THE BIGGER PICTURE (AND THE LITTLE)

Seven Spotted Ladybird
I began paying closer attention to the flowering radishes when
I noticed cabbage white butterflies were preferring them to
the adjacent purple sprouting broccoli plants. 

I've had a letter from the committee. A perfectly sensible one asking if I can cope with having so much allotment space when the larger section isn't tidy enough.

It's true. I'm struggling to get all the carpet etc. disposed of, and allowing more wild plants to grow around the place than is conventional (or acceptable) on a public allotment. In part this is because I've paid most attention recently to the half allotment I took over fresh from someone who had put a lot of care and attention into it. I wanted her to know I am looking after it. There's also the challenge of staying in all day for plumbers when they aren't able to give a precise time for their arrival. So watering had taken priority over weeding.

But it's more than that. Through the years I've been paying so much attention to the small things around us I've lost the ability to see 'the bigger picture'. By this I'm talking in purely visual terms. Instead of digging everything over, I've been fretting that I haven't yet taken photographs of the variety of grasses on the site and every day I've left them till 'tomorrow'. And even when 'weeding' on parts of the plot under cultivation, I've been reluctant to pull things out. After all, they got there first, the grasses and wild plants. It was their home before I supplanted them with runner beans.

So . . . admitting to my failure, I set to work to put things on a more conventional keel.

Willow Herb
In real life the willow herb flower is pinker than in the picture
but the light was dull and the photo came out like this.
(To the right is a marjoram flower. The colour is right for that.)

I stood at the top of the main plot and tried to see it as if through the eyes of others. The first thing I noted was willow herb; not enough for my taste but enough to draw attention to itself because it stands higher than other plants, the flowers are of a bright and startling pink and the white curls of their opening seed pods are truly attractive when activated on individual plants rather than in a clump (where they look messy). My willow herb plants were spread about the plot and looked magnificent: flowers and pods at all their stages. But being the first thing one might notice when taking in the broader scene they had to be the first to go. Straight away the plot looked different; more boring but more tidy too. Stage one!

Removing the wilds plants reveals a Common Frog (Rana temproaria).
There's still shelter for it in between and under the plastic crates.

Next . . . the grasses. Their stems of flowers and seeds (depending on the variety) were the tallest unintentional plants once the willow herb had gone. (All but one willow herb plant down near the compost bin - I had to keep one, didn't I?) So I snapped off the stems, pulled out the plants where they'd ease easily from the powdery ground with one tug. And if neither worked I slid the seeds off onto my own soil and snipped the rest off later. I got a bit irritable about this. The wind might well take willow herb seeds to other plots but most of the grasses on mine produce heavy seeds which plop directly to the ground. But they've gone.

Redshank

Next, the path between my plot and the untended one beside it. I'd forgotten completely about this path. It's rough and odd and I have two others to walk down so I'd let it be. Out came nearly all the extraneous plants. Another clear difference achieved. (I left a redshank plant. Couldn't take out everything!)

With five sacks of 'weeds' I appealed to a friend to take them to the council dump in his car. Once he'd agreed to that I set about packing carpet into bin liners as an extra. It will take many more car loads to get it all away (many, many, many) and in terms of how the allotment looks, its removal makes little or no difference - but it pleases me more than getting rid of willow herb and dead nettle and redshanks and beautiful grasses.

If I hadn't kept taking time off to look at the 'little' things as I went, I'd probably have achieved much more in the time. But I can't stop doing it. See a fly - grab my camera. Pull a weed out by its roots - photograph the roots.

Uprooted Redshank

And in this I see something of an advantage in having an allotment instead of just looking at the vegetation around hedgerows. Hedgerows have to be left as they are. However interested one may be in knowing what's underground, one can't go around pulling up wild flowers to take a peep. (Different location, different terminology.) But if the wild plants on my allotment have to go anyway then wa-hey . . . I can examine their roots. I have a new angle. When I take in the larger scene I now realise there's another of the same size beneath it. It's not a mirror. It's completely different. And I'm allowed to go there!

P.S. I used to go to iSpot a lot to help identify plants and insects and to confirm (or otherwise) things I thought I already knew. Then it slowed down so much it became almost impossible to use. That was a while back so I thought I'd give it another go. It's faster now than it ever was and a pleasure to use. I'm back to recommending it. 

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