Chives donated by my plot-neighbour this afternoon
I do love my allotment, it's on a lovely site, sandwiched between a cemetery-cum-nature reserve and an ancient common, (which is still used for grazing cattle,) has rich, fertile soil and, sloping gently to the south, has day-long sunshine. And best of all, it's less than half an hour's walk from our city-centre flat - and barely ten minutes from the house we'll hopefully soon be moving to. I took charge of my half a plot (5 poles, for those who know about these things) almost a year ago, and it's far from my first gardening experience, but I'm still learning all the time.
Today I learned that my new plot-neighbours have a dog called Google (I can only assume that he's good at finding things) and that the shrub that makes up most of my hedge is extremely flammable.
I have no idea what this shrub is. It is evergreen, with oval leaves, green on top, silver-white underneath, has thin flaky bark on its woodier stems and has daisy-like flowers in summer. It grows (or has in my case grown) into an untidy beast, about four or five feet high, which is why it had something of a haircut a couple of months ago. The prunings have been sitting in the middle of a path ever since, waiting for a dry enough, still enough day for a bonfire, and today was - finally - that day. I got the incinerator (well, rusty old oil-drum left behind by the previous incumbent) going, started feeding in the ex-hedge and whooomf, nearly lost my eyebrows! The combination of papery bark and oily leaves made for a nice clean burn with very little smoke, but it did have serious speed & heat.
I appear to have taken up fire-worship
A (very) little weeding and planting aside, actual work on the allotment was at a minimum today, but hey, I got to spend four hours basking in the glorious spring sunshine instead of holed up in the flat!
Today I learned that my new plot-neighbours have a dog called Google (I can only assume that he's good at finding things) and that the shrub that makes up most of my hedge is extremely flammable.
I have no idea what this shrub is. It is evergreen, with oval leaves, green on top, silver-white underneath, has thin flaky bark on its woodier stems and has daisy-like flowers in summer. It grows (or has in my case grown) into an untidy beast, about four or five feet high, which is why it had something of a haircut a couple of months ago. The prunings have been sitting in the middle of a path ever since, waiting for a dry enough, still enough day for a bonfire, and today was - finally - that day. I got the incinerator (well, rusty old oil-drum left behind by the previous incumbent) going, started feeding in the ex-hedge and whooomf, nearly lost my eyebrows! The combination of papery bark and oily leaves made for a nice clean burn with very little smoke, but it did have serious speed & heat.
I appear to have taken up fire-worshipA (very) little weeding and planting aside, actual work on the allotment was at a minimum today, but hey, I got to spend four hours basking in the glorious spring sunshine instead of holed up in the flat!
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