Cavendish Allotmentstag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2012://122012-04-02T14:26:17ZThe website of the Cavendish Allotments in St Margarests, Greater London.Movable Type 3.38Thames Water Hosepipe Ban Starts 4 April 2012tag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2012://12.73482012-04-02T14:26:01Z2012-04-02T14:26:17ZThis Notice will come into force at midnight on 4 April 2012 It will remain in force until further notice. Thames Water Utilities Limited has given notice to all of its customers, that the water it supplies throughout its entire...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
This Notice will come into force at midnight on 4 April 2012 It will remain in force until further notice.
Thames Water Utilities Limited has given notice to all of its customers, that the water it supplies throughout its entire area must not be used for the following purposes:
# watering a 'garden' using a hosepipe;
# cleaning a private motor-vehicle using a hosepipe;
# watering plants on domestic or other non-commercial premises using a hosepipe;
# cleaning a private leisure boat using a hosepipe;
# filling or maintaining a domestic swimming or paddling pool;
# drawing water, using a hosepipe, for domestic recreational use;
# filling or maintaining a domestic pond using a hosepipe;
# filling or maintaining an ornamental fountain;
# cleaning walls, or windows, of domestic premises using a hosepipe;
# cleaning paths or patios using a hosepipe;
# cleaning other artificial outdoor surfaces using a hosepipe.
AGM - 20 November 2011tag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.71502011-10-11T21:10:26Z2011-10-24T09:09:35ZSunday 20 November, 2.30-4.30pm at the Turks Head’s Winchester Hall. There is always a lot to learn about and discuss at the AGM. The past year has been a busy one for our site, for example - on the initiative...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Sunday 20 November, 2.30-4.30pm at the "Turks Head's Winchester Hall":http://www.stmgrts.org.uk/directory/pub/200505231518.
There is always a lot to learn about and discuss at the AGM. The past year has been a busy one for our site, for example - on the initiative of Paul Leonard, our new Chair, we have a new greenhouse whose bays can be booked for a season for a small charge; missing plot markers have been made and installed through the work of several volunteers; an incinerator for anyone's use has been bought; we have a mobile phone. Also, the council is forging stronger links with its allotment sites and wants to know the views of holders. Rental fees are going up; should the council do more for us - what do you think? So, please come along, to listen, comment or question. And if you wish, contact Paul beforehand with any topic you'd like to raise.
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Congratulations!tag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.71492011-10-11T21:09:13Z2011-10-11T21:11:58Z Peter Jacques (plot 3) has won a prize in the annual competition run across all borough sites by the council for excellently well kept plots....Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Peter Jacques (plot 3) has won a prize in the annual competition run across all borough sites by the council for excellently well kept plots.]]>
An 18th century virtuosotag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.71482011-10-11T21:03:25Z2011-10-11T21:12:20Z You may not have heard of him but gardeners owe a lot to the Reverend Stephen Hales. He is the father of plant physiology, and modern biology is built on many of his observations and experiments on living plants....Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
You may not have heard of him but gardeners owe a lot to the Reverend Stephen Hales. He is the father of plant physiology, and modern biology is built on many of his observations and experiments on living plants. Born in 1677, he was the curate of Teddington Church from 1709 to his death in 1761. Among his many discoveries he found that sap flows from roots to leaves (i.e., transpiration) and that leaves need light to grow and they absorb air (i.e., photosynthesis). His paper in 1719 to the Royal Society was 'Upon the Effect of ye Sun's warmth on raising ye Sap in trees'. Until his work on measuring sap pressure, velocity and circulation (inventing a trough to collect gases and gauges to measure pressure), it was thought that sap circulation was similar to that of blood in the body.
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(Thanks to Rob Monk, a frequent contributor to the newsletter, for this information.)
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New found lands?tag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.71472011-10-11T20:59:58Z2011-10-11T21:01:07Z Somewhere in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, there are some very large islands, hundreds of square miles in area. Ocean currents swirl around them and the trade winds blow over them. But no one can visit...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Somewhere in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, there are some very large islands, hundreds of square miles in area. Ocean currents swirl around them and the trade winds blow over them. But no one can visit or take a holiday there; there are no airports, or roads or buildings; they can't even be walked on. They are made almost entirely of floating plastic rubbish. There's some shipping and harbour rubbish, tyres and netting, but most of it is plastic - bags and sacks, bottles, flip-flops, toys, food containers, polystyrene packaging and polythene film, etc, etc - some of the detritus of our modern consumer culture.
