Community Gardening in North-West Leeds
Cover leeks, onions, garlic through November.
The horrible little allium leaf miner flies are still active through November, so it is a good idea to protect crops like leeks and autumn planted garlic and onions with fine mesh, as recommended by the RHS.
It affects allotments, too.
Several people have pointed out that the itv article was incorrect (thanks!), and we are allowed to water our food crops with a hosepipe:
A hosepipe can be used for watering food crops but not for general flowers and plants. Where you can, we’d encourage you to use a watering can to save on the volume of water which is used through traditional hosepipes. It’s best to water in the morning or evening, as that means the water won’t evaporate quickly in the sunshine.
Yorkshire Water web site.
Watering dry, bare soil requires patience. It can take a long time for the water to soak in, as shown in this clever little video.
A layer of mulch helps prevent evaporation from the soil, and it also helps the soil soak up water more quickly. I’ve seen a great little video showing this, but I can’t find it just now…
When and how to do it.
There is a very useful article about summer pruning for apples and pears on the RHS website – good advice about when and how to it.
Autumn show Sunday 12 Sept. 2021.
Refreshments from 11:30, “pay as you feel”. Donations of cakes and savouries welcome.
Snail racing from 11:30. Bring your own competitor, or choose one from our racing stable.
Members only this year, because of the pandemic. All entries from plotholders are welcome. This is intended to be fun, not a ‘professional’ show or one for ‘expert’ gardeners.
Entries accepted between 12.00 and 1.30pm. Cost is 20p per entry for the first ten entries. Additional entries are FREE.
All produce must be grown by the plotholder.
Maximum of 3 entries per class for each exhibitor.
All exhibits shown as multiples should match. Please be ready to state variety if known, as this is helpful for others.
Prizes to the value of £10 for overall points winner, and for the best exhibit in the Show, will be awarded at the Annual General meeting.
Peter Blakey has kindly put together some tips for those who are new to exhibiting vegetables. The judging is done according to the guidance given by the RHS in The Horticultural Show Handbook.
Blight arrived in July this year. What to do when your potatoes have it.
Here are some tips about identifying blight and rescuing your potato crop once you have it.
Blight has appeared early this year because of the recent warm, humid weather. We don’t usually see blight on our potato plants in Leeds until August, but this year it has started in the last week of July on our site.
Our Annual General Meeting was held on 30 October at the Meanwood Institute.
Our 2018 Annual General Meeting was held on 30 October at the Meanwood Institute. For the official record, read the minutes. Here is a (rather long) summary.
The 2018 growing year brought us a cold, wet spring followed by a warm, dry summer, with some spectacular harvests of fruit and other crops. This year we discovered that chili powder is a good repellent for rats and squirrels on our sweet corn. Thanks to Ros Dunlevey for this tip.
The Committee met seven times this year, discussing the usual allotment business, and also organized a number of other events.
We are very grateful to Angie Willshaw, who is stepping down after four very active years as our Secretary. She has been the main driver in all of our successful projects during her time, including the new fence and gates, the communal toilet and tool shed, the senior plots, and much more, even including improvements to the public footpath along the bottom of our site.
Many thanks to John Balfour, Jenny Tennant-Jackson and Sandra and John Olive, who are also stepping down after giving generously of their time and efforts.
Our events this year included
Volunteers do a lot of important day by day work around the allotments: cutting grass, maintaining the hedges, looking after the composting toilet, letting out plots, collecting rents, and all the other jobs that need doing just to keep the allotments running.
The Trustees do three plot inspections each year on about 1st of March, June and September, with three follow up inspections six weeks after. The committee meets each time to decide what to do about any problem plots.
This year there were seven evictions. This is our least favorite job of all, but a necessary one. Several plot holders received warnings, and managed to improve their plots.
Security was not too bad this year. There was no vandalism, but we had several instances of sheds broken into and property stolen. On the last occasion we could not see any evidence of entry around the boundary of the site, so it looks like someone had the code for the locks. This can happen if the lock is left without scrambling the numbers. Whenever this happens we have to change the code on the locks, and then tell all the members the new code.
Please keep the code secret!
Paths should be kept clear, and ideally at least 80cm wide to allow for safe passage of people, mowers and wheelbarrows.
Ness talked us through the accounts for 2018, which showed us to be in good shape financially, with over £8K in the bank. Our takings from the plant B&B sale and show together were over £900, the best we have managed so far. She gave us a helpful explanation of how our balance seems to shift from year to year, due to the times of the accounts overlapping with rents coming in. This should be less of a problem in future.
Ness has managed to find a new Treasurer for 2019, so she can step down for a well deserved break. Big thanks to her for doing this important job so ably since 2013.
We added a bit to Section 5 of our constitution to create a new post of Letting Officer.
