Temporary road closures
The council have put up a sign at the park entrance letting everyone know the road is being dug up from Monday 15th November to Friday 10th December. It’s being totally rebuilt all the way from the bridge entrance right through to the gatehouse/archway. That means this Sunday will be our last chance to bring any cars up the lane for the next few weeks until the road works are finished.
Due to the length of the stretch being worked on, we’ve been told we won’t be able to cut across past the grass in front of the cottages, so there’ll be no pedestrian access via the bottom of the lane at all, except hopefully on Sundays when the road crew aren’t working and they might be able to leave us a path open.
You’ll still be able to reach your plot on foot any time by coming across the playing fields. The shortest route is from the Nether Pollok Playing Fields entrance (click here).
You might also have noticed the new gate at the bottom of the lane. It’s been donated by the council to help us avoid the lane getting used by public visitors when the Burrell Collection reopens. (The park renovation has involved a big reduction in the number of parking spaces in the park, and the council are putting on an electric bus service from the city centre. They’ve also made more bike paths through the South Side.) They’ve advised that we try closing it for a few weeks when the Burrell Collection opens again in the Spring, so we’ll probably do that and then open it again and see if we have any problems. They’ll be fitting a combination lock so we can open and close it ourselves if we need to without everyone needing keys. They’ll also install some signs in the Spring to let drivers know it’s a private lane for permit-holders only.
Water being turned off for winter
We turn the water off every year in mid-November as the first frost approaches so that ice doesn’t burst the pipes. We’ll be turning it off and draining the system after this weekend (Sunday 14th November), so the toilets will be out of use from then until the risk of ice expanding in them has passed in the spring.
If you use a water butt and you’ll need it over the winter, now’s a good time to make sure it’s filled!
Christmas wreath-making & social – RSVP for numbers
A few plotholders have offered to hold a social event and demonstrate their skills in wreath-making and table-top decorations. It’ll be a good chance to say hi to people and get a hot drink on a cold day.
The pavilion obviously has a limited size and we want to make sure people have the ability to manage how close they get to each other, so if you’re keen on coming along, please let us know so we can keep an eye on it.
Please either email the secretary or click here to let us know:
- if you are able to come along for refreshments and/or
- if you’d like to help with the organisation and/or
- if you would like to learn to make a wreath or table decoration (more info to follow on suggested materials to bring for this, e.g. acorns, pine cones, willow branches, old Christmas decorations, old artificial tree branches, etc.)
We’re keeping it as a plotholder-only event in the first instance, so we can make sure places go to our own group before anyone from outside.
Pumpkins and straw free to a good home
There are some untouched pumpkins left over from the recent Hallowe’en event (click here for photos), so help yourself from the usual table outside the pavilion.
There are also 3 bales of straw that were donated for Hallowe’en by a local farm as decorations. They might be useful as a mulch, compost fodder, or as kindling in a burning bin now that we’re in the burning season (October to April).
You could also use them to expand your growing space – here’s a clip from Mansewood allotments, where they wet down straw bales with nitrogen fertiliser until they start decomposing, then pot seedlings on straight into them.
Let us know if you want any. Since we’ve been using Vegware plant-based cups for the past couple of events, we also have a small bag of separated compostable waste from the Hallowe’en party. Let us know if you’re a composter and you want to help us put our waste back into the ground for the good of the plots!