The Scottish Allotment Diary

SAGs owns three trophies which are used to encourage allotments to improve their amenity and value to their local communities. Each year allotments from one city in Scotland can compete for these trophies, and this year it was the turn of the Glasgow allotments. The trophies were presented to the winning sites today during the Evergreen Glasgow Flower and Vegetable show in the Kibble Palace by Peter Wright, who is the SAGs Trophies convenor.

Children from Merrylee Primary and Our Lady of the Annunciation schools receive the Miller Cup from Peter.This cup was presented to SAGS in 1919 by Councillor James Miller and is awarded to the site with the best plot tended by local primary schools.The winning site was the Merrylee Plotholders Association.The judges said that they were most impressed by the standard of cultivation by the pupils, the integration of the gardening activity into the school curriculum and the support of the parents.

Ian Welsh receives the Sir Robert Greig Memorial Trophy on behalf of Berridale Allotments Association. This trophy was purchased by SAGS in 1950 in memory of Sir Robert who was chairman of SAGS during the 2nd world war and worked to increase the output of fruit and vegetables from allotments and gardens . The trophy is awarded to the site with the best overall quality and diversity of vegetables, herbs and fruit.

Representatives from Merrylee Plotholders Association receive the Amenity Shield. This shield was presented to SAGS in 1936 by Sir Daniel Stevenson, a former Lord Provost of the City of Glasgow to encourage and promote a higher standard of cultivation and general tidiness and appearance in our allotment areas so they may be considered an amenity to the District in which they are situated.

Bob Doris MSP today pledged his support for Cambuslang Allotments Forum. The Forum is using National Allotment Week (11-17 August) to encourage local people to get involved and to highlight their search for land. In support of their efforts the SNP MSP for Glasgow has lodged a motion with the Scottish Parliament supporting the work of SAGS and of CAF and calling for South Lanarkshire to work actively to identify more sites for allotment gardens.

He said : “With an increased interest in what goes into the food we eat, more and more people are now opting to grow their own and this has resulted in long waiting lists for existing allotment sites.”

South Lanarkshire currently has only 2 allotment garden sites, one in Rutherglen and one in East Kilbride. According to Cambuslang Allotments Forum, the waiting lists are such that the last names on the list could wait 30 years for an allotment at current turnover levels.

Bob Doris called on South Lanarkshire Council to step up the hunt for suitable land saying that all attempts by local people to get fit and healthy and to grow fresh produce should be supported. The Allotments Forum is looking for South Lanarkshire people who would like an allotment to get in touch so that they can provide the Council with details of the extent of the demand. They can be contacted by telephone on 0141 583 2060 after 6pm or by email cambus-allot@live.co.uk.

My sweet peas are producing gorgeous blooms on long straight stems. Every 4 days I pick a bunch and tie in the main stem. By the end of the month they had reached the top of the canes and it is time to layer them. First remove all the leaves on the stem from the root to within 1/3 metre of the top. Then carefully remove all the ties and lay the stem down inside the double row of canes until it reaches another cane. Gently bend the growing tip up the cane and tie in. The plants at the ends of the rows have to be turned back on themselves and this is quite tricky as you can crease the stem or even in extreme cases break it!! Once they are all tied in, hoe away all your footmarks and give them a good liquid feed to get them over the trauma.

July has been sunshine and showers ideally growing conditions but not good for onions as several have got mould. Even though I operate a 4-year cycle and note were the onions were planted 4 years ago, this type of mould can last up to 8 years in the soil and this season has been ideal for it to multiply.

The other problem I have with all this rain and sun is that my spinach has all run to seed. It was dug out and composted and the space filled with surplus leek seedlings.

Horsetail, last month I mentioned about eradication.

Know your enemy, their root system has storage nodules to tide the plant over lean years. They need photosynthesis to produce food for storage. The root system is extensive and they can regenerate from the smallest rootlet piece. There are 4 types of root.

1 The mother lode at 1 metre depth. Old, brittle, used to pass nutrients around the network. Break it open and the internal structure is an hexagonal open frame

2 Water searchers going up and down from the mother lode, smooth sided and can punch holes through sandstone

3 Feeders and pioneers going up from the mother lode and operating in the upper soil where we plant our crops. These carry the storage nodules. They are the shock troops invading new areas, sending down water searchers, collecting food from our soil passing it down to the mother lode for distribution, and in time creating deep new mother lode roots.

4 Sun seekers, going up from the feeders to produce the brown fruiting horns in spring, the characteristic green christmas trees in summer, and using the sun for photo-synthesis

The outer green sheath of the leaves has a hard impervious surface which sheds weed killers.

