How big are allotments?
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DahlisMarie
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Wow, Peter, that is a serious blog of achieevements and involvements 
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redwillowrose
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well, we went to look at the allotment ! There is a lot of work to be done there, but we cant start anything until we have the allotment in our name.
There seems to be a lot of wood on the allotment, and its also bordered by a stream. One of the people working there said they have a lot of trouble with badgers. Does anyone know of anything to deter them ?
There seems to be a lot of wood on the allotment, and its also bordered by a stream. One of the people working there said they have a lot of trouble with badgers. Does anyone know of anything to deter them ?
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peter
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I think Johnboy might know about badgers.
However have you tried searching this forum for the word Badger?
However have you tried searching this forum for the word Badger?
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Mike Vogel
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Thank you Tigger.
Redwillowrose, good luck. I think I was in a similar position 4 years back when I took over the clearing of my two plots, which hadn't been cultivated for at least a year. It took surprisingly little time to clear, but you could stage it, say a quarter or a third under cultivation in the first year, another third the second, etc.
The stream sounds great. You might try getting frogs and toads to breed and wreke havock among the undesirable fauna. You could use the wood for building a shed, framing (raised) beds, or just for burning and making wood-ash for your garlic or beans to revel in. Making fires seems to be a favourite activity among allotmenteers and I have to admit that it gives one quite a satisfying feeling to see piles of dried weeds, grass, etc being reduced to productive ash.
Sorry, i don't know how to badger the badgers.
Good luck with your new venture
mike
PS I'm still trying to work out how to post my photos.
Redwillowrose, good luck. I think I was in a similar position 4 years back when I took over the clearing of my two plots, which hadn't been cultivated for at least a year. It took surprisingly little time to clear, but you could stage it, say a quarter or a third under cultivation in the first year, another third the second, etc.
The stream sounds great. You might try getting frogs and toads to breed and wreke havock among the undesirable fauna. You could use the wood for building a shed, framing (raised) beds, or just for burning and making wood-ash for your garlic or beans to revel in. Making fires seems to be a favourite activity among allotmenteers and I have to admit that it gives one quite a satisfying feeling to see piles of dried weeds, grass, etc being reduced to productive ash.
Sorry, i don't know how to badger the badgers.
Good luck with your new venture
mike
PS I'm still trying to work out how to post my photos.
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DahlisMarie
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Mike managed to email his photos and they are really worth seeing. He is doing a great deal of work there.
With any luck he will be able to post them in the forum.
With any luck he will be able to post them in the forum.
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Mike Vogel
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Hello all. Dahlis has told me how to put images onto the forum, so I wonder if anyone will be interested after all in seeing what a dry bedford allotment looks like. Here's the first of 4.
Yes, Weed, you may well laugh. The shed was cobbled together over a weekend about 3 years ago and cladded with corrugated aluminium to deter vandals from setting it on fire [I was warned about this, but haven't seen any evidence of vandalism since I started here. The blue objects are old printer's ink barrels now used for collecting rainwater in winter.
You can see I've begun to convert the plot to raised beds and they are mulched with straw. I have to say that mulching this year has been a revelation - the soil stays wet for so long! I'm framing the beds with any scrap pieces of wood I can find, nailed together to form frames of the right height. A very slapdash job.
You can see where I had recently planted brassicas because I covered them with thin rectagles of wire mesh, left behind at school by builders a year or two ago. They keep off the butterflies; then, when the plants are big enough, I lift off one side of the rectagles and stand them on the side left on the ground to make windbreaks.
This photo looks quite neat actually, though awful compared with some of the other allotments. The bit that looks like a junkyard I'll leave for another posting.
Hope you are amused and/or interested.
mike
[img][img]http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k77/mikevogel_2006/Allotment1N.jpg[/img][/img]
Yes, Weed, you may well laugh. The shed was cobbled together over a weekend about 3 years ago and cladded with corrugated aluminium to deter vandals from setting it on fire [I was warned about this, but haven't seen any evidence of vandalism since I started here. The blue objects are old printer's ink barrels now used for collecting rainwater in winter.
You can see I've begun to convert the plot to raised beds and they are mulched with straw. I have to say that mulching this year has been a revelation - the soil stays wet for so long! I'm framing the beds with any scrap pieces of wood I can find, nailed together to form frames of the right height. A very slapdash job.
You can see where I had recently planted brassicas because I covered them with thin rectagles of wire mesh, left behind at school by builders a year or two ago. They keep off the butterflies; then, when the plants are big enough, I lift off one side of the rectagles and stand them on the side left on the ground to make windbreaks.
This photo looks quite neat actually, though awful compared with some of the other allotments. The bit that looks like a junkyard I'll leave for another posting.
Hope you are amused and/or interested.
mike
[img][img]http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k77/mikevogel_2006/Allotment1N.jpg[/img][/img]
Please support Wallace Cancer Care
http://www.wallacecancercare.org.uk
and see
http://www.justgiving.com/mikevogel
Never throw anything away.
http://www.wallacecancercare.org.uk
and see
http://www.justgiving.com/mikevogel
Never throw anything away.
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DahlisMarie
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Go to the top of the class Mike. You are an excellent pupil 
A bit of blue and white paint on the corrugated sheeting covered shed and it will look like a beach hut 
Most of the plots on our site were dry and tired too during the hot spell...my clearing up process has certainly started early this year and I am getting my green manures in
Most of the plots on our site were dry and tired too during the hot spell...my clearing up process has certainly started early this year and I am getting my green manures in
I am in my own little world, ...it's OK, ...they know me there!
Hi DM,
I realized that nobody had actually answered your original question so just to boor the pants off everybody I believe this gives an insight as to the derivation of the word which is certainly far older than people might imagine.