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Some will have been deliberately dumped but much will have blown or been washed into the sea from beaches, littered streets and landfill sites and conveyed by rivers and drainage systems to the sea. It is then gradually drawn into huge circular currents, and there it stays. Some sinks to the ocean floor but most floats just below the surface. Plastic bags are mistaken for jellyfish by turtles and some fish, swallowed and often choke the eater.
Although the plastics are eventually broken up by friction and exposure, they are virtually indestructible and will never totally disappear. The final products of degradation are 1-2mm pellets called nurdles. They attract heavy metals and toxins from within the ocean, such as DDT and other industrial chemicals. They are consumed by the smaller organisms, then become concentrated as they move up the food chain. Fish, birds and whales mistake them for plankton or tiny fish, eat them and then find them impossible to digest. Some are excreted but some remain in the body. It is thought that almost all of the world's sandy shores now contain some percentage of nurdles, washed to shore.
For some years, passing vessels have reported on the floating plastic. In 1997, a sailor, Charles Moore, took his catamaran across the top of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. He watched a procession of plastic items: 'It took us a week to get across,' he said. 'There was always some plastic thing bobbing by.' In 2010, David de Rothschild took the vessel Plastiki - built almost entirely from waste, including over 12,000 recycled plastic bottles - across the Patch. 'It's tragic,' he said. 'It's not just floating islands of trash, but a swirling, poisonous soup.'
What is this to do with us? And what can be done? The answer is clear. Everyone, worldwide, should produce less plastic, use less plastic¸ and recycle again and again what already exists. Realistically, although there are some reductions in the use of plastic bags, and some plastics can be treated in recycling centres, it is highly unlikely that plastics production will diminish. However, in small ways, on our own plots we can reduce and reuse - manure sacks, slit open and weighted over weedy soil; plant labels cleaned (easily done with a scourer); food containers used as plant pots and trays; bottles hung as bird scarers - there are lots of ways to avoid buying yet more plastic. We can't eliminate what already exists but we could do something to add less to an already serious problem.
If you wish to know more, the Marine Conservation Society leads on marine litter ("www.mcsuk.org":http://www.mcsuk.org) and Professor Richard Thompson of Plymouth University is a world expert on degradation of plastics in the sea.
The communal compost areatag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.71462011-10-11T20:54:25Z2011-10-11T20:55:08ZWe had hoped to open the bays for both depositing green waste and collecting compost from the base. However, as we started to prepare for this, it was found there is a population of stag beetles living there. (A few...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
We had hoped to open the bays for both depositing green waste and collecting compost from the base. However, as we started to prepare for this, it was found there is a population of stag beetles living there. (A few plot-holders have also found them on their plots.) These are a protected species so we have moved them elsewhere for their protection. (See the item below on the beetles.). So the bays may not open again until next year. When they do, please remember that the area is only for compostable green waste that you cannot deal with on your own plot. We have prepared guidelines and notices to remind everyone of how to treat this area.
Stag Beetles and the Communal Composting Areatag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.71452011-10-11T20:51:53Z2011-10-11T20:52:50Z While digging out well-rotted compost from one of the communal composting bays this summer, we came across some enormous grubs. Three inches long, with white bodies and orange heads they were buried deep within the compost. A knowledgeable member...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
While digging out well-rotted compost from one of the communal composting bays this summer, we came across some enormous grubs. Three inches long, with white bodies and orange heads they were buried deep within the compost. A knowledgeable member of the committee recognized them as larvae of the stag beetle, a globally threatened species, protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. These magnificent beetles are in serious decline and SW London is one of the few UK areas in which they are now found.
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Males can be up to 7 cm (2.5 inches) long; females are smaller, without the characteristic male "antlers". Both sexes have a shiny black head and thorax (chest) and their wing-cases are chestnut brown. They are quite harmless - their large jaws are designed to ward off other male stag beetles. You are most likely to see males in flight on warm summer evenings between May and August, while they look for a mate. Females lay their eggs near decaying wood below ground: these hatch into the larvae which feed on this rotting wood. Fully grown larvae may be up to 11 cm (4.5 inches) in length. They spend five to seven years as grubs underground.
If you would like to know more about them or report a sighting please contact: "www.wildlondon.org.uk":http://www.wildlondon.org.uk.
