A Thursday Morning at West Beckham Old Allotments, Aylmerton and all Sites East and West

There was a real touch of spring in the air at West Beckham Old Allotments (WBOA) as 21 volunteers turned up to tackle a variety of tasks – many more and we will need a larger carpark! After the usual meet-up banter, jobs were allocated and we set to work.

Brian and Alan set about scything docks. Cutting them off at this time of the year weakens them, hopefully to a point of exhaustion, and it certainly stunts their growth making them less productive. Docks are, however, a successful species, and a control alternative is to dig them up, which is what Simon (W) and two new volunteers, both called James, spent the session doing. Hard work with a long-term benefit. Both Jameses were not put off and said they were happy to come back!  All in all, it was a bad morning if you were a dock but sometimes, in doing something for nature, it can seem like a constant battle against certain parts of it. At one point Brian and Alan were surrounded by a hatch of St Mark’s Flies, a little early for St Mark’s Day (25th April). They are also known as Hawthorn Flies as they appear at about the same time as Hawthorn blossoms. The docks around the perimeter of the site were left, hopefully, for Field Mice to take advantage of.

Another ongoing job, tree maintenance, was undertaken by Andrew G, Bev, Andrew S, Nick, Elizabeth and Maria. Essential work and especially as we are now in the growing season. The removal of weed growing inside guards reduces competition for the whips and improves their chances of survival. The success rate with new planting at WBOA is no doubt largely due to this attention.

Most of the rest the party (Val, Jake, Mark and Roger) set to on work to establish our most recent project – a Felbeck Trust Tree Nursery – by thinning and planting whips we already have and filling gaps in our planted hedges with some of the more mature bushes. This is a project everyone is excited by, a plan to grow our own trees for the benefit of our sites and others.

While all this was going on David H was quietly dipping the ponds to see what the spring is revealing. Spending a little time with David is an eye-opening experience as he describes what he has found in ponds that were dug a relatively short time ago. He commented on his findings as follows: -

‘The two small ponds were very full of life, but all the individuals are still very small. The water was peaty-brown in colour, because of common spring microscopic algae called diatoms, which have brown pigments (like seaweed).  The commonest animals were mayfly larvae of the Pond Olive (Chloeon diptera) and beetle larvae of small diving beetles (family Dytiscidae). There were abundant nymphs of greater water boatmen (Notonectidae) and of the Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum), with larvae of non-biting midges (Chironomidae) everywhere. Frog tadpoles were common in the smaller pond but not found, surprisingly, in the larger.

Whilst sampling for Palmate Newts, I found a Four-Spotted Chaser nymph (Libellula quadrimaculata) but was disappointed not to find nymphs of the Emperor and Hawker families, whose adults were common last year’.

Offsite Nigel and Andrew W went to the Aylmerton Surveyor's Allotment, not a site we have to work on so often, to repair some boundary fencing. Biddy had dropped off the fence posts before heading over to WBOA.  At coffee break, Mark, Maria and Jake joined them. 

Mark wrote:

'There was a side project today at Aylmerton Surveyor’s Allotment. A field fence was totally rotten and full of metal pieces, so it was removed by Simon and Nigel, who recycled the barbed wire and put in new posts. Maria, Jake and Mark turned up after coffee (bearing doughnuts!) to help untangle the barbed wire, attach it to the new posts and then all five of us put in donated trees in pots and tree whips.'

Stop Press

During the morning John met Stephen Mulvey, who is doing M.Sc. research on the presence of Palmate Newts in Norfolk, and showed him round the Wood Norton, Hindolveston, WBOA, Sustead and Stow Heath sites. Unfortunately, no newts were found but Stephen said that the sites had a lot of habitat potential and may well attract newts in due course. He will pass on his findings to us. Whilst at Wood Norton, John took the reluctant opportunity to mow the dense stinging nettles on the car park and around the new whips; and at Hindolveston cleared the paths of fallen branches.

Our next work party is at WBOA on Saturday April 25th, at 14.00.

Alan Stevens April 16th 2026