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A Whole Plotta Love

Allotment life and notes from the Boater's Garden

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May 2018

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Candelabra primula, Primula Bulleesiana
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Yellow flag iris, Iris pseudacorus. with Lythrum salicaria in the background
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Valonia and Rob

Setting the scene:

On a little piece of land in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, two garden novices are overrun by rabbits on an allotment plot they named A Whole Plotta Love.

Meanwhile, at home on the banks of the Thames, they potter about on a tiny segment of ground known colloquially as The Boater’s Garden. It floods a lot.

Instagram

A moorhen from the first brood now assisting the feeding of a chick from the second brood. The parent moorhens failed to raise any chicks last year so it's been a pleasure to see them do so well. And we have front row seats as they nest outside our window. Boat life, eh?
I've a little helper in the garden today.
We now have an allotment pond and bog garden! Thanks, @steven.j.charlton and @nobbyc66 🐸
The fences are getting higher, the netting has come out in all its green glory... And still there's evidence of a certain little (actually he's quite big) bunny getting into the plot. There's no tunnels, there's no sign of nibbled fencing, but every day we find him hopping causually as you like across our plot, and every day we shoo him out the gate. There's only one other possible explanation for him getting in: he's hitching a ride on the back of a red kite and parachuting in. We're going to have to build a protective dome. #allotment #rabbits
I found a rabbit on the allotment and spent an hour chasing it around before calling for backup. Rob arrived, calmly built a corall, coaxed the rabbit out from behind the shed, and sent it on its merry way. He made it look easy, and he's rewarded himself by drinking the beer for the beer traps!
The following day a goose and her 2 gooselets strayed into Chekhov territory. This got rather fraught. Chevkov separated mother and babies and tried to drown the babies. With the help of a stranger we managed to catch the gooselets whilst Chekhov was busy chasing mother goose. We attempted to lure mother goose to the far side of the marina and to safety, but she just continually returned to the slipway where she last saw her babies. Our next attempt to save them involved me luring mother goose using her babies down the lane to a safer part of the river. It worked for a little while, but she spooked when she lost sight of the water, and flew back directly into the path of Chekhov. Our next attempt, saw us clamber in a boat to try and lure the goose to the safety of the main channel of the river. Chekhov was harassing her too much and wouldn't let her through. He knew we had the goslings so made for us at one point too. We figured we were making matters worse, so we headed for land and hoped that with the chicks out of sight Chekhov would stop. He did eventually, but the mother goose made one last ditch attempt to reach the slipway again, but to no avail. Chekhov was still waiting. We distracted the swans with food and rushed the chicks to the far end of the marina to catch mother goose just as she had given up and was leaving. I held up one of her babies and it called out to her. Mother goose shot over to us, and we were able to reunite them all. They all swam out of the marina basin and to the safety of the river. In all it took 3 and a half hours and we've felt emotionally exhausted ever since! We love a happy ending, though.

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