Skip to main content

A Not Allottment

At Pensford Field there is a hut (the studio) and behind the hut is a bank of earth with a lot of nettles on it.

I am amazed to find that I am offered the opportunity to grow things on this bank. I am allotted, not an allottment but an aNottment.

I went there yesterday with Graham from the Alpines in Kew Gardens, you could say he knows a few things about native plants. We had a look around and got together a list of plants growing on the patch. Of course it is mostly nettles, but also Alexanders, burdock, green alkanet, horsetails, Black HoarHound, a type of wild lettuce and a mustard, some pretty grasses and a wild barley, mugwort (allegedly useful in clairvoyancy), a buddleia and some buttercups. I may well have forgotten a couple of things too.

We also have on the site a pile of breeze blocks, some rubble, a few black plastic tubes and a bird box.

With this highly promising collection of assorted plants and objects I want to intervene as a concious and conscientious agent of ecological change. I would like to foster whatever wants to grow there naturally, introduce a few new things, (mostly native) for diversity and for edibility, usefulness, and interest (eg perhaps some woad) and monitor the assortment of plants to maximise their happiness and health and also the diversity both of species but also of uses to myself, other animals, and the earth and other plants, other people etc.

People usually dominate when it comes to choosing who should a plant serve but i want to make sure I provide for as many strange creatures as possible.

In short, I want to make it a garden of natural wonders and delights for all the senses and the imagination. When you really look at little humble plants they become the most amazing extraordinary beasts of all manner of marvels.

Also I'd like to put in more bird boxes so if anyone can help please get in touch.

I tried digging up some green alkanet roots thinking they were good for dye, but it turns out its the wrong type of alkanet. But for now the alkanet stays: its pretty , and the bees and bugs seem to absolutely love it. They were thronging in.

When I clear out some of the nettles (some will stay) I can eat the tops, make fibre from the stems, use the roots for a good yellow dye (for the fleece that will be delivered at the Pensford Field Picnic 20 June) and put the rest into a mulch for a good compost.

This is totally thrilling and all are welcome to help out and learn about the amazing wonders of weeds.

Hurrah! many thanks to the lovely Diana and Pensford Field people, and Graham.















Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Squirrel Nut Stew

Spent a weekend in the woods and collected a few mushies plus some fresh squirrel! I've also had a bumper crop of sweet chestnuts and walnuts from trees down the road. So i had a superb stew made largely from wild local food, apart from the flour (Waitrose farm in Hampshire), thyme (Dennis' allottment), salt (Maldon's, Essex), oil (olive but local rapeseed would be perfectly good substitute. I just happen to have a five gallon bottle of olive oil that was given so am making good use of it!) and carrots (Abel & Cole). Here is my recipe for squirrel stew, incorporating Tristram's suggestions about the first stage for the meat: Preparation stage: 1 squirrel, skiined and prepared ( see Flickr for details of how to do this) A few ounces of flour with salt and thyme mixed in Oil For the stew 1 or more penny buns (cep mushroom) A few spiny puffballs Handful of Amethyst Deceivers Handful of sweet chestnuts , peeled Handful of walnuts Water 6 medium size Chopped carrots Sp
2 comments
Read more

Life Returns to Notment - and my soul

It has been such a long time, we had so much cold and rain and snow this winter that I have hardly been down to the notment at all. A couple of weeks ago I did go, and collected some baby Alexanders , which went down very well with the family. They are very herbal, like fennel, aniseed or celery but stronger and with a distinct flavour. They work very well chopped up with mashed potato or in an omelette. Then yesterday I went back for a propoer look at the spring life. Many of the fragile little seedlings planted last year in their fleece-poo blankets are still alive if not exactly thriving - including a sage, some fennel cuttings, a feverfew and calamint. Sadly though, the huge ants nest has gone since the breeze blocks were sold to alocal builder who has been able to reuse them. I had been hoping to provide a new home for the ants, but failed to act in time and so now just have to wait and see if they managed to survive or not. I am fairly ignorant about the habits of ants, but
5 comments
Read more

Snow and Honey

Monday was a day famous for Snow, but for me it was also about honey. I visited Linda who has recently started keeping bees. We processed some honey and she very kindly gave me a pot of golden sweetness at the end. I learnt about mites, and deaths, and bee dancing and pollen and nectar and propolis (the red stuff in the pot - very sticky and it stains the hands, the bees make it from tree resin), and how the bees tenderly care for the grubs and feed them bees milk, and how the worker bees come out of the growing chambers and do housekeeping first for a few days, and then nursing, and then they guard the entrance, and then they start foraging only after all that. The pics show how we scraped the honey out of the combs, avoiding letting pollen and nectar into the honey, and let it drip through a net to separate it from the wax - collecting the was crumbs for melting down and further separation from the honey that is left; propolis; and the honey pots that were filled. 20 in total, from a
4 comments
Read more