Hazelnuts Ahoy

Green Hazelnuts are beginning to fall now and they are also being snacked upon by the grey squirrels. 

Although I far prefer the nuts when they are ripe and dropping to the ground of their own accord; these signs are always a smart way to detect where the best, biggest brown backed beauties will be falling in a couple of weeks’ time…

Allotmenteering

We finally got the nod from the council, regarding our request for an allotment at the Witts Hill site. Lasts year we had helped out and shared our friends patch but it was right on the other side of the city and difficult to frequent as much as was needed.

Allotments are great places for the kids to get used to digging, growing and weeding, they enjoy the freedom and open air. Witts Hill is only a fifteen minute walk away from us, so we set off to see what we had been allocated.

Our space was on a slope at the bottom edge of the site. Plastic sheeting had been laid down by the previous owner, to suppress weed growth but this was mostly shredded to bits by the storms and largely unusable but at least some of the earth was fairly bare.

At our friend’s allotment, we constructed a rustic fruit cage, out of coppiced hazel. It proved quite a success, so we had already decided to replicate this plan on our new plot. We chose a suitable spot and got digging to define the edges and remove weeds, roots and grass.

The children were assigned an area to keep for themselves, they love the allotment and set to work keenly and with fairly few squabbles. The kids are also great for fetching wood chippings and water, not that we have needed much of the latter recently. Cucumbers and strawberries seem to be their favourite crop to plant – perfect for a summer picnic I guess.

Digging grassy ground over can be back breaking work and the official advice is to work in small portions. Many people watch too many TV gardening shows and think that it will be easy; they get a nasty shock when the hard work kicks in and often give up before they get any benefit out of the land. Cold and wet weather can also put off less determined and hardy allotmenteers.

Being walking distance from the house is a real advantage and I soon had the fruit cage plotted out and fruit bushes in the earth. I got some stout Hazel poles and, from a rather precarious perch, hammered them into the corners. Meanwhile, the plot next to the cage was being thoroughly dug over by Sarah who also planted some strawberry plants.

The children were busy planting onion-sets in their own patch and my son also planted his young apple tree; he has nurtured this sapling from a pip. I planted a pear and a nectarine tree that I found reduced and lonely in a store; Sarah assures me that the nectarine will never bear fruit in the UK climate, but it does already have very attractive flowers and the label says it will be provide plenty – so I guess we’ll wait and see.

My other jobs seem to be attacking the mass of bramble bushes and stinging nettles at the bottom of the allotment and collecting enough scrap wood to make a shelter/shed. I’m considering nettle beer and aim to train some of the brambles, so that we can collect a decent blackberry crop this summer. A compost heap is inevitable…

Tough Work All That Digging

On any allotment site, Heath Robinson rules; you really do see the best of British eccentric behaviour, inventiveness, cunning recycling and shear resourcefulness at work.

Rustic Fruit Cage Success

At home, the pea harvest from the compact rainwater irrigated raised bed is going very well. The pea plants are now taller than my children and covered with fresh fat pods; they taste best raw.

However, after a short spell of sunny weather, I thought it was high time I popped down to our shared allotment to check on the progress of the soft fruit in our coppiced hazel cage.

What a lovely surprise greeted me!

All of the Autumnal Raspberries and the Tayberry had shot up. The Summer Raspberries were full of scrumptious ripe fruit.

Strawberry plants were planning to take over the entire floor-space / or possibly the world.

My Blueberry bush was resplendent with a great many bloomy ripe berries, which I hastily picked/ate.

The Squash plants were outside the safety of the cage; they had such a hard time getting started because of the invading slug army. Now they seemed to have finally got a grip and were happily seething all over the plot with gay abandon.

I returned home victorious and contented, with a small Tupperware box of the remaining Blueberries and Raspberries (the ones that I had not scoffed); guiltily licking the smeared juice off my lips before reaching the front door.

Rustic Fruit Cage Completion

Ta Da!

The weather finally relented enough for us to get down to the allotment space that we are sharing with our friends. The main aim I had in mind was to complete the netting surrounding my rustic fruit cage, which I had constructed from coppiced hazel and also to see if the slugs had eaten all of my squash plants yet.

