East Ward Allotment Association

Come and join us for lunch provided free of charge by plotholder Shamsul Hoque and your committee! We will start at 12 and will have children’s games and activities as well as the oddest thing found on an allotment competition.

We will be providing Indian food plus separate meat and veggie barbecues, do bring anything you’d like to share, picnic mats and of course the oddest thing you’ve found on your plot!

Lots going on this weekend, Barracks Lane Garden’s family activity day on Saturday (see below) and on Sunday our neighbours at the Children’s Allotment (behind our shop) have an event:

All Welcome at the Children’s Allotment

The day will be a planting workday where we will focus on the poly tunnel area and finally put some of the things we have been planting over the weeks into the beds. We will be there from 10-3pm and especially wanted to invite any plot holders, those who have not previously been to see the site, or those who have but would love to know more, to come and meet us, have a chat and see what we have been doing and what our plans are. We have a LOT of flower pots and seeds that you are welcome to take with you and if you have any plants (flowers, herbs, vegetables) that you would like to donate to the project, bring them along and we can plant them together!From 2pm there will be tea and home made cakes to celebrate 🙂 We look forward to seeing you there.
All the best from the Children’s Allotment Team

 https://www.facebook.com/events/410003812888265/

Don’t forget the swap this Sunday, 11 -12. Please bring seeds, seedlings and plants to swap and share, and meet your fellow plotholders.

The shop will also be open and will have tomato, pepper and cucumber seedlings from Cutteslowe Community Plant Nursery for sale.

The following seedlings from Cutteslowe Nursery will be for sale at the allotment shop this Sunday 12th May at £1.50 each:

Cucumber – Passandra

Tomatoes – Ailsa Craig, Gigantomo, Moneymaker, Shirley, Sweet Million

Peppers: Bomba, Sweet Banana, Delirio, Cajun belle, Bendigo

Aubergine: Moneymaker, Black Beauty

It’s that time again – you somehow have 8 courgette seedlings but none of your leeks came up! Rest assured, someone else has too many leeks, and their friend is in dire need of courgettes – bring what you have over to our annual plant swap, 11-12 at the shop on 19th May, and take what you need. If you have nothing to swap we will be taking donations for charity instead, but do bring what you can!

Have you seen anything weird growing on your plot lately? A plotholder on the top road (Howard St side) has recently discovered morels on her allotment and we are wondering if anyone else has them. They may have come in with the woodchip and shouldn’t do any harm to your plot. True morels are edible, but do check with someone well-informed before eating any!

At long last we have our new taps, many thanks to all those involved in organising this and to the council for getting the work done. The tanks are not all in place yet, please don’t flood the sites before we get that done (or afterwards either…). We are reliably informed that there are a lot of small stones left in the path which may interfere with the mowing – if your plot is next to one of those areas and you can see your way to raking it free of stones we would be very grateful.

Dear all

Thank you very much those who have offered to help with the event on 8th June. I would like to hold a planning meeting on the evening of 1st May at 7.30 at my house, 120 Reliance Way OX4 2FQ. Anyone who would like to help in any way is very welcome so please ask any allotment holders you know to come. If you have already offered help but are unable to attend please let me know

Best wishes

Mike

As it warms up we can expect the slow worms to start emerging from the nature reserve. You may find them in your compost heap, under any black plastic mulch, or basking anywhere warm. Remember, they are NOT snakes, nor dangerous. They are completely harmless to us, but do eat slugs.

They are beautiful and unusual, and also protected by law – please treasure them and encourage your allotment neighbours to do the same.