War You have to remove the source of food and photo-synthesis

Total War. If you have an infested area, wait until the green “christmas trees” are up, then walk over them to bruise the outer sheath, spray with gysophate. Repeat the bruising and spraying at least three more times at three weekly intervals, during the growing season. This works, but you cannot plant anything in the infested area. Even then the odd mother lode may still survive the repeated doses of gysophate though the network, but you are now into a long-term war strategy.

Long Term War. Double dig your area and remove as much of the roots as possible. You will not remove it all but greatly reduce its vigour. Then as each “christmas tree” comes up remove ASAP; do not let it mature, as it will supply food to the root. Keep removing the green growth and as much of the root as possible for the next four years. The root then runs out of food supply and dies. This is long term war, not a one off battle.

I’ve let the vegetable of the month feature lapse for a while - my excuse is I was having problems with my camera! However my camera is back in business and I’ve picked peas for this month partly so I can rant on about the dearth of locally grown peas in Glasgow and partly because this year they are amazingly successful. I have abandoned Kelvedon Wonder peas this year, and concentrated on Ambassador. This variety is somewhat taller, so a bit more of a pain to tie up, but it has cropped brilliantly and produced the nicest peas I ever remember eating. Picking and eating your own peas is in itself, I reckon, a justification for all the hard work of an allotment - frozen peas do not have the same texture and shop bought pods just can’t compare for sweetness.The Mange Tout peas are also cropping heavily (the photo is a close up of my mange touts) and as they don’t freeze well I can clock up brownie points by giving them away to friends and neighbours. This brings me to the subject of my rant - why do we import mange tout peas from Kenya at this time of year when even I have the things growing almost like weeds. I am not a professional grower and not even very productive relative to my allotment neighbours so why are our local growers not cashing in on this easy to grow, relatively high value crop? Why do the (small number of) vegetable stalls in my local farmers market still concentrate on leeks and cabbages carrots and turnips, when if I can grow peas and beans and spinach and broccoli so, surely, could they. How can one expect the poor Scots to move to a healthier local vegetable rich diet when the only vegetables grown locally are, to be honest, the boring ones.

So - how do I cook them? Well actually the Ambassador peas are wonderful just eaten raw with your gin and tonic (or other poison), also you can kid yourself that the alcohol doesn’t harm you because of the vitamin C in the peas. Make your friends shell their own pea pods as they eat them. To cook them when they are still small just bring to the boil in a small amount of lightly salted water. Turn off and drain as soon as you notice they are boiling so that they stay a bit crisp - toss in a bit of butter for a touch of luxury. When they are a bit bigger i.e. absolutely filling the pod, there is a wonderful recipe from Elizabeth David where you stew them gently for 15 - 20 minutes in butter on a bed of lettuce and spring onion. The lettuce and onion mulches down to form a sort of sauce and the peas retain their texture and sweetness. The mange touts can be cooked similarly, and also are a great addition to a stir fry.
Instead of putting the shelled pods into the compost you can use them to make a delicious soup. Top and tail the pods (be careful to remove the stringy edge) and boil them in water, with flavouring herbs of your choice (savory is good) till tender. Blitz them in a blender with some of the cooking water, unless the pea pods are very young you might also like to sieve the puree to remove the bits of course inner skin.  This should produce a fairly thick puree which you can then dilute either with more of the cooking water or, better, with a ham or chicken stock. Add salt to taste and finish off with a dollop of cream.

The SAGS conference was a great success this year. The morning session was chaired by Aileen Campbell MSP who gave a report from the Scottish Parliament which inspired us to hope that the social, health and economic benefits of allotments are finally gaining recognition among our rulers. The highlight of the morning was a talk by Dr Richard Wiltshire who gave a thought provoking account of the way that allotments and community gardens might meet social goals, such as helping with demographic change.

The first event after lunch was the presentation to our retiring Vice President Gilbert Clark MBE in recognition of his many years of service to the allotment community in Scotland. We then heard reports from groups around the country involved in setting up - or in some cases trying hard to set up in spite of local authority antagonism - new allotment sites around the country. We then separated into workshop groups depending on our particular interests, and had fascinating discussions of issues surrounding allotment management.

Aileen Campbell presents Gilbert Clark with his award for long service. Mandy Fooks and Peter Wright look on. Picture taken by Jennifer Cook.

Aileen Campbell MSP gives her report from parliament

Compared to May June has been the opposite in terms of rain. Barely a day has gone by without rainfall of some kind

When I looked at my diary for May I was amazed at the numbers of days we had the wind from the East, very dry and at times quite warm. On other East wind days we had the “haar” and the temperature barely rose into double figures. Water has been a major problem this month with only two really wet days and you do need some rain to keep your seeds going, but on the whole a good month for sowing and planting out.