Muck Spreading

When we arrived, the first thing we noticed was how high the grass had grown; it was easy to lose the children, which was nice! Actually, in truth they were quite helpful weeding, sowing carrot seeds, planting strawberry runners and chopping down the grass.

Getting Planted

Stretching the netting over the cage was no mean feat and definitely a two person job. This was largely due to the wind, raspberries and the fact that it kept snagging on the rough hazel. Eventually we had it covered, as they say, with only a tiny scrap left over.

Taking Shape

Now, finally the project is completed, our raspberries, tayberries, blueberries and strawberries can now be left to ripen without being gobbled up by our feathered friends. We are looking forward to harvesting the soft fruits now that the hard work has been done.

Door Frame

The door works and even some of the hazel staves used to prop up the fruit buses are starting to grow. I even briefly entertained the thought that it might be possible to grow a fruit cage out of hazel; although, I suspect that this might be a bit too much of a quixotic idea, even for me...

Door Added

If you would enjoy the challenge of building a similar construction or simply read about our allotment activities, follow the sequence of links below…

Netting... Done!

1.       http://theurbaneforager.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/attack-on-manure-mountain.html

2.       http://theurbaneforager.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/another-lot-of-allotment.html

3.       http://theurbaneforager.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/rustic-fruit-cage-contruction.html

4.       http://theurbaneforager.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/rustic-fruit-cage-continued.html
5.     http://theurbaneforager.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/allotmenteering.html

There were times when I thought it would never be finished.

Rustic Fruit Cage Continued

I was positively delighted with my initial surge of construction; I had the basic cube shape secured and it all seemed reasonably straight (apart from one corner), considering it had been built by eye and out of sticks.

Now With Added Door Frame!

I’m a believer in being faithful to my original thought (stubborn); rustic was the way and I didn’t want to buy anything unnecessary. Fortunately I had saved a couple of pretty sturdy and true hazel staves, so I bashed these in to form a doorway, they also helped stiffen up the whole structure.

A Beautiful Shirley Ponds Willow

It didn’t take long however, before people started mentioning the door/entrance, which would be needed once the netting was fixed over the framework. Various ideas, such as leather straps or hoops of rope were helpfully suggested.

Allotmet Gate Keeper

In the back of my mind though, I knew that there was no need for hasty decisions. Lack of planning has been the downfall of many idiosyncratic schemes, just as often as lack of knowledge or ability, and the netting won’t even be needed until June. So instead of rushing off to purchase inappropriate hinges at the local hardware shop, I paused, pondered the possibilities and then - I looked at my own garden gate for inspiration.

Rustic Gate Planning

I dug out an old piece of balustrade that I found in my shed as the back edge for the door. I then copied the frame of my garden gate, including diagonals to stop the structure from sagging when hung.

Rustic Joints

It was never going to be exact, so I left all fixing and the opening edge until it was in place. I laid it all up on some decking at home, chopped out where all the joints would go and bought some gate hinges. These were cheap enough for me to bend by hand and I actually wrapped them around the balustrade once it was on site.

Ta Dah!

Finally fitting the door did require a fair bit of innovation (bodging), inspiration (swearing), improvisation (hewing with a penknife) and making it up as I went along; some of the joints are temporarily held in place with garden wire for instance but I was pleasantly surprised by the end result and I believe that Heath Robinson would have been suitably impressed.

And - It Actually Opens Too

Rustic Fruit Cage Contruction



Allotment Man - a (fairly) Distant Relative of the Neanderthal



I thought it would be a good idea to build a fruit cage to protect our (hopefully impending) bounty. Being a man with very little construction skills I thought it would be a good idea to create it in a rustic style; mainly because it would be more difficult to criticize the inevitable wonkiness. I also thought the natural look would be a more appealing design.

Hunter Gatherer

First though, we had to lay the weed suppressing membrane. Normally this should be done before planting the fruit canes and frames but being an incompetent buffoon I forgot this and had to fumble my way through the wrong way about. Eventually we managed to cut, wiggle and yank the sheet down over the plants; it was a process not dissimilar to, attempting to put on a pair of trousers, via your head.



