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Issue Number 5 |
Spring 1999 |
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QED FOOD FORUM The QED Allotments Group is helping to organise a new QED Food Forum, with the aim of stimulating wider interest in the production, distribution and consumption of fresh and wholesome foods and initiatives to generate a more sustainable local food economy. Issues for the Forum to get its teeth into include:
An inaugural meeting will be held in May, to organise a display of materials on these issues to go on show at this year's Dartford Festival. If you are interested in joining the QED Food Forum, please call Alan Cremer at 01322-343250. BRANCHES OUT - AT YOUR SERVICE The Branches Out Horticultural Project have fuscias, geraniums, border plants, shrubs and tomato plants for sale - and if you take your empty hanging baskets along, for an agreed price they will fill each basket with compost and plants. Branches Out is open 9-4, Monday to Friday, and is located in Trafalgar Road (opposite the Orange Tree), Off Hawley Road, Dartford DA1 1NS. Contact Mary Ivory at 01322-227256 for more details. GARDENING FOR LIFE A free leaflet with tips on encouraging wildlife in the garden has been issued by the QED Biodiversity and Allotments Groups, in association with Woking's LA21. To order single or multiple copies please contact Alan Cremer at 01322-343250. GROW-IT-YOURSELF AT TREDEGAR ALLOTMENTS If you would like an allotment in West Dartford why not try the Tredegar site? Plots are available now, at a very reasonable rent, and you can have a go at building your own shed and compost bins - with materials supplied free of charge by the QED Waste Management Group. Call Malcolm Still for more information at 01322-401971. PUMPKINS GALORE! The QED Allotments Group has teamed up with the QED Waste Management Group, Kent County Council and Uplands Allotments Association in Handsworth, Birmingham to launch the Great Dartford Pumpkin Competition for primary schools in the Dartford area. Participating schools started to make their own compost heaps in the autumn, and have been given special "Compost Education Packs" supplied by the National Federation of City Farms so the children can learn how composting works. Seeds have arrived from the Uplands Allotments "Seedsaluv" range ready for planting, and every participating school has been offered the services of a local allotment gardener to help those pumpkins grow! Come the autumn, the pumpkins will be judged for size and taste. Meanwhile, the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners has launched its own Pumpkin Competition - in support of BBC Children in Need. Why not join in? Special seeds are available from Kings Seeds, or you could just grow your own for this excellent cause. Recipes in the Autumn issue of the Newsletter. ALLOTMENTS BEYOND "THE FUTURE ..." The Government's Response to last year's "Future for Allotments" report invited the Local Government Association (LGA) to draw up a "best practice" regime for allotments. The QED Allotments Group has joined the working party set up by the LGA to advise on this regime, and has submitted invited papers on "Allotments in Local Agenda 21" and "Devolved Management for Allotments", which were well received at the working party's meeting on March 3. The next step will be an "advocacy paper" for circulation to all local authorities in the country, detailing the many benefits of allotment gardening. Other members of the working party include council officers from Bristol, Bromley and Bradford, the Department of the Environment Transport and the Regions, and representatives from the NSALG and NFCF. Meanwhile, all sixty-eight MPs who signed last year's Early Day Motion (EDM1598: Allotment Gardening) have received letters of thanks and a copy of Issue 4 of the Newsletter. The QED Allotments Group is now campaigning to ensure that the recreational needs of the active elderly (including provision of conveniently accessible land for allotment gardening) are recognised in the forthcoming revision of Planning Policy Guidance 17 - in line with another recommendation from the "Future for Allotments" report. The Group's invited papers for the LGA, and full details of who signed EDM1598, are available on the QED website at http://www.btinternet.com/~richard.wiltshire/ along with many other pages of allotments news and views. MUSICAL CHAIRS AT QED Swanscombe's Richard Stone is the new Chair of the QED Allotments Group. Richard is an organic gardener well known to listeners to BBC Radio Kent's "Allotment Watch" on Sunday mornings, and was recently invited to Royal Tunbridge Wells to give a talk to plotholders on organic allotments and Local Agenda 21. Julia Marshall, formerly Research Officer with the QED Allotments Group, is the new Chair of the QED Biodiversity Group. HOW TO GET INVOLVED IN QED ALLOTMENTS Details of QED Allotments meetings are available from our Secretary, Robert Johnson (01322-229298). Items for the Newsletter should be sent to the Editor, Sheila Morey, at 9 Devonshire Avenue, Dartford DA1 3DN (01322-270382). And if you would like to participate in one of the other QED groups, contact Alan Cremer, the Secretary of QED, c/o Dartford Borough Council, Home Gardens, Dartford DA1 1DR (01322-343250). For enquiries regarding the QED website e-mail rw3@soas.ac.uk or phone 01322-409184. Current QED groups include Biodiversity, Health, Transport, Waste Management, Newtown and Swanscombe & Greenhithe and the Youth Action Group. DARTFORD FESTIVAL ALLOTMENT COMPETITION 1999 Congratulations to last year's winner's, Keith Henry (Gore Road Allotments) and Paul & Norah Staines (Dartford Road Allotments). This year's competition will again be for three trophies: the Borough Shield, the Villages Cup, and the Fred Brown Cup, but the entry procedures, judging and judging criteria have been updated. Judging will take place on the weekend of July 10-11, 1999, and will be in the hands of a senior officer from the allotments federation in Bexley, who has been asked to give consideration to the following criteria: (i) crop quality, (ii) crop planning, (iii) good husbandry, (iv) waste management within the plot, (v) use of organic methods, and (vi) visual amenity. Photographs taken during the judging will be on display at the 1999 Dartford Festival in Central Park - showing the people of Dartford the best of allotment gardening in the borough. If you have an allotment in Dartford and would like to take part, please return the slip below, and await further details. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ To: Dartford Festival Allotment Competition, 10 King Edward Avenue, Dartford DA1 2HZ. I would like to enter the 1999 Allotment Competition: please send me further details. Your Name: ____________________________________ Allotment Site: _________________ Your Home Address: ______________________________________ Phone Number: _______ Were you gardening on this site before January 1, 1997? YES/NO (Please delete as appropriate) |
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