In November 2012 I received some bad news from my Dad and I have been putting off posting about it until now. The news was in relation to the allotment my Dad has held since 1984, which is also the one that I keep my Bees on, stating that he will have to give up this allotment at the end of January 2013. The reason they have given him is that because he already has another allotment he is not allowed a second. The other one is withing walking distance of his house and has his greenhouses on so I can't expect him to give this one up however it is right next to a school so Bees will be a big no on this site!
Between me and my Dad there were a few mixed emotions, mainly a feeling of slight anger from my Dad and panic from myself. My Dad has many well established trees in the allotment that won't be easy work to move not to mention that he had just spent a good many hours digging in the manure to prepare the soil for next years growing season and then there's the Bees. In the small time frame from receiving notice to end of January there is not much time to find a new site, prepare the site and the move the Bees.
Now for the more positive news. I have been mentioning my problem to a few people and have a few friends who have said they will keep an eye out for places but so far no luck. I have also sent an email to the allotment committee to ask if it is at all possible to either sign the allotment over to my name, or split the allotment in 2 leaving me the half with the Bees or get an extension to give me more time. They have not got back to me yet. In the mean time my Dad has been far more successful than me and has found a friend with some land that he's willing to let us use.
The land is approximately 1.5 miles away from my dads allotment as the Bee flies and few hundred feet further travel from my home but the best thing is that is on my route to and from work so if needed I can visit straight from work. The land is slightly bigger by my reckoning using google maps to measure the boundaries (roughly), but not by a great amount. There is a good water source right next to the land in the form of a stream. The land has been used to raise pigs in the last few years so there is plenty of well rotted pig muck just under the surface.
I have included some photos below, including an attempt at a panoramic, and in these photos you'll be able to see that there is still a load of work to be done but with some hard work I'm sure it'll look excellent in no time and be producing loads of food and room for plenty of Bee hives!
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| Weeds, junk and tree stumps |
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| The first tree planted! Baking apples! |
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| Access to the stream |
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| More of the stream |
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| More weeds! |
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| The twigs sticking out of the ground in a row are raspberry bushes |
I notice that one of your labels for the above post is 'Raspberry'. I suspect that once you have this place cleaned up you will be blowing the local council one...
ReplyDeleteI am so pleased things have worked out. On my blog-feed, I only saw the first bit of your blog, and was starting to wonder whether offering a small garden in Leeds would be any good. But phew! It looks like there is a lot of work to be done, however. Best of luck with it.
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