Friday 21 August 2009

Guerrilla Gardening and Garlic Braiding

We planted Daffodil bulbs down in Field A, a whole load of them and no one saw us and no one will know it was us, hahhahahahaha. Guerrilla gardening! Just you wait till spring, oh, the shock on everyone's faces.
Everyone in Field A : 'Oh, where did these lovely daffs come from, oh how fabulous. What wonderful person/s could have done this!!!'
Us : (pretending to also be shocked) 'Wow, they are lovely, who ever did it must be amazingly fabulous and just all round great people. Bless them, may this year be a fruitful one for their plot/s'
Everyone in Field A : 'Yes, bless them; may blight, slugs and caterpillars avoid them forever more!!!'

Us: (giggle) 'Indeed'

So sssshhhhhh, don't tell anyone, it's a surprise. We did it together and the bulbs were lovely; fat, hard and blemish free. Hopefully they will naturalise over time, now wouldn't that be pretty?

*******

After that I started to make my 2nd Birdhouse, this time with a pitched roof. More difficult than I though and I got my first woodwork injures ~ a very small cut on my finger and a hammer blow to the thumb. I feel like a real craftswoman now! Unfortunately I got very peeved with the whole project after 3 hours and my double vision was horrendous so I threw it into the shed in a huff and didn't take a photo.

Andrew on the other hand laid a path between the 'grave' and the raspberries. Finally! I think it's starting to look much better down there and the rockery plants are in too so over time I think it will look pretty.



Then he also braided garlic. I was hoping to do it, but he took charge, I have forgiven him now but at the time (and I think I hid this quite well Andrew) I was deeply hurt. I was the one who found the website that explained how to do it and printed out the instructions after all... But he did a fantastic job so I can't be angry.



Before and after tidying up
Just to end this rather fab week of Grow Our Own news ~ Andrew, Maggie and I won a prize in the 'Best Kept Allotment of the Year' competition this year! A big thank you to the judges at Sunnybank Nursery. We get to go to a 'do' in October as well in the town hall, posh.

9 comments:

  1. Carrie, so, that's what guerrilla gardening all about. Hit, run and hide behind a tree. Haha.... Once you put it in blog like this, the surprise element will lessen. Huh, but after a while readers in Ireland will forget, and by the time they bloom seasons later, the intended surprise will be back!!.
    Cheers RAMBO.
    ~bangchik

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah, a glaring hole in the plot! People will never remember right?? I ought to have thought this through a bit more, not too good at this Guerrilla gardening thing yet. Note to self - don't tell people or you run surprise. Thanks Bangchik x

    ReplyDelete
  3. A prize how fantastic! Can't see the boys and I ever getting best kept. We might get most beans from a short row though...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Carrie I have been missing out on blogging but glad to see this post.
    Well done you with your daffodil planting long may they put a smile on your face.
    I noticed your water bottles don't they make such good cloches. we aquired about ten from Mike's work.
    I am useless at growing garlic but I do braid the onions and they look lovely hung in the kitchen.I am envious of your garlic.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Good for you! Gotta spread that garden love around. There are a few guerilla gardening groups where I live in Los Angeles too.
    Glad I found you on blotanical.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Carrie, the Council has 20,000 daffodil bulbs coming in October and we offer the bulbs to groups such as the allotment association. If the committee want additional bulbs, just drop me a line.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Allot of Veg - you get a prize everytime your boys are out covered in mud, working hard on the plot and are laughing! What's better than that?

    Joanne - good to have you back! Yep, those water bottles are fab. Sadly Andrew's work (where we got them) has stopped getting them. Tap water from nnow on - cut backs -huh! Don't be jealous of the garlic, we grew 2 different types and only 1 did super duper well. You just have to get the best one for your conditions.

    Laura - welcome to grow our own! Botanicals is a fab place to find people, glad you found me. I like the guerrilla gardening, maybe I'll do more....

    Stephen - put me down for some, i'll convince the committee to get onto you! About half that amount would do, don't want to appear greedy, hahaha

    ReplyDelete
  8. eSorry that this is probably not the best place for these but I couldn't find a contact address.

    I'm sure you must be aware of the problems experienced by allotment holders last year due to the use of manure contaminated by a persitent herbicide called aminopyralid. Information has been collated about this problem from the links on this page http://www.glallotments.btik.com/p_Contaminated_Manure.ikml
    Just to update on the latest re aminopyralid contamination in case you would like to provide updates on your website or to allotment holders in your area.

    The latest infomation re manure contamination is posted on my website here http://www.glallotments.btik.com/p_herbicide_latest.ikml
    I have also sent out a email for circulation by everyone I know that has been affected which is here http://www.glallotments.btik.com/attachments/contaminated_manure_alert.pdf which you may find useful to circulate to allotment holders in your area.

    It is particularly important that gardeners be aware of the need for caution when obtaining manure in light of the fact that the government are now considering reinstating the licence that was temporarily suspended last year. As this is a concern to many gardeners you may wish to publicise an a epetition that has been started here http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/aminopyralidban/

    I am posting updates as I get them on my blog http://glallotments.blogspot.com/ just on case you want to keep a watching brief.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Welcome Green Lane Allotments and thank you for the information xx

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a little nugget of happiness in the form of a comment - don't forget to put your name at the end if using 'anonymous' setting x