-- Written by Rosemary Fulljames
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GROW DAY at Kneller Gardens - 10 July 2011tag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.55662011-06-07T21:14:46Z2011-06-07T21:16:21ZAre you mad about growing vegetables? It’s GROW DAY at Kneller Gardens and we need you! The Richmond Environment Trust is holding a Grow Day on July 10th at Kneller Gardens in Twickenham between 2pm and 5pm. There will be...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Are you mad about growing vegetables?
_It's GROW DAY at Kneller Gardens and we need you!_
The Richmond Environment Trust is holding a Grow Day on July 10th at Kneller Gardens in Twickenham between 2pm and 5pm. There will be a cooking demonstration with local allotment produce, a barbecue, a seed planting table for children, and a variety of stalls providing information on sowing and growing. Currently we are looking for enthusiastic and knowledgeable vegetable growers to run some information stalls.
Be creative. Have some fun. Meet some new people in your community.
Show people how easy growing can be and how contagious it can become!
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Richmond Council to scrap allotment subsidiestag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.55172011-05-07T17:38:05Z2011-05-07T17:40:09ZPeter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
-- from _The Richmond & Twickenham Times_, "Richmond Council to scrap allotment and cemetery subsidies to raise £3m in revenue":http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/9012445.Subsidies_scrapped_as_part_of_council_s_money_making_scheme/?ref=rss - Saturday 7th May 2011]]>
Summer event - 19 June 2011tag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.54892011-04-28T08:57:31Z2011-04-28T08:59:13Z Our social event will be on Sunday 19 June, from 12 noon onwards. As always, there will be a barbeque, drinks, good food and sales of plants, with everything at very reasonable prices. Will you start thinking now about...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Our social event will be on Sunday 19 June, from 12 noon onwards. As always, there will be a barbeque, drinks, good food and sales of plants, with everything at very reasonable prices. Will you start thinking now about keeping aside any tools, surplus garden-related items and equipment, seeds and plants to donate, please? Whatever you don't want, someone else will. For the barbeque, bring any meat you wish to have cooked. Donations of all kinds of food - savouries, salads, cakes, desserts, etc - will be much appreciated. Bring on the day, or talk to a committee member beforehand.]]>
The new Chairtag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.54882011-04-28T08:55:40Z2011-04-28T08:56:16Z Paul Leonard (plot 2) is the new Chair of the Allotments Association. Michael Thierens resigned at the 2010 AGM, and he was warmly thanked for all the work he had done during his six years tenure. Brenda Stevens resigned...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Paul Leonard (plot 2) is the new Chair of the Allotments Association. Michael Thierens resigned at the 2010 AGM, and he was warmly thanked for all the work he had done during his six years tenure. Brenda Stevens resigned and a card was sent thanking her for her work.
There are photos of the committee members (including Fran Baylis, co-opted) on both the notice boards so it's hoped that knowing who and where they all are will add to the friendly and cooperative atmosphere on the site. Please feel free to approach anyone with your comments, suggestions, offers of help and so on.]]>
The new greenhousetag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.54872011-04-28T08:53:07Z2011-04-28T08:53:37ZPaul and others have worked hard to put up the donated greenhouse. This is intended for communal use, with 8 bays on upper and lower staging, to be booked for a season at a time at a small charge, according...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Paul and others have worked hard to put up the donated greenhouse. This is intended for communal use, with 8 bays on upper and lower staging, to be booked for a season at a time at a small charge, according to the guidelines and plan posted on the boards.
Other new initiativestag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.54862011-04-28T08:51:32Z2011-04-28T08:52:37Z Many plot markers have been lost over the years. New ones are being made by Paul and Yolanda and others, formed of a post with a numbered tile attached. These will be positioned at the front boundary of each...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Many plot markers have been lost over the years. New ones are being made by Paul and Yolanda and others, formed of a post with a numbered tile attached. These will be positioned at the front boundary of each plot. So, in the words of the old BT advert, 'Now we all know where we are!'.
It is intended to have a bay in the car park where reusable wood, for anyone to take away, can be deposited. Please follow the guidelines displayed there. There will also be a table where people can leave items they don't need for anyone to take away. A number of new notices and posters are being prepared which give advice and guidance on using our site's facilities for the benefit of everyone.
