LAST PREPARATION DAY
We have had our last prep. day. We hauled pallets from the garden centre car park – they may be the start of our shelter which we will build next week. However we decided to put up a white gazebo on Monday 1 October, the First Day of our Residency – so that we have immediate shelter from rain and a place to lay out materials.
I have become interested in the original measures used to lay out allotment plots – rods, poles, perches – all these measure the same i.e. approximately 5.5 yards. Many old measures came from using the body like a ruler: a cubit is the average length from finger tip to elbow; hands are still used to measure horses. A foot needs no explanation. I decided to measure my allotment with my body. I loved lying face down on the grass and earth, like kissing my allotment. The plot is 12 bodylengths long by 4 bodylengths wide.
Crops were also used to measure: 3 barleycorns = 1 inch. I used runner beans grown this summer: the plot is 110 runner beans long by 47 runner beans wide.
