Highfield Eco Allotment Project

On bank holiday Monday 7th May, 25 of us headed out to Etherow Country Park to see the woods in the full glory of Spring. The carpet of bluebells and wild garlic was beautiful; one day the wild garlic in our forest garden will be similarly impressive… We also saw loads of ducks, including several stunning mandarin ducks - a relatively rare sight in the UK.  The rain tried to put us off but nothing was going to stop us having a lovely team day out and a picnic just does taste better under an umbrella!

Out of the three nest boxes which were built and installed by Heap volunteers, one  attracted the attention of a Great Tit pair and now, a few weeks later, they are clearly in the process of feeding their chicks! This is a remarkable achievement considering how little time was left for the pair to locate the box and then create a home inside for the mother to lay her eggs. And now, with constant toing and froing by both parents, it is obvious there are chicks inside constantly demanding food. The other two nest boxes may well attract the attention of more couples next year - to all our delight!

Volunteers continue to pour in every Tuesday at the Heap and we’ve been blessed with some amazing and transformational weather lately! The only way to witness this gorgeous and blossoming  turn of the seasons is to come down and visit: EVERYONE IS WELCOME!!!

After just a few days the sparrows are already here…and the frogs are croaking away! Bring on the Spring!

The HEAP has recently acquired new status as a bird feeding and nest box arena, beautified by the arrival of house sparrows, great tits, blue tits, magpies and chaffinches -not to mention the ever-circling black headed gulls and crows. Within a day or two the feeders were already being explored by many different birds and hopefully will yield some great photography over the forthcoming months. As the seed and peanut feeders become more familiar to these glorious species we hope to attract permanent bird families in to the nest boxes over the years. We spent many an hour constructing the nest boxes and now, as Spring approaches rapidly, let’s hope we’re rewarded with fluffy chicks very soon!

Making then putting up nest boxes can be a tricky business!

Next week we’ll be finding our creative sides and making a mosaic sign for the allotment. We’ll be staying nice and warm in the local church, so no need to check the weather forecast!
Everyone’s welcome, so come along at 10.30 on Tuesday 6th Dec, see you then!

This autumn we have a range of events and activities planned, including:

aromatherapy workshop - how to create your own herbal massage oils

bodycare products workshop - how to create herbal lotions and cremes to care for your body

planning session for planting next spring

planting of overwintering crops and green manures

soft fruit pruning and propagating

putting up our new polytunnel

forest garden maintenance

sign painting

weeding, as ever!

Last week we ran a workshop on making culinary oil infusions.

We harvested herbs from the allotment - thyme, spearmint, peppermint and rosemary, as well as garlic and raspberries (still fruiting!).

We then each selected our preferred combinations of flavours and put them in bottles of olive oil. The flavours will take 2 weeks to infuse and then they’ll be ready to use for salad dressings and cooking. And they look beautiful.