Page 21 - ALG Issue 4 2018

monthly advice about water practices on the allotment as you might see in gardening books of different ages that tell you when to do what. This experiment yielded mixed results. Although we agreed that it was dependent to an extent on what you grew and where, and how the weather or soil differed, we were able
to plot some basic
timeframes for when
you can implement
water storage and
conservation. There
were interesting
discussions about
how set seasonal
timelines have been conceived in the
past e.g. memories of parents pulling
out wallflowers in May when they are
still flowering due to seasonal advice in gardening almanacs.
Throughout the activities of the day, some novel ideas came up such as rain chains and French drains, which had not arisen
in previous conversations with allotment holders. Some of these were quite innovative engineering solutions, and so discussion also entailed how best to implement
more labour-intensive solutions that some allotment holders or gardeners would not feel they had the skills for. Participants
days and special events at allotment sites. Thanks to everyone who came along! Please get in touch if you would like to be
involved in any future work that follows on from this such as our development of resources.
This article was originally a blog post – written after the workshop – on the DRY project website (dryproject.co.uk). DRY
and the About Drought project are currently working with NSALG to co-produce and share resources from the projects. Further information about the About Drought project, which is exchanging knowledge from the
UK Research Councils’ Drought and Water Scarcity Programme, can be found at: http:// aboutdrought.info. If you would like to be kept informed about project activities and outputs, please email DRY@uwe.ac.uk.
Liz Roberts, Patty Ramirez and Lindsey McEwen (DRY project team)
Throughout the activities of the day, some novel ideas came up such as rain chains and French drains
observed differences between creating new structures on private gardens
or farms, and on allotments due to the local council or other landowner restrictions that allotments can
face, as well as the relations and need
for negotiation between neighbouring plotholders. A parallel and overlapping theme of the day was about the need for education, whether this be with children
in schools, working alongside allotment groups, or through on-site signage or informal sharing of knowledge through open
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