich by paying taxes.

So they can up with a scheme called Restorative Justice. Straight forward enough it meant that the offender said sorry and compensated the victim. Trouble was that the offender usually cared little for the victim and even less about any loss or damage they had caused. It did not last long.

The next, and present, scheme is Effective resolution. With this one the offender needs only to admit to the offence (apparently it saves the police having to investigate and the courts having to prosecute) and the offender gets a telling off but no criminal record. The key is that the victim has to agree to this and so far has been so effective that Surrey Police have used it 3288 times in the last 12 months. Although how they managed to convince the two rape victims and the guy beaten unconscious in a Farnham pub that this was an OK outcome, I'm not sure.

They say a good rant is cathartic (A. adj. Med. cleansing (the bowels)) and that's pretty much what I think of the present state of affairs.

Oh to be in England now spring is here

This misquoted line is from Robert Browning's poem 'Home thoughts from Abroad'. It should read 'Oh to be in England now that Aprils there' but in mitigation he does mention May further on.

 

Well it is now official. Spring has been the coldest for more than 50 years, and not only that it followed a Winter that was also the coldest for 50 years. A combination of circumstance that has made for a very long 9 months, and tomorrow is the first day of summer. I am underwhelmed.

 

Not that May was a total disaster because I can remember at least occasions the sun shone and it was even hot. It was though unusual enough for me to grab the camera and take some pictures of the garden. I'll leave you with these:-

R. azalea

R. azalea

Camellia (peony form)

Choisya ternate 'Mexican orange blossom'

Convallaria majalis 'lilly of the valley'

Cotinus 'royal purple'

Cytisus scparius 'common broome'

Dicentra spectabilis 'bleeding heart'

Enkianthus campanulatus

Fern

Grevllea 'Canberra gem'

Hyacinthoides 'blubell'

Rhododendron 'blue peter'

Iceland poppy-bluebell-sorrel

Laburnum anagyroides

Lidia obtusiloba 'alpine sandwort'

Peony lutea ludlowii

Papvaver orientale 'garden glory'

Pittosporum 'abbotsbury gold'

R. azalea 'homebush'

Rhododendrum

Syringa vulgaris 'Charles joly'

Syringa vulgaris 'lilac'