I plant all my legumes on one section to keep to my crop rotation plan. I also grow sweet peas for home and the Annual Edinburgh Allotment Show. I have never won the sweet pea cup but one-day………. The sweet pea seeds were sown at the end of January and hardened off in March/April. An elaborate cane structure is erected using 8-foot vertical canes in four rows of 12, tied in across the top and between rows. Two rows of wigwam runner bean canes are added, and tied back with canes to the sweet peas. Finally I put in some diagonals to stiffen the structure. I know it is OTT but being an engineer by calling it has to be a sound construction.

I plant out on the inside of the canes so that I can hoe right up to the cane without damaging the plant.

I had 4 apple trees growing espaliered fashion at one side of my plot. They were bought 2 years ago last February as first year maiden whips from Adams Apples in the West Country. They come bare rooted so you have to get them in quick but it is much cheaper than pot trees. They are now at the third tier and all had flowers this year. However, “Claygate Pearmain” a nutty tasting sweet eater was looking very sad for itself. The leaves did not develop, some of the buds did not burst, and the blossom was minimal. I tried a foliar feed at fortnightly intervals but little improvement. One of our plot holders is a trained horticulturist and despite looking in all our books we could not find the cause or even more serious the cure. We came to the conclusion it was a viral infection and the tree had to come out and be burnt, before it affected the others. Any one any other ideas?. What do I plant in the space? How long should I wait?

I have horsetail in my plot. It comes from the railway line by the side of the site. I am told the railway engineers plant it to stabilise the embankments, what woe they bring to plot holders. However I am rapidly becoming an expert on horsetail eradication, watch this space for techniques both organic and “total war”,

Local residents in Cambuslang and Rutherglen with an interest in allotment gardening have come together to promote provision and interest in this activity by forming the Cambuslang allotment forum (CAF).

Currently South Lanarkshire council provide allotment plots in Rutherglen and East Kilbride, however both have lengthy waiting lists. The aim of CAF is to promote awareness of the need for increased allotment provision in Cambuslang and Rutherglen and to promote the benefits to health and well being that allotment gardening offers.

CAF seeks to work with interested residents and hopes to identify potential sites that might be utilised as allotment gardens in the local area; as well as working towards the securing of adequate provision of plots to meet demand. In a recent audit by the Scottish allotment garden association there are 3000 people on an allotment waiting list in Scotland*. CAF is open to all local residents who have an interest in allotments and would assure them of a warm welcome at our next meeting on Monday 29^th June 2008 at 7.30pm.

CAF website http://www.geocities.com/cambusallot

* http://www.sags.org.uk/docs/ReportsPresentations/AuditReport07.pdf page 16

Falkirk Allotment Society is delighted that a feasability study is being carried out on the possibility of a pilot project for an allotment garden at Bantaskine Estate in Falkirk. They hope that this will be the first step to reintroducing allotments to Falkirk. Their web site has links to some press releases about the current situation, and will be updated when there is anything new to report.

Both the Allotments (Scotland) Act of 1922 and that of 1892, which still appear to be the relevant acts, give maximum sizes for allotments and allotment gardens, but neither actually seems to give a minimum size (although I am not a lawyer and I find them hard reading!) The first talks about ‘Allotment Gardens’ which must not be bigger than about 1/4 acre (that is what 40 poles seems to be):
The expression “allotment garden” means an area not exceeding forty poles which is wholly or mainly cultivated by the occupier for the production of vegetable crops for consumption by himself or his family and is not let to the occupier during his continuance in any office, appointment, or employment held under the landlord or let along with any dwellinghouse.

The second gives an upper limit of 1 acre for an ‘Allotment’ which seems to be a small holding rather than what we think of as an allotment (the tenant of an allotment under this rule is allowed to erect hen houses and other animal shelters).

Modern allotments are normally smaller than this - but most are sized with the aim that they are big enough that a family could be self sufficient in fruit and vegetables, and so in greater control of the inputs (pesticides, herbicides…) into their food. However with the new increase in demand for allotments, and the resulting huge waiting lists in some areas, several local authorities in England are developing ‘creative’ solutions. This essentially means they are chopping allotments into halves and quarters so that an area which was originally let to 1 gardener can now be let to up to 4 gardeners.

The obvious benefit is that more people get the opportunity to garden and to produce something for themselves. The down side is that if the allotment is too small the concept of self sufficiency has to go right out the window.

Some of the publicity on the web and in the papers extoll the virtues of ‘Window box gardening’. I grow herbs in tubs and window boxes (I’m proud of my basil this year!) - but I don’t see this as a good substitute for growing my beans and potatoes and spinach in the ground. Should allotment holders resist the splitting of allotments and campaign for an absolute minimum size to be set? If so how should that size be determined - land is an expensive and scarce resource in many of our cities, and it doesn’t seem fair that a few people should be able to rent a huge plot while others are left to the mercy of the supermarkets.