A lidded incinerator has been bought, available for any plot-holder to use on their plot. There are strict safety instructions for its use, which must be followed. It is kept in the garage, which will be opened most weekends. At other times, seek out any committee member - they will have a key.]]>
The council and ustag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.54852011-04-28T08:34:29Z2011-04-28T08:35:10ZThere is very good communication between us and the council, through Pete Lewis, the Allotments Liaison Officer, and David Ingham, the Waste Minimisation Officer. Pete deals with the practical aspects of all the borough’s sites and David has given encouragement...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
There is very good communication between us and the council, through Pete Lewis, the Allotments Liaison Officer, and David Ingham, the Waste Minimisation Officer. Pete deals with the practical aspects of all the borough's sites and David has given encouragement and practical help for our efforts with communal composting in the NE corner.
There is an Allotments Strategy, adopted in 2010, to deal with many aspects of site activity and control such as reviewing current practices (e.g. waiting lists), creating new ones (e.g. a probation period for new plot-holders). An Allotments Steering Group has been set up with a rep from each site, meeting monthly to comment on and give feedback from sites. See more at "www.richmond.gov.uk/allotments":http://www.richmond.gov.uk/allotments.
In the current situation of cuts, we now can expect much less maintenance by the council and most jobs we will have to do ourselves. There are a few much-appreciated volunteers who have generously offered time, skill and effort. So, if you could spare occasional help with, for example, clearing spaces, maintaining the composting area, doing minor repairs and so on, please contact a committee member. There will also be notices on the board if there is to be a working party needed for a particular task.
The NE corner composting areatag:www.cavendish-allotments.org.uk,2011://12.54842011-04-28T08:33:33Z2011-04-28T08:34:06ZSince last autumn, this has been closed. It was always intended to take only vegetative waste which would eventually rot down to make compost. However, it was mistreated by a few who dumped rubbish there. So, last October, a few...Peter Mahnkehttp://www.mahnke.net/peter
Since last autumn, this has been closed. It was always intended to take only vegetative waste which would eventually rot down to make compost. However, it was mistreated by a few who dumped rubbish there. So, last October, a few committee members, volunteers and a paid helper cleared away a huge amount of non-compostable waste, put covers over everything and left it to do its own thing. Soon, it is hoped some bays will be opened so holders can come and take away compost.
There are now to be more guidelines and information given to plot-holders about how to compost, both in this area and on their own plots. So, when the bays are open again, we very much hope that everyone will respect the intention to create compost, not a mess!
Peter Jacques (plot 3) has won a prize in the annual competition run across all borough sites by the council for excellently well kept plots.]]>
You may not have heard of him but gardeners owe a lot to the Reverend Stephen Hales. He is the father of plant physiology, and modern biology is built on many of his observations and experiments on living plants. Born in 1677, he was the curate of Teddington Church from 1709 to his death in 1761. Among his many discoveries he found that sap flows from roots to leaves (i.e., transpiration) and that leaves need light to grow and they absorb air (i.e., photosynthesis). His paper in 1719 to the Royal Society was 'Upon the Effect of ye Sun's warmth on raising ye Sap in trees'. Until his work on measuring sap pressure, velocity and circulation (inventing a trough to collect gases and gauges to measure pressure), it was thought that sap circulation was similar to that of blood in the body.
]]>
(Thanks to Rob Monk, a frequent contributor to the newsletter, for this information.)
]]>
Somewhere in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, there are some very large islands, hundreds of square miles in area. Ocean currents swirl around them and the trade winds blow over them. But no one can visit or take a holiday there; there are no airports, or roads or buildings; they can't even be walked on. They are made almost entirely of floating plastic rubbish. There's some shipping and harbour rubbish, tyres and netting, but most of it is plastic - bags and sacks, bottles, flip-flops, toys, food containers, polystyrene packaging and polythene film, etc, etc - some of the detritus of our modern consumer culture.
]]>
Some will have been deliberately dumped but much will have blown or been washed into the sea from beaches, littered streets and landfill sites and conveyed by rivers and drainage systems to the sea. It is then gradually drawn into huge circular currents, and there it stays. Some sinks to the ocean floor but most floats just below the surface. Plastic bags are mistaken for jellyfish by turtles and some fish, swallowed and often choke the eater.
Although the plastics are eventually broken up by friction and exposure, they are virtually indestructible and will never totally disappear. The final products of degradation are 1-2mm pellets called nurdles. They attract heavy metals and toxins from within the ocean, such as DDT and other industrial chemicals. They are consumed by the smaller organisms, then become concentrated as they move up the food chain. Fish, birds and whales mistake them for plankton or tiny fish, eat them and then find them impossible to digest. Some are excreted but some remain in the body. It is thought that almost all of the world's sandy shores now contain some percentage of nurdles, washed to shore.
