Garden Club

One of the many benefits of our village is the community spirit. The Horticultural Society - a rather grand name for a group of people who enjoy gardening - held one of their Garden Club meetings this evening, at the allotments. There are regular monthly meetings, (usually indoors!) which are very diverse, ranging from growing onions and leeks via raising chickens and pigs to talks by local garden designers. This time, it was allotment growing, which as everyone knows has been especially difficult this year, with lots of slugs, rain and caterpillars, and not nearly enough sun and warmth.

Some of the people - not all allotmenteers - who came to Garden Club







The London Shard

It was a lovely evening, but got dark too soon. We are close enough to London that the Shard is clearly visible as well as the Olympic Stadium from the site, but far enough into the country that we have none of the noise or metropolitan dirt. We had an interesting talk, and looked round several plots, each with different ideas. Some people had very narrow beds - you don't tread on the soil, but on the other hand there is a lot of hard construction, and a lot of ground is lost to paths. Some had divided their plots into 4 (as have I) for easy rotation of crops. Others had surrounded their plots with netting, to cut down on the wind and the pigeons - of which there are many!