English allotments are too often rackety sorts of places, and ours on Southfield Road is far from beautiful. The accumulations of tat on some neglected plots go back decades – broken glass, old bricks, shreds of plastic, rusting tools. Bit by bit they are being tidied up, the detritus carted off to the tip, aka the local recycling and waste disposal centre, this being done by one or two good souls who have more than enough to do on their own plots. But despite the overall unloveliness of the place, it does provide some interesting visual moments. The top photo was taken last spring – damson blossom and barbed wire with distant ash tree.
And here are some more views taken on my camera’s monochrome setting. A touch surreal I’m thinking:
Tish Farrell 
Beautiful photo of the damson blossoms. My dad had the neatest plot on the entire allotment. He was a stickler for tidiness and order. 😅
It’s good when someone is a stickler, and I can just imagine your dad’s immaculate allotment plot – all neatly edged 🙂 I’m not exactly proud of my plot. Too many rough ‘n ready compost bays and also things seem to ‘wash up’ there – stuff that might just be useful…
I love monochrome and that hoop has agood tight cover. Mine isn’t sorry to say.
It’s a knack getting it tight. You need heat too. Fortunately I inherited my tunnel from someone who had done all the hard work.
Yes hot weather does
make it go better
Love that first image Tish, it’s nice to play around and be a bit ‘arty’ with photography.
Thanks, Brian. Too easy to play though, and not get to the digging and weeding bit 🙂
Can’t get motivated yet Tish, will wait till the weather is warmer!
So very beautiful!!
Thank you, Freda.
Very surreal, but also interesting.
Thank you.
Barbed wire and plum blossoms- nice some of my favourite things!
I do so remember you’re liking for barbed wire, Thom, and I can see how this combo appeals. It’s the way you write 🙂
I’m blushing. Thanks for the kind words.
I like reading about your allotment and find that such an interesting concept.
Thank you, Lulu. Community enterprises like allotments seem to be their own little worlds, and of course full of human oddities, contradictions and kindnesses. There are vegetables too of course 🙂
Nice
Fabulous, very evocative photos. I especially like the first one with the blossoms.
Alison
Thank you, Alison.
allotment geometry – great takes Tish
Nicely put, geometrically speaking 🙂
Tish, wonderful photos for this week. 😀 😀
Thank you, Cee.
The first one is my favorite. I love the colors–all of it.
There are such long waiting lists for the allotments in Winchester that abandoned plots never stay abandoned. At most a year, but usually within 6months of no work action is taken to give the plot to the next one on the list!
PS forgot to say – fantastic photos 😊
Thank you.
That’s good to hear, Becky. We seem to have people who hang on to plots and then don’t do anything with them.
Locally they don’t allow it, it’s in the individual contracts!
Now that’s the missing key here – contracts.
Certainly solved it here 😊
Super-surreal images, Tish!
Yay! Thank you, Sue.
😊
Interestingly the one’s I’ve seen in my wife’s home city of Wroclaw in Poland were actually quite lovely. People seem to really relish a chance to get their hands in the dirt being confined to brick and mortar flats. Perhaps it varies from location to location, but it seemed like these allotments were more cherished in the part of Poland I visited.
Ah well, Swarn, you see Wenlock folk live in rural Shropshire, in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; also lots of people with their own very nice gardens and fine views. Unfortunately the allotment rather falls under the radar in the beauty stakes. There are some tidy bits though, and I’m aiming to up my game this year and not be quite so messy. Btw Happy New Year to you and yours!
Yeah, I can see allotments not having much value in such a situation.
Happy New Year to you and yours as well!
I really like the bouquet of barbed wire, remember that? was it a film or tv series?
I do remember it, Gilly. It was v. fixating.
Found out, 1970’s tv drama and quite powerful too.
That greenhouse like a stark skeleton, wonderful. The allotments’ racketiness is the charm
🙂
Wow, Tish. I love the soft/hard contrast in that first shot. (The petals vs. the barbed wire.)
Yes, that appealed to me too. Thank you, Patti.