This is part of an intermittent series about owning an allotment. Click here for the Introduction Post. I am NOT a keen gardener, so this series will be telling tales of stuff I learn as the season’s progress. Hopefully you find it interesting, you might find some of it useful, and if you have any comments, questions or even better, some useful tips to share, then please add them below
Its been a fair while since my last Allotment Update. In fact its been nearly 18 months... they say time flies when you're having fun, but that's a load of tosh. Time flies when you're busy, and I've been very busy indeed.
To be honest with everything kicking off last year, the allotment kind of got put to one side, but here we are trying to make a go of it again. The first job is always trying to clear the ground again, ready for planting out...
...and we made a start off it here. Kind of.
Well its actually just that small patch of ground near those blue barrels thats been dug over, but its a start at least. In the next couple of weeks we will dig most of this over ready for planting veg (mostly potaotes, pumpkins and squashes). Last year we tried Tomatoes and they ended up with tomato blight (some sort of disease) so we'll probably give them a miss this year.
One bonus of looking back to the last post I wrote 18 months ago, was that it showed how far we have come. The patch of ground is actually quite large, and too much for us to manage with full time work.
My partners great idea was to actually put aside some ground for the benefit for wildlife, and in the end half of the plot was set aside.
This was to be an area which would be allowed to stay wild, and we would put in various native plants to encourage the wildlife... one of the best things people can do is to add a water source, in this case a small pond.
In that Last Post we talked about how we built the pond
Hint - lots and lots of digging!
And that image above shows how it looked after filling it for the first time. Since then aquatic plants have been added to it, and planted along one of the sides...
Quite a change I think you'll agree!
The benefits of a pond is obvious for larger wildlife. Birds drink the water and will bath in it, and I know there are hedgehogs in the area. But the main benefit is smaller than you think: insects.
There are a lot of insects that are attracted to water, lots of species have an aquatic larval stage. Whether its flies and beetles, mayflies and dragonflies, lots of these species rely on water as an important part of their life cycle
And then there are the species who are adapted to life on the water itself, such as these Pond Skaters.
I was really surprised to see these here so soon after we built the pond, but it just goes to show: "Build it and they will come"
Pond Skater - Gerris lacustris
Another obvious inhabitant are of course the amphibians. There are 3 Common Frogs in this picture, although I swear blind that there was a 4th one haha.
Its a common misconception that frogs 'only' live in ponds, they can be found anywhere that is cool and damp. That said they have to return to water to mate, and we did have some frogspawn a few weeks ago
I guess it shows that the wildlife is already making good use of this resource, and that is definitely a good thing!
Nearby I also saw this gorgeous Brimstone Butterfly, one of our earlier Spring species, feeding on Honesty (Lunaria annua)
And also this tiny little blue flower hiding in amongst the grass. I think this might be Ivy-leaved Speedwell - Veronica hederifolia
It is always important to keep an eye out, there is always something interesting to see.
One last surprise:
It is apparent that there is already a lot of life making the most of the Pond, so I think we are going to come back in a few days and actually do some pond dipping, so we can see what else is lurking in the depths!
To Be Continued...
All names confirmed and checked via Wikispieces
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