All officers and committee members stand down each year, but are eligible for re-election. Officers and Committee were elected for 2019 as follows:
| Post | Name | Plot |
|---|---|---|
| Chair | Joe Foster | 30 + 31B |
| Hon. Secretary | Sue Stones | 9TL |
| Hon. Treasurer | Stephan Petzold | 26B + 26TR |
| Hon. Letting Officer | Rosie Hall | 12B + 23B |
| Name | Plot |
|---|---|
| Ness Clarke | 20T |
| Mary Davies | 10BR |
| Glen Drury | 6T |
| Tom + Trina Evans-Cheung | 20BL |
| Chris Foren | 26TL + 32BL |
| Jayne Harnett | 15BL |
Best plots were judged by Brian Jenner of Hayley’s Field Allotments on 20 July. This year there were categories for full, half and quarter plots, as well as best newcomer.
| Best Plot | Name | Plot |
|---|---|---|
| Full Plot | Joe Foster | 30 |
| Half Plot | Malcolm Slade | 8R |
| Quarter Plot | Harriet Gardiner | 4BL |
| Newcomer | Leonard Cummings | 31TL |
Malcolm Slade’s plot was the best overall, so he will hold the shield again this year.
The Autumn Show, on 9 September was judged by Gillian North.
| Award | Name |
|---|---|
| Best in Show | Peter Blakey (red cabbage) |
| Overall Winner | Joe Foster |
| Joe Maiden Prize | Jo Ann Eisenberg |
Finishing the job of improving the public footpath past our allotments.
Back in March 2018, we started some work on the path alongside the allotments (part of the Meanwood Valley Trail) to improve it for the local community. The work of installing our new fence (funded by the National Lottery) had left the path a bit muddy over the winter. We did a good job but we only got half way, so in October 2018, we went back to finish the job. Once again, Leeds City Council provided two loads of stone, and we asked our friends at Morgans City Living to come and help.
Morgans staff had done some voluntary work 
for us before on the allotment site, creating the lovely coppice area and making some compost bins, so we knew they were up for the challenge.
We cleared the path of layers of mud to reveal the original stone base and spread the new stone on top. After a chilly start, we all warmed up quickly with our Sunday morning work-out – no trip to the gym was needed that day! We also cut back the brambles and nettles, and now hope that the wider, tidier path will now be fit for the winter weather to come.
After a much needed lunch break, with fried egg butties, coffee and cake (thanks Rosie!), we resumed work, this time clearing an overgrown plot, so that it can be let to new allotmenteers. The original plot began to emerge, as we cut back trees and bushes to let the light in and wake up the baby frog having a Sunday afternoon snooze. Branches and twigs were hauled up to the back of the coppice where there is a wildlife haven. The Morgans team and the allotment volunteers enjoyed working together as a team, but I think we were all glad when time was called and we could go home to put up our feet and start thinking about doing it all again!
Converting our surplus apples into beautiful juice.
There was a time a few of us remember when there were practically no apple trees at Hollin Lane Allotments. Recently, more of us have planted them, and now we have to figure out what to do with all our surplus apples.
This year (2018) we tried a new approach – large scale juicing. We hired equipment from Leeds Urban Harvest and spent Saturday 6th October up to our elbows in apples and juice. Anyone with apples could come along and make their own juice, or just donate their surplus.
We had plenty of helpers, so we quickly developed an assembly line:
By the end of the day we had made about 70 or 80 liters of delicious juice. Most of this was for drinking fresh, but some is being made into cider. That will be very interesting…
Here are some photos from the day:
And a short video of the pressing:
Another fun Autumn Show
Our Autumn Show for 2018 was held on Sunday 9th September. There was a big turnout of volunteers to set up the gazebos and tables and to tidy it all away again. At one point one of the gazebo frames looked a bit like a confused maypole dance, but it all came together in the end.
There were some really delicious refreshments (thanks to all our cooks!) and another thrilling snail race at the end of the day. Unclaimed exhibits went into the “hedge veg” box by the main gate, and quickly disappeared.
Overall points:
Best in Show: Peter Blakey’s red cabbage
Joe Maiden Cup: Jo Ann Eisenberg
Some of the winning exhibits were from newcomers – it wasn’t all just the usual old-timers.
Gillian did the judging in our usual informal Hollin Lane way, explaining what she was looking for in each class and giving useful tips about growing and showing things from her own long experience as a gardener and exhibitor.
Many thanks to everyone who helped make the day a success.
Lots more pictures in the Gallery.
We had a successful work party to finish tidying up the edges of the public footpath
We had a successful work party to finish tidying up the edges of the public footpath on Saturday, 17 March. We managed to fill all the puddles on our bit of the Meanwood Valley trail with crushed stone which was kindly supplied by the Council’s Park and Countryside division.
There was plenty of help, including several members of the public who had found about it. We had our usual high standard of refreshments and jolly company!
