Farnham Allotments

Allotment photos

Dave — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:02:16 +0000

Thank you to Mike Gwynne for sending in the last batch of allotment photos. If anyone else has any photos from their Farnham allotment please send them into us and we will post them to our image feed.

Filed under: Comment from the Sites Tagged: allotment, photos

2011 in review

Dave — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:17:56 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Filed under: Comment from the Sites

Blightwatch

Dave — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:12:36 +0000

Blightwatch is a collaborative service supported by the Potato Council and Industry sponsors.

The Blightwatch service providers have worked to develop an online management tool which is available to farmers and other users free of charge.

Traditionally the risk of potato blight infection has been based on the calculation of Smith Periods – a system that uses hourly temperature and relative humidity recordings. However, until now Smith Periods have been calculated for only a limited number of Met stations around the country.

The Blightwatch service now covers the whole of the UK down to individual post code level meaning that alerts are now available for the Farnham and GU9 postcode areas.

The service operates in conjunction with the Potato Councils – Fight Against Blight! – service and delivers daily email and optional SMS alerts if blight risks are identified in our selected area(s).

www.blightwatch.co.uk

Filed under: Ask the expert

Allotment Liaison Group Meeting

Dave — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:13:46 +0000

Happy New Year!

The next liaison group meeting is to be held on the 1st of February.

Please content your local site representative OR send me an email through this website if you have any concerns that you want raising to the Council. Please would primarily be regarding: -

Any issues you have with your allotment or site
Suggestions or comments regarding our yearly competitions
Suggestion or comments regarding our yearly winter lecture
Beekeeping on your site
Any other business relating to Farnham allotments

ALSO we need some new photos of the allotment sites to make our website look pretty. If there are any keen photographers and plot owners out there please can you take some seasonal winter shots and email me them directly at d_wheeler AT hotmail.com. Please send any shots through with relevant notes. I would be keen to know how everyone’s getting on with this crazy and unseasonably warm weather.

Kind regards,

David (webmaster)

Filed under: Beekeeping, Comment from the Sites

Good News rom the Six Bells

Goth Gardener — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:28:16 +0000

It’s good to see that the main path has been mowed and that at least two plots have been reallocated to new plot holders who have already made a start on clearing them.
Hopefully everyone on the Six Bells site will encourage them with kind words or offers of help/plants etc.

Filed under: Comment from the Sites

Bees at Farnborough Road – Your help is needed

shonaandken — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:26:45 +0000

Hello everyone

By now I hope you’ll all have received the regular Allotment Newsletter and you may have noticed that Kevin has included a sheet regarding bees on allotments. Not sure whether this just went to Farnborough Road plot holders or went to all.

The purpose of Kevin’s sheet is to gauge opinion regarding the siting of a small number of bee hives at the Farnborough Road site.

The Six Bells site is already sharing the benefits of colony of local bees and we feel that it would be great if we could get something similar for Farnborough Road.

The “we” are 4 families who, I guess, are a loose co-operative who have worked plots 7 and 8 since the site was opened (re-opened?). We also share plot number 31 which is at the far bottom corner of the site, nearest the roundabout. We have had this plot for about a season and currently have about 2/3 of it given over to vegetables. But the very shady area towards the bottom fence would be ideal for a couple of bee hives, subject to the conditions that Kevin has outlined.

We feel that, as well as an interesting hobby with possible end product, the bees will be beneficial to all allotment holders.

There is a lot of bee related information available on the web and libraries and the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners (www.NSALG.or.uk) provides some sound views and advice on the subject of bees and allotments (http://www.nsalg.org.uk/uploads/article459/BBKA%20Allotment_Beekeeping.pdf and http://www.nsalg.org.uk/uploads/article459/Guide%20to%20keeping%20bees%20on%20allotments.pdf).

We recognise that beekeeping comes with a certain amount of responsibility so our two nominated beekeepers will be attending a local beekeeping course and tapping into the expertise at the Farnham beekeepers over at the Rural Life centre (http://www.farnhambeekeepers.org.uk/).

Our aim would be to set one or two hives up in early Spring 2012 but clearly we need the backing of other plot holders before getting the green light from Kevin and making the financial commitment.

That’s where you come in! We would very much like your support by positively completing Kevin’s questionnaire and returning it to him at Kevin Taitt, Town Council Office, South Street, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7RN, or scan and email to him directly at kevin.taitt@farnham.gov.uk. If you don’t have a questionairre and would like one then please contact me and I’ll be glad to email you one.

Here’s to Farnborough Road honey at the 2013 Farnham allotment show!

Thanks, Shona and Ken

Filed under: Beekeeping Tagged: bees, Farnborough Road

Kidsfest

Dave — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:52:43 +0000

THE childrens festival – designed by children, for children, filled with over 100 brilliant and exciting activities, including the world famous Custard Slide, the Jellie Wellies Obstacle Course, Nitrogen Ice Cream and many others…find out more on the ‘What’s On’ tab.

Bishop’s Meadow
Farnham Town Centre, Surrey
September 10th & 11th 2011
12-6pm
Evening entertainment 6-11pm

For more information visit http://www.kidsfestuk.org.uk

Filed under: Comment from the Sites

So that’s what was taking all the strawberries ….

johngaskell — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 08:18:43 +0000

We knew something was. And not birds. None were left half pecked at. They just disappeared. We were worried it was mice or rats. In fact it was a family of voles. (They have, we hope, moved on now). They seem to have nipped the stalk behind the strawberry and taken the whole thing back to their nest – though we did not directly observe this. Does anyone know, are they really that clever?

Filed under: Comment from the Sites, Farnborough Road Tagged: strawberries, voles

Goth Gardiner

shonaandken — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 20:36:59 +0000

Amusing to discover your identity whilst chatting with you at the pub the other night! It’s a small world. You’ve been absent from here for a while – must be time for you to post us something interesting from the 6-Bells plots.

Catch up again soon over a pint or 2!

Ken

Filed under: Six Bells

Meet the Shepherd and Flock Beekeeper

Dave — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:58:40 +0000

Filed under: Comment from the Sites, Shepherd & Flock