Thursday 31 May 2018

LETTERBOX

Allotment sheds made of bits and bobs with reflection.

Allotment sheds.

4 comments:

Susan at dezertsuz at gmail said...

Hi, Lucy! Thanks for letting me know about the google issues. I'm trying the name/url option this time, since the option for the not-google doesn't show up any more. Several people have complained that they aren't getting any comments from anyone! So strange. I've heard it's supposed to be straightened out by the time they are finished tweaking things. I thought it worked fine before. LOL

I don't know what allotment sheds are, but that is an interesting picture. I like the clear view of the first one, and then the shadows of the others marching off to the distance. Great perspective!

Lucy Corrander : Photos said...

Hello Susan. Allotments are pieces of land (plots) grouped together, which are rented out cheaply to people who want to grow their own food. Although having an allotment is becoming more fashionable, they have tended to be rented by people without a lot of money so the sheds and greenhouses tend to be home-made from bits and bobs of salvaged material - old windows and doors etc. - hence the letter box in the picture. The vegetation to the left in this picture is a mass of bramble bushes which separates the backs of the allotments from some industrial land. (These are the backs of a couple of sheds-cum-greenhouses. The cultivated land is not in view.)
It's fairly common for the bulk of allotment holders to be retired men who often spend their whole days there. On my allotment site there are families who work together there too.
I have rented one and a half allotments. This is usually considered to be too much for one person to work - and beyond an ordinary family's needs. However, my main plot hasn't been worked for a while so I've taken on the half-allotment next to mine where there are already some things growing. This means I have some more easily cultivatable ground to use while I clear the tough grass and wild plants from mine. The special bonus is that there is already a shed that works as a greenhouse and a proper glass greenhouse too whereas there was no shelter on my first.
Moving from the sea and fields of Dorset to an area where few people have gardens . . . this is my bit of countryside.
It's a very peaceful place to be. People are friendly but also respectful of the quiet others enjoy and the need to work rather than chat. I love it.
Some allotments allow chickens to be kept as well as vegetables grown but the allotment where I rent my plot doesn't.
(Incidentally the word 'allotment' tends to be used interchangeably with 'plot' so the place where these plots are tends to be called 'the allotments'.)

Susan said...

Lucy, thank you so much for explaining so well. That's exactly what I like. =) I thought that might be what an allotment is. Here, there are also places like that, but not very many, and usually it's an apartment complex that says to it's tenants, "Hey, there's garden space if you want it." The peace and quiet sounds lovely. I know my good friend here gains great peace and contentment from her garden and her chickens, though I think chickens are more work than they are worth. But then, I'm lazy! =) Your plan with your allotments sounds just perfect to me, and a nice greenhouse gives you a longer growing season, too. Halifax is more commercial, then, and less farm country, I presume. That's a big change. I enjoy all the pictures you post of bits of the city and land surrounding it.

Lucy Corrander : Photos said...

I agree about chickens - though love the sounds they make as they potter around. In some circumstances they would be worth keeping just for that.

Yes. Huge change. Halifax is post-industrial with a lot of derelict mills and run-down housing. However, the council is putting a lot of effort into bringing it 'up' . . . and I like the change: new people, new cultures, more to do and a huge sense of a very condensed history. Halifax expanded massively at the end of the nineteenth century so nearly everything dates from then. During the 1960s the bottom fell out of the cloth industry here . . . hence the dereliction.