Water Restrictions, Politics And Why Organic Slug Pellets Don't Work

Michael Wale on gardening in W3

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We had a quiet Sunday last week in our shop, which means only those of us running it or sitting there talking get to buy anything.  So we did make a few quid, mainly from those who wwere meant to be selling the stuff.

We have amazing bargans, and all the things you need right now but cannot buy locally like bamboo poles to train your runner beans, or anything else, up. Strong netting from a fishing background, that does not tear like the stuff you buy in garden centres. Oh, and anti snail  and slug pellets, the only non organic  stuff I use. You can buy organic stuff, but it doesn’t seem to work as well as the dreadful stuff I use. If you don’t use it you are likely to lose your just planted runner beans and much else. Indeed, I have been going up to my allotment at 7am every morning, and the other day when it had actually rained for an hour or tqwo there was a crunching sound as I walked up the paths. The snails and slugs were massively homing in on every plant they could find.

But to get back to what really matters. As we were sitting there gossiping in the shop a lady came in who has a plot on an Ealing Council site, and told us the water had been cut off because ‘ it was not healthy’. In fact I had alreadsy heard from the excellent Angie Bray MP that she had had letters asking about Ealing Council cutting the water off on their allotments. My reply is that I am not a great defender of hoses. But when the great Joe Hughes re-drew our water supply he put a water tank for every four plots. So no-one had to carry water too far. We, thanks to Joe, put our own system in. It’s easy. A small and narrow earth digger and the new pipes are rolled up plastic. According to Thames water rules they mmust be down a foot and half into the ground. Easy peasy. Get on with it Ealing Council. Or let the sites rule themselves. The suspicion is that the water cutting is political, blamed on the Tory and LIB Dem Coalition cuts.


Acton Gardening Association Shop - every Sunday 11-1pm on Bromyard Avenue.

The View From The Shed, by Michael Wale is available from Amazon Books



14 May 2011