Out out d... (allelopathic) couch grass

All the excitements of Chelsea Flower Show and our own Open Day now over, it's back to earth. All allotmenteers battle with our old enemy, couch grass, but only recently did I learn that it had negative allelopathic qualities and can actively inhibit other plants from growing. Having just digested that bit of information, I hear on Gardeners Question Time that climbing beans don't have a hope if they are beside onions and heaven forfend that we should sow radishes near our red peppers. On the other hand, I believe growing mint near your roses helps keep aphids away so I thought I'd take it a step further and spray my rose with mint tea!

Allotments Support Open Garden Squares Weekend: 12th/13th June 2010

London Allotments will be opening their gates in support of London Parks and Gardens Trust this weekend. More than 200 gardens will be open, including Beatrix Potter, Branch Hill and Fulham Palace Meadows Allotments. Click on any of these allotments for opening times and details of the Open Gardens Squares Weekend. However...as an insider... I can promise you the opportunity to see more than 400 plots of diversity, imagination, and beauty you will find hard to beat at Fulham Palace Meadows. We shall be selling our very locally grown produce and offering tea and home-made cakes from 11.30am-3.30pm on Saturday. What more could you want? Here's a sneak preview of our allotments in June.

Photograph (c) Edwina Sassoon from The Three-Year Allotment Notebook to be published by Frances Lincoln on August 5th, 2010 @ £12.99

The gentleness of a city allotmenteer

Just leaving the allotments this morning, when my sister stopped in her tracks. A man was crouched by a wounded pigeon. It had been attacked by a magpie. As a crowd gathers around an accident, so a ring of pigeons surrounded the scene of the crime, seemingly watching, guarding. We strolled off. Some moments later, we were approached by same man with his bike. "Excuse me," he said, having heard us discuss this. "It's not a pigeon that's been wounded." He opened his bike bag to reveal two fledgling birds of prey nestled safely in the bag. Despite already sizeable beaks, their young bodies defenceless and bleeding. He thought they were buzzards. I know there are sparrow hawks in the allotments. We none of us were knowledgeable twitchers. They were en route to the experts.

It reminded me of our special responsibility to birdlife this summer. The winter hit them hard, garden birds need all the help we can offer them to keep numbers up. In allotments we have to balance nurturing our birdlife with protecting our plots from rats and other vermin. But just after I created my birdbath (see earlier post), I discovered this website which really does seem to have something for every one of our feathered friends: www.farbrookfarm.co.uk

Chelsea Flower Show: Shops for everyone

Just as exhaustion struck on the hottest day of the year, a young man popped off the Tregothnan stand and handed me an instant Cornish Cream Tea. From leaves grown on the Tregothnan estate, a cuppa has never tasted better.

I turned round to see

the coolest plant containers from Bronzino (above right). Made from

solid copper and zinc they put any other pot I've seen in the shade.

Meanwhile, my old friend The Allotment Shop still has the best garden string in town and a variety of must-haves for any allotmenteer.

(photographs: Edwina Sassoon)

During Chelsea Flower Show week, ANYTHING GOES as Cartier in Sloane Street showed us...

How cool is being such a prize winner outside the show ground?

(photographs: Edwina Sassoon)

Top Hat at Chelsea Flower Show, Old Hat at the Allotments

The ingenuity of Chelsea Flower Show hats leaves Royal Ascot's attempts at the starting gate. My fav (above) comes from Kate Bainbridge of Simply Flowers

At the allotments, multi-tasking hats from around the world get put to good use (above right)

(Flower Show photograph:

(c) Edwina Sassoon)

Chelsea Show Flower Arrangements

Interflora's Progression gives Pom-poms

a whole new meaning - no wonder they are Gold Medalists this year; Florigene's stunning Moon-series gives carnations a whole new colour.

Down at the allotments, our black and yellow sunflowers are as stylish as the rest of them; blue bottles recycled into specimen vases.

Photographs: (c) Edwina Sassoon

Chelsea Flower Show and Allotments support the B(ee) word

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left," said one of the world's most famous allotmenteers, Albert Einstein. Global Stone socks this information to us by engraving the quote on the wall (see above) of their Bee Friendly Plants Garden designed by Janey Auchincloss

The Royal Horticultural Society's Biodiversity Display offers bugs stylish apartment accommodation designed by Andrew Fisher Tomlin and Stuart R Thomas (top right)

Meantime, lacewings (gobblers of aphids who like to take refuge in hollow sticks & canes) can relax in high-rise living courtesy of the Bradstone Biodiversity Garden (right)

But if you really fancy a country cottage best, slope off to the allotments and create an authentic, completely recycled bug hotel.

Photographs (c) Edwina Sassoon