For some years, passing vessels have reported on the floating plastic. In 1997, a sailor, Charles Moore, took his catamaran across the top of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. He watched a procession of plastic items: 'It took us a week to get across,' he said. 'There was always some plastic thing bobbing by.' In 2010, David de Rothschild took the vessel Plastiki - built almost entirely from waste, including over 12,000 recycled plastic bottles - across the Patch. 'It's tragic,' he said. 'It's not just floating islands of trash, but a swirling, poisonous soup.'
What is this to do with us? And what can be done? The answer is clear. Everyone, worldwide, should produce less plastic, use less plastic¸ and recycle again and again what already exists. Realistically, although there are some reductions in the use of plastic bags, and some plastics can be treated in recycling centres, it is highly unlikely that plastics production will diminish. However, in small ways, on our own plots we can reduce and reuse - manure sacks, slit open and weighted over weedy soil; plant labels cleaned (easily done with a scourer); food containers used as plant pots and trays; bottles hung as bird scarers - there are lots of ways to avoid buying yet more plastic. We can't eliminate what already exists but we could do something to add less to an already serious problem.
If you wish to know more, the Marine Conservation Society leads on marine litter ("www.mcsuk.org":http://www.mcsuk.org) and Professor Richard Thompson of Plymouth University is a world expert on degradation of plastics in the sea.
While digging out well-rotted compost from one of the communal composting bays this summer, we came across some enormous grubs. Three inches long, with white bodies and orange heads they were buried deep within the compost. A knowledgeable member of the committee recognized them as larvae of the stag beetle, a globally threatened species, protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. These magnificent beetles are in serious decline and SW London is one of the few UK areas in which they are now found.
]]>
Males can be up to 7 cm (2.5 inches) long; females are smaller, without the characteristic male "antlers". Both sexes have a shiny black head and thorax (chest) and their wing-cases are chestnut brown. They are quite harmless - their large jaws are designed to ward off other male stag beetles. You are most likely to see males in flight on warm summer evenings between May and August, while they look for a mate. Females lay their eggs near decaying wood below ground: these hatch into the larvae which feed on this rotting wood. Fully grown larvae may be up to 11 cm (4.5 inches) in length. They spend five to seven years as grubs underground.
If you would like to know more about them or report a sighting please contact: "www.wildlondon.org.uk":http://www.wildlondon.org.uk.
-- Written by Rosemary Fulljames
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Our social event will be on Sunday 19 June, from 12 noon onwards. As always, there will be a barbeque, drinks, good food and sales of plants, with everything at very reasonable prices. Will you start thinking now about keeping aside any tools, surplus garden-related items and equipment, seeds and plants to donate, please? Whatever you don't want, someone else will. For the barbeque, bring any meat you wish to have cooked. Donations of all kinds of food - savouries, salads, cakes, desserts, etc - will be much appreciated. Bring on the day, or talk to a committee member beforehand.]]>
Paul Leonard (plot 2) is the new Chair of the Allotments Association. Michael Thierens resigned at the 2010 AGM, and he was warmly thanked for all the work he had done during his six years tenure. Brenda Stevens resigned and a card was sent thanking her for her work.
There are photos of the committee members (including Fran Baylis, co-opted) on both the notice boards so it's hoped that knowing who and where they all are will add to the friendly and cooperative atmosphere on the site. Please feel free to approach anyone with your comments, suggestions, offers of help and so on.]]>
Many plot markers have been lost over the years. New ones are being made by Paul and Yolanda and others, formed of a post with a numbered tile attached. These will be positioned at the front boundary of each plot. So, in the words of the old BT advert, 'Now we all know where we are!'.
It is intended to have a bay in the car park where reusable wood, for anyone to take away, can be deposited. Please follow the guidelines displayed there. There will also be a table where people can leave items they don't need for anyone to take away. A number of new notices and posters are being prepared which give advice and guidance on using our site's facilities for the benefit of everyone.
A lidded incinerator has been bought, available for any plot-holder to use on their plot. There are strict safety instructions for its use, which must be followed. It is kept in the garage, which will be opened most weekends. At other times, seek out any committee member - they will have a key.]]>