Syon Lane Community Allotment is a strip of land next to Syon Lane train station in west London, which had been unused for 20 years until a group of sustainable agriculture enthusiasts were offered it on loan for 3 years. We have re-opened it as a forest garden and permaculture demonstration centre, a growing space for local schools and also an outdoor area for arts and crafts.
Open days are every Sunday from 12pm, and admission is free.
Its chilly at the moment but Syon Lane allotment is five years old, so why not come and visit. We’ll have a stove burning in the polytunnel, hot drinks and food, and some manual labour to keep warm coppicing Sycamore trees. Also, if you are interested in a plot here there are some spaces near the front gate and the far end that will be available for spring 2015.
Over this spring we have had some new life injected into the site in the form of young volunteers from the challenge network who are helping out a whole range of local community groups. For Syon Lane allotment they have helped with clearing land for new growers, putting up a new polytunnel, delivering fresh compost around the site and a lot more. Here are some pictures from the volunteer days in spring 2014:
We are getting 10 tonnes of used mushroom compost delivered outside the site next Monday. Apparently its especially good for loosening up clay soil.
Its from here: http://www.sempervirens.co.uk/landscaping-supplies/mushroom-compost
Anyone with a plot at syon lane allotments is welcome to take a bag full for free. If you’d like a large amount you can buy some via me, its £30 per tonne, Andrew – 07905283114
You are invited to come and join us as we begin the rousing work of spring at Syon Lane Community Allotment. We have a huge variety of wierd and wonderfull seeds to try out this year, and we will be sowing into small pots and filling up the greenhouse and polytunnel to birsting point. There will be outdoor sowing happenning in the market garden too, but please feel free to come and join us just for a cup of tea and to enjoy the garden. We’ll arrange a communal meal for everyone at around 2pm. Everything is free of charge.
As you can see from this beautiful blossom that we spotted on Sunday! With spring well on the way now, we’re planning for 2013 at Syon Lane. Wild winter weather has had an impact on the site, and we need to have a general tidy-up and repair our poor old polytunnel, which has taken a bit of a battering over the last few months.
If you’d like to come along and give us a hand (or even just say hello and have a cuppa), we’re open every Sunday from 12pm, and everyone is welcome!
Good News! We have been granted another growing season at Syon Lane community allotment in 2013. If you don’t have a plot there and would like one please contact me before spring (07905283114).
Thankyou to everyone who has been involved over the last few years, please keep on coming over and sharing in the abundance.
Happy solstice and christmas!
A big thank you to everyone who visited us last Saturday for the Edible Gardens Open Day and Harvest Festival – it was lovely to meet you all on such a beautiful late summer afternoon! Here are a few photos from the day (more photos below)….
As you can see from the photo, we’ve won a Green Flag Community Award! The Green Flag Award website explains that this is:
a national award that recognises high quality green spaces in the UK that are managed by voluntary and community groups. The Award is part of the Green Flag Award® scheme, the national standard for quality parks and green spaces.
For more information on the Green Flag Award scheme see here – and to see our Award Winner’s profile, see here.
Some thoughts on the Sycamore tree and other invasive species:
Invaders must die:
Mention the word sycamore to almost any conservationist or woodland manager and you will find they have a very low opinion of this tree. They will tell you how rampant it is, swamping our native species with its rocket-like growth and unstoppable breeding, and that we need to cut down as many as possible and replace them with oak and beech. Mention something like Himalayan Balsam or Japanese Knotweed and you will get a similar response; it must be eradicated! “Balsam bashing” – waking the poor plants with sticks before they go to seed – has become a popular activity among conservation groups all over the country. Ecologists talk about the urgency of these issues in terms which suggest that if we don’t control these species they will completely take over, and we’ll all be living in a jungle of Japanese Knotweed, even though a recent report put the cost of eradicating the stuff in the UK at around £1.6 billion.
I have previously tended to go along with this way of thinking, believing that the best thing for Britain’s ecology is to return to the relatively balanced state it was in about a thousand years ago, and for that state to be guarded fiercely against floral invasion. However, having experienced living in woodland and wasteland populated by these species for the last few years I have come to see a more complex picture. The fact is time doesn’t go backwards in ecology. There is no way that things will ever return to the way they were. The question is: where is our ecosystem going?
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