2015
Photographs taken 21 May
Lower allotment
There's a long stone wall marking the boundary between the lower
allotment and the school on the other side of the wall. Before 2015, I'd
already constructed plant supports which formed a clear-cut rhythm, with
the pattern a b b b a. Here, the supports at the ends, 'a,' are
made of wood and are completely straight-line. The support at the lower
end supported, and still supports, an ornamental vine, Vitis Brant, the
higher one a fig tree, variety 'Brown Turkey.'
The three supports between these two end-points, 'b,' were curved
and are still curved, predominantly. They are made from fibre-glass.
From lower to higher, they supported a golden hop plant, a late-fruiting
plum tree, 'Marjorie's seedling, and 'Ouillin's Golden Gage.' In the dormant season, I dug up the plum tree and the gage tree and
moved them to new positions in the top allotment, leaving the inner,
curved supports for new roles. After a time, I decided that they should
be used to support runner beans, including the one supporting the hop
plant, and added spokes, one vertical and two
diagonal, to each support.
Most prominent here is the wooden, straight-line support for the
grape vine, a trellis inside two diagonals. The other wooden
straight-line structure is at the top of the wall, a 'support star' for
a fig tree. Between these structures are three fibre-glass structures,
curved but with straight 'spokes,' to be used for supporting runner
beans. The lowest curved structure also supports a golden hop plant,
clearly visible. The linkage-contrast pattern is a b b b a. The vertical
posts in the foreground are to support autumn-fruiting raspeberry
plants. The boards at the boundaries of raised beds (here used for
growing broad beans and overwintering onion plants) are clearly visible.
The view downhill. Most prominent, the 'support star'
for supporting a fig tree. Visible at the base of each element of the
inner structures with curved perimeters, small runner bean plants.
In the centre, the largest of the curved supports, with golden hop
growing up one of the curved elements. One of the many advantages of
surrounding beds with boards: protection of
seedlings against winds. The tender runner bean seedlings planted at the base of the poles
are protected to a large extent from Westerly winds by these boards..
In some circumstances, clusters can have greater visual interest than
isolated objects. A skyline is a composite, a collection of objects.
(I discuss garden skylines in more detail on the page
Design principles.) In
a garden, we can't hope to emulate the impact of the skyline - or the
skylines - of Manhattan or the skylines of Oxford, but a garden can have
a distinctive skyline.
Below, a skyline, on the lower allotment, which includes, on the left, the neighbouring school, then a support star for the support of a climbing
rose, partly hidden in this view by a Victoria plum tree, then a
temporary structure, a spire to support climbing French bean plants,
then a hop pole, supporting a Target hop plant, partly hidden by an
apple tree, variety Winston, then the A-frame greenhouse with a trellis
now attached on its left side. The tall greenhouse is the most prominent
part of the skyline and dominates the view to the south. The other,
smaller components provide visual interest in the view to the east.
The long diagonal in the image above is the walkway I constructed to
avoid the problem of walking in a muddy morass to get down into the
allotment when rainfall has been heavy for a long time. The walkway can
be viewed as part of the skyline, perhaps - it underlines part of the
skyline.
There's no doubt that the skyline would be simpler without two
trees, the plum tree to the left which partly obscures the support star,
here shown unobscured, in an earlier photograph
and the apple tree to its right which partly obscures the supporting
pole for a hop plant. But this is only one viewpoint. From some other
viewpoints, these trees contribute effectively to the visual effect.
From a viewpoint not purely visual, the trees contribute effectively to
the allotment, which is, after all, far from being entirely a visual
matter - there's also the matter of food production. These two trees
make very effective use of the land. They are both situated in small
planting pockets - where small amounts of soil were found in an area
which had been used by someone a long time ago as a rubbish dump, with,
originally, a very thin layer of soil covering discarded plastic,
rusting metal and broken glass. That's why I created the large raised
bed where the other structures making up the skyline (but not the
greenhouse) are situated.
A recent structure constructed in the orchard area, a shelter with space for
storage:
Later, the interior was filled and furnished with less sparseness. The
doors are the doors of a cupboard, not doors that can be walked through.
The cupboard isn't fully enclosed, as one main use for this structure is
as an apple store, and good ventilation is desirable for storage of
apples. The cupboard is strengthened with vertical timbers. Instead of
using shelving, apples can be hung in net bags from hooks set in the
timbers. Apples can be placed in storage containers on top of the
cupboard. The structure is also used for drying and temporary storage of
potatoes after lifting. The structure is situated in the small orchard,
with the beds used for growing potatoes nearby.
The oak bench can be used for seating, whilst resting and looking, but also
as a working surface, whilst using the equipment for pressing apples to
make apple juice and cider (in American English, cider and hard cider.)
Upper allotment
Not quite a cluster, but additions to the shed, which seemed to be too
isolated - a trellis (removed later) and on the right a simple screen, to shield the
wood store - and the bath, acquired to store water but now, after
addition of compost, converted into a container for growing courgettes.
In front of the screen, a terracotta chimney pot used to grow a native
British grass, Brixa media. Despite its diminutive size, its depth of
colour makes it the focus here, until the opening of the Hemerocallis
flowers and the flowers of the scented rose.
The weather during May was dire and
dismal but not disastrous, with day after day after day low
temperatures, gloomy skies and strong winds (but not nearly strong
enough to be dramatic.) The Spring blossom was magnificent, as always,
but appreciating the blossom was more difficult than usual - or as
difficult as usual - in the chilly, wind-swept English outdoors. The
Scottish, Welsh and Irish outdoors must have been even worse. Even the
rain failed, and the ground became very dry and very off-putting. It's
one thing to be standing there, hosepipe in hand, giving the crops their
life-giving water, in a different climate, when the contrast between the
sun's fierce heat and the coolness of the water is intense and vivid.
It's another thing to be standing there when the sun and the heat of the
sun - or any warmth of the sun - seem a distant memory.
Hugh
Fearnley-Whittinstall has perceptive things to say about May (in 'The
River Cottage Year'):
'May is the month when, in our winter
reveries. we often imagine summer will be gloriously upon us ... May
isn't quite like that. Things are coming on, without a doubt. However,
like the watched pot that won't boil, our plants are snubbing our daily
inspections, and progress can seem painfully slow ... May simply doesn't
have the breadth of produce imagined six months previously.'
A
wider viewpoint - a viewpoint less subject to {restriction} gives a
dramatic contrast between nature the niggardly provider of food (almost
half way through the year, nature is providing so little) and nature the
wonderful provider of visual feasts - the hawthorn blossom, the blossom
of the fruit trees, the trees coming into full leaf or already in full
leaf. Other facts and facets of nature - nature the vandal, nature the
destroyer, nature the mindless (despite Wordsworth), nature the
inexhaustible.
Late August. The newest structure, a shed I
designed and constructed, sited in front of the existing shed, which was
bought.
Gardening photographs 1