The Allotment.
As far as I can ascertain an Allotment was a patch of ground that went with a tied cottage between Farmer and employee. Nowadays it has changed but not all that much when you consider that the local authorities own the vast majority of the allotment sites with several private sites dotted about and they have taken the part that originally was the Farmers.
All land measurements were base on the Surveyors Chain until the coming of the laser beam and land is now mostly measured with this modern equipment.
The original allotment was 1/20th of an acre which is 66ft x 33ft with one footpath and one sidepath and these paths were calculated at 3ft so the growing area was 63ft x30ft.
The Surveyors Chain is composed thus;
1 Link = 7.92 inches,
25 Links = 1 Rod
1 Rod = 198 inches = 16.5 ft.
4 Rods = 100 Links = 1 Chain.
1 Chain = 66ft = 22yds (length of a Cricket Pitch)
10 Chains = 1 Furlong = 220yds
8 Furlongs = 1 Mile.
So an allotment 4 rods long and two Rods wide if calculated = 8sq Rods = 1/20th of and Acre.
To prove that 66ft x 33ft x 20 = 43560 square ft. 43560 square ft = 1 Acre.
43560 Divided by 9 = 4840 sq. yds which is more easily recognisable to some.
So the original Allotment was 8 square Rods and this is the way that the Rod came about with modern Allotments as a blast from the past. It would appear that very few Allotments are actually the size they were originally.
Hi Mike,
As a School teacher you should thank your lucky stars that we have metricated as to teach this to the children of today I feel that they would be as baffled as we were as chidren.
If you have completed reading this you are no doubt yawning and for that I apologise.
JB.
I realized that nobody had actually answered your original question so just to boor the pants off everybody I believe this gives an insight as to the derivation of the word which is certainly far older than people might imagine.
The Allotment.
As far as I can ascertain an Allotment was a patch of ground that went with a tied cottage between Farmer and employee. Nowadays it has changed but not all that much when you consider that the local authorities own the vast majority of the allotment sites with several private sites dotted about and they have taken the part that originally was the Farmers.
All land measurements were base on the Surveyors Chain until the coming of the laser beam and land is now mostly measured with this modern equipment.
The original allotment was 1/20th of an acre which is 66ft x 33ft with one footpath and one sidepath and these paths were calculated at 3ft so the growing area was 63ft x30ft.
The Surveyors Chain is composed thus;
1 Link = 7.92 inches,
25 Links = 1 Rod
1 Rod = 198 inches = 16.5 ft.
4 Rods = 100 Links = 1 Chain.
1 Chain = 66ft = 22yds (length of a Cricket Pitch)
10 Chains = 1 Furlong = 220yds
8 Furlongs = 1 Mile.
So an allotment 4 rods long and two Rods wide if calculated = 8sq Rods = 1/20th of and Acre.
To prove that 66ft x 33ft x 20 = 43560 square ft. 43560 square ft = 1 Acre.
43560 Divided by 9 = 4840 sq. yds which is more easily recognisable to some.
So the original Allotment was 8 square Rods and this is the way that the Rod came about with modern Allotments as a blast from the past. It would appear that very few Allotments are actually the size they were originally.
Hi Mike,
As a School teacher you should thank your lucky stars that we have metricated as to teach this to the children of today I feel that they would be as baffled as we were as chidren.
If you have completed reading this you are no doubt yawning and for that I apologise.
JB.
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oldherbaceous
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Dear Johnboy far from boring me it has brought back some very happy memories from when i was at our village primary school.
I used to love those weights and measurement tables.
Your piece was informative and funny at the same time, very cleverly done.
Kind regards Old Herbaceous.
Theres no fools like them old fools.
I used to love those weights and measurement tables.
Your piece was informative and funny at the same time, very cleverly done.
Kind regards Old Herbaceous.
Theres no fools like them old fools.
I have a small patch below the polytunnels which I paced out as 33 yards each way approximately. I use this for outdoor crops only. It seems that it works out as something over 4 allotments. No wounder it gets out of hand, being only a small part of our 'field' which is only 4 acres of the total 20.
We didn't want so much land but it was the cheapest way to buy any land to work. A house with even an acre or so was beyond or budget.
It's a crazy world.
Allan
We didn't want so much land but it was the cheapest way to buy any land to work. A house with even an acre or so was beyond or budget.
It's a crazy world.
Allan
Badgers.... the subject has drifted a bit but we seem to have our fair share of badgers on site...
one of our older plotholders (well he's older then me)swears by human urine to the extent that he has plastic cups half full of the stuff strategically placed around his plot.
He tops these up at regular intervals...he is very discreet ... just in case you thought otherwise
one of our older plotholders (well he's older then me)swears by human urine to the extent that he has plastic cups half full of the stuff strategically placed around his plot.
He tops these up at regular intervals...he is very discreet ... just in case you thought otherwise
I am in my own little world, ...it's OK, ...they know me there!
JB
Thanks for the calculation
It reminded me that at Leatherhead in my 22 years of allotmenting there I did for a time take on 3.5 plots so it would be appropriate to erect the same shed that we had there, but it needs rather a lot of repair by now, it must be about 40 years old. It is at the bottom of a steep slope (facing South)so if we get a sudden downpour it is far easier to go in the shed than run up the hill (at my age!)
Thanks for the calculation
It reminded me that at Leatherhead in my 22 years of allotmenting there I did for a time take on 3.5 plots so it would be appropriate to erect the same shed that we had there, but it needs rather a lot of repair by now, it must be about 40 years old. It is at the bottom of a steep slope (facing South)so if we get a sudden downpour it is far easier to go in the shed than run up the hill (at my age!)