Gratuitous Plum Blossom

I had obtained a some stout coppiced hazel sticks, with the ends cut to points. I hammered these in as uprights for the frame, then my good friend Andy, who it turns out is growing his own orchard on the IOW, kindly donated a bundle more hazel sticks that looked perfect to complete the construction.

The Plan Starts To Take Shape

With the help of my boy we lugged all the equipment down to the allotment and set about bashing the uprights into the soil forming an rough rectangle. Next I lashed the thinner sticks around the top and across the middle to tie it all together.



If You Build It, They Will Come

My description here does make it sound a lot simpler than it actually was to complete the framework, it was pretty hard work. In the end though, we thought it looked quite pleasing and were contented with our mornings labour. We still need to attach the netting and fitting hinges to a hazel door might be quite troublesome too.

Catkin Collections

A Catkin Shower Catching the Winter Sun

One tree that is easy to spot, even in the depths of winter, is the Hazel; this is because the flowers of this tree are catkins and these tiny treasures are currently dangling from a hazel hedge, tree or coppice near you, right now.



Catkins Blowing in the Breeze

Children love picking and collecting catkins; possibly because they look like caterpillars, but they disintegrate fairly quickly, either that or they end up in their trouser pockets clogging the washing machine, along with other curious miscellaneous items.

Another One For The Collection

I always think that they look like little localised, frozen showers hanging by the roadsides, but for me they are very helpful to identify where there might be a nice crop of Hazelnuts later in the year. In the summer you can revisit the places and see if any hazelnuts have developed. It can be harder to recognise individual trees when everything has turned verdant green - you can't see the trees for the woods, as it were.

Good Things Come To Those Who Know Where To Find Them
Can You Spot The Hazelnuts?

Christmas Garlands and Wreaths

Let The Love Into Your Home

Last year we had a lot of fun making evergreen wreaths to hang on front doors. This year we are also manning the Made in Portswood stall, for the school Christmas Fair and I thought that a few decorations might supplement the home-made chutney and jams well.

Coppiced Hazel

Making wreaths is quite easy, you can make it up as you go along, according to what is available and it does not all need to be done at once – in fact I found it handy to be able to put it all down and then pick it up again when convenient.

Twisted Into Hazel Hoops

First you ideally need some nice straight lengths of coppiced hazel. Other wood will do though, as long as it doesn't snap when you bend it gently round into a rough hoop. We also found something in our garden which worked well enough when we ran out of hazel.

The Crown of Vines

Next we wrapped the circles around with some vine type material to give it some bulk and help tie it together, I have no idea what this stuff was but I made my daughter a nice little crown for her efforts and she was delighted. We then wove in some Ivy that we had pulled off the fence in our garden, you need to be a bit gentle or it can snap. If it does, just poke it in again and start afresh.

Getting There

Later we collected some Old Man’s Beard which worked well too, any other flexible hedgerow climber should work well.

Holly

We had also collected some pine fronds, some nice holly with berries (of course) and some perfect little pine cones. Then we decided to add a little glamour, to contrast with the rustic look we were creating and painted the pine cones silver. These could be used separately as tree decorations too.

Perfect Pine Cones

I then spied mistletoe in a local churchyard and it was fairly easily reached. The Reverend gave us his blessing to collect some of the plant to add to our efforts. We thought we could also sell mistletoe sprigs on the stall.

Add A Touch of Glamour

We also picked some Teasels, which look great painted and hung upside-down on cotton from the Xmas tree or wreath.

Pretty Painted Teasles

If you want to add more greenery, simply pick some suitable evergreens and bind them in; winding wool or string around the twigs helps to keep everything more compact and tidy. If you don’t like the smell of pine you can add some Rosemary or other herbs to your garlands.

The Garlands Gradually Take Shape

The final stage of our festive decorative making involved attaching pretty ornamental ribbons for hanging and to set everything off nicely. You can also wind tinsel into the undergrowth if you fancy.

Showtime!

The school Xmas fair was a great success, you'll be pleased to hear; the garlands and bunches of mistletoe went down a storm.