Page 10 - ALG Issue 2 2017

International
International General Assembly
My last International General Assembly in Luxembourg took place at the beginning of March. It is always an interesting and informative meeting of allotment cultures and ideas. As a member of the auditing team, our rst task is to approve the year’s accounts; no reservations were voiced so the accounts were duly passed.
The General Assembly began after lunch. The agenda included the approval of statutory reports, electing the executive board and auditors, con rming the date of the 2018 study session in Belgium and agreeing the new date of the International Congress in Germany from 2021 to 2022.
Next on the list was the approval of various diploma awards that had been requested. Currently none from UK so please do let the of ce know of the amazing projects and work that you do on allotments to allow us to once again be presented with international awards.
We discussed the Copenhagen invitations and information for the study session in August 2017 where ‘The future functioning of the International Of ce’ will be the topic of conversation. This will ensure the of ce continues to keep up to date with information, sharing ideas and raising the bene ts of gardening, horticulture and training.
Our new president will now represent the NAS and his input will
be invaluable to others and he will learn new strategies and ideas to enrich our organisation advisors’.
The international advisors forum is underused at the moment. We suggested that discussions and exchanges of knowledge and advice from different countries would stimulate active participation and advance everyone’s knowledge. One suggestion was non- native invasive plants, how to deal with them and prevention of spread.
Articles for the Hyphen (the International Of ce magazine)
were requested for future issues. We also suggested that each year a special edition be published, dealing with one subject
with information submitted by every member country on its best practice. This was accepted and the rst of these will appear next year.
The international homepage of the website was also discussed and more national articles are needed from all member countries. This is to be updated every two weeks with some new articles and latest info, encouraging more readers to revisit and hence increase their knowledge of international allotmenteering.
I hope this gives you an overview of some of the work that takes place during international assemblies.
Karen Kenny
Letters
Problem weeds?
I have an eight rod allotment which is always getting problem weeds. I nd that they grow far too quickly; I can dig my plot over and I guarantee that within two weeks they start to show.
I think the best way to deal with them
is if you know a stable which gives away horse manure, throw it on your plot to save yourself digging. I drove my van down with about eight empty bags, lled them up then threw it on my plot. Every now and then I rotovate it in; not only is it good for your plot, but it also keeps the weeds down.
I have one plot that had a lot of bindweed which is terrible because the roots grow everywhere. To solve this I ordered a trailer load of fresh horse manure and threw it on and that year it really got rid of the weeds. The problem I found with bindweed is that it
really smothers your plot and strangles the plants.
One year I put in my potatoes which took up about 3/4 of my plot and earthed them up. That summer was fairly warm and for a few weeks it rained heavily and my plot was covered in dandelions that grew enormously. I usually avoid weeding when my produce
is growing as I nd you end up trampling on your plants which you don’t want, but that year the dandelions grew so quickly that they nearly hid my potatoes, so I was on my hands and knees pulling them up, which is really good for the compost heap.
I nd if I don’t weed my plot for a while, because my produce is growing, I can get about 2-3 wheelbarrows full of weeds for the compost. The weeds I nd most common on my plot are couch grass, dandelions and bellbine. Usually if it rains a lot and is warm the weeds appear everywhere, especially couch grass, which I nd grows the quickest on my plot. I can sow seeds and nd that as fast as the seed grows, so does the couch grass, which can make nding what is the plant or the weed dif cult. You don’t want the weeds taking all the moisture out of
the soil, so they must be pulled out, being very careful not to pull the plant out, just the weed.
Another thing I found is that if you don’t keep an eye on edging your plot, the grass starts to creep in and your plot starts diminishing so I keep edging it regularly. Sometimes I get my tiller out and instead of weeding I rotovate them in so they just naturally rot into the soil.
I also like to take the dandelions home because my chickens and aviary birds like
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Letter from Peter Lanyon
NAS Member Peter Lanyon, a beekeeper for the past 45 years, has written to us in response to the Inner- City Beekeeping article we published as the Artists Corner in ALG issue
1. Peter rightly pointed out that the apiary in the image does not appear to have a baf e.
A two metre screen, that forces the bees to y above head height when they initially leave the hive, is something that the Society would recommend if the siting of the hive means that there is the potential for the bees to become a nuisance to other plot holders.
them. Another good idea if you get nettles on your plot is to stick them in an old pair of tights and immerse them in a bucket
of water and after a few weeks, when the nettles have rotted in the water, you have a good liquid fertiliser for your plants.
Gary Hartley