Dainty ladies

One of the reasons why I became so attached to the allotment, even before I was its official tenant, was the mini apple orchard to one side of it.  There are four apple trees, and each has a different size and shape, and flowers at different times. 

I have always loved apple trees, because they are beautiful whatever the season.  They seem to me to be gentle and benevolent, giving beautiful blossom in Spring, peaceful shade in summer, and delicious fruit in Autumn, which can be enjoyed in multitudinous ways all through the winter.  I love the traditions surrounding apple trees, and how they are deeply involved with human culture, in a similar way to horses. 

It was the death of a particular apple tree of mine which led me outwards on the path that would lead to the allotment.  It was a mature apple tree which provided a beautiful sanctuary for me during the summer.  I would tie my hammock to its trunk, step aboard, and be lulled into a state of grace, letting all my worries drop from me like swaddling.  I developed a bond with this tree, and was deeply saddened when its elderly system was no match for surprise frosts, and it fell permanently to sleep.  When we removed its remains, it was clear that it was a natural passing, as it was mostly dead wood, full of insect holes and fungus.  So surprising then that its last two years had been its finest in terms of blooms and fruit.  I wish I’d kept seeds from those last fruits so it could have lived on through progeny, but it wasn’t to be. 

I only realised how much I had come to rely on this tree as a place of safety and spriritual nourishment when it was no longer there.  I became permanently uptight, with no other means of travelling to that meditative state I had come to love.  So I began to go on long walks around and about, and that led me to the allotment. 

None of the Dainty Ladies is big enough to support a hammock, but they do remind me of my apple tree, and lift my heart, particularly in Spring when they are at their most splendid. 

When I first encountered them however, they were in a sorry state.  They reminded me of those distressing pictures in adverts requesting donations for donkey sanctuaries.  Please help a little apple tree in distress.  They were incomprehensibly bound up in orange bailing twine, and ineffectively and unnecessarily staked by it to metal posts, which I later discovered to be markers of an old boundary.  They had never been pruned, so were all tangled up in their own branches.  The land around their bases was a mass of heaped up grassed over clods of earth, and there was no space around their trunks for feeding.  I was glad to see a few primroses around two of them, a little splash of lemon and white hopefulness.  

The first thing I did when the allotment was mine was to give them a thorough pruning.  I cut them free of their bailing twine shackles, and evened up the earth around their trunks.  I cleared space around their trunks and gave them a good feed of ash from my first bonfire.  Already they looked happier.  I could see that they all seemed to be different varieties,and gradually over the year they revealed their true identities.  First with the blossom – each tree had a slightly different hue of pink and came out at a slightly different time.  First the largest tree, and then as if taking the cue from her, the smaller ones followed.  Then finally the apples were all beautiful but in entirely different ways, reds, russets, and oranges. 

As I worked with them I formed a bond, and from the beginning they brought into my mind an image of four dainty young ladies, like flower maidens, as if dancing in a circle and caring for the land around them.  I was inspired by this to give them ornamentation with wind chimes, and a green bird on a spring which resembles an apple in its roundness.  I have plans to wassail them, as soon as I manage to acquire a cider press. 

I also wanted to give them a pleasant place around their bases.  I first created circles of flints, as numerous as the slugs in my plot.  I soon realised how impractical this was, as the mower constantly bit against the flints as it tackled the uneven ground and grass.  I planted wild garlic, cowslips and violets around them, and divided the clumps of primroses so each tree could have a share of the brightness.  I reseeded the grass to they now have fine lawn instead of couche grass around their trunks, although I wonder how long it will be until the couche grass takes over again. 

My plan is to turn the area around the Ladies into a medieval greensward, as described in the literature and poems of the day.  I turned to my old copy of the Roman of the Rose, not opened since my university days, and took note of all the flowers mentioned in the description of the garden there.  Almost all of them were already in the land – periwinkles, forgetmenots, pinks, violets, primulas and daisies.  I want to add wild thyme, and wild strawberries, which I hope to acquire during my French Alpine holiday.  So really then my apple trees will be dainty Medieval Ladies, and I expect they will be able to speak French, because the Alpine flowers will teach them.

Black gold

When I first took on the allotment in March, I was bewildered by the amount of black plastic sheeting skulking all damp and morose about the land. The previous owner had evidently been much attached to it.  So much so that I was unearthing fragments of it for some time, together with orange bailing twine, which I was able to pull from the earth like strange orange earth worms.

I had no idea why anyone would want such a quantity of black plastic, especially as it seemed to be in such a poor condition, full of tears and holes and caked with mud.  In the end I disposed of it in recycling. Now the weeds have really started to bolt I have realised too late the true value of what I threw away. 

There were two large beds I had yet to excavate, and the only realistic line of defence against weeds was total suffocation by black plastic.  I had kept several pieces, which were killing the nettles and couche grass in the compost heap, but I needed more.  Much more.  There was no other way forward but to go on a scrounging mission.

There is a communal area in the allotments where people put things they don’t need, and I was delighted to discover a large piece of plastic just the size I needed to cover the remaining bed.  I dragged back my prize like a cavewoman dragging back dead prey.

I kept the plastic in place with the old heavy logs I’d found on my allotment, perhaps their original function.  I also found large flints worked well.  So I’ve learnt the hard way the true value of black plastic sheeting, and will never treat it with disrespect again. 

Ultimately I intend to experiment with green manure and mulches to both feed and inhibit weed growth, but for emergency situations in the spring there is no substitute for black plastic.