Monthly Archives: July 2011

Peas, Fence, Frame, Destruction

10th July 2011 – Allotment Plot 326 – Harvest: Peas Ezeta’s Krombek Blauwschokker = 5oz = 150g, Oregon Sugar Pod II = 5.5oz = 160g, a mix of Kelvedon Wonder, Ambassador and Meteor = 1lb 3oz = 550g.

12th July 2011 – Allotment Plot 326 – R&P helped to erect some of the fence around the Plot. The first gate was placed in position. The fence that was being erected around Plot 326 might suspend the rabbits from eating any plant they desired, but it would not deter the growth of unwanted plants.

A new allotment holder had moved in to the plot next to 326 and placed carpet off-cuts on the soil to try to hinder the growth of unwanted plants, such as the brambles. Some seeds can live in the soil for many years before they germinate. It is a slow process to eradicate perennials and is better to calm their growth by not allowing the seeds to spread over the Plot. However many plants that are considered weeds can be beneficial in all kinds of ways, by attracting biodiversity, acting as green manure, fixing nitrogen, activating compost or acting as food for the vegetable plants.

14th July 2011 – Allotment Plot at MERL – It is two weeks since Ella Montt had visited this part of the Plot. The garden had been involved in graduation activity. Ella Montt brought black bamboo canes to the Plot, in order to construct a frame that would connect the six smaller bamboo assemblages together. The day was warm, day and there was no chance of rain. The soil was parched. Ella Montt attached the black bamboo canes with stripes of plant material connecting the upper part of the series of six bamboo assemblages. The larger Bamboo Wigwam remained central to the Plot within the frame of the other bamboo. the Climbing Beans at the base of the Wigwam had not yet started to ascend the frame.

The plant residue in the Brick Composter had dried out. Ella Montt harvested the Comfrey and Nettle leaves that were growing there and scattered them over the compost as an activator. The other companion plants were flowering, but there was no sign of the orange Cosmos yet, only the pink and white. A Bee visited the Cosmos. Nigella (Love-in-the-Mist) was flowering within the Plot although it had not been planted there.

The first few Climbing Beans were harvested and a good handful of Wild Rocket. Harvest: an assortment of 10 x Climbing Beans = 2oz = 40g; Wild Rocket = 4oz = 100g.

15th July 2011 – Allotment Plot 326 – Harvest: Peas Ezeta’s Krombek Blauwschokker = 1lb 1oz = 480g, Oregon Sugar Pod II = 2.5oz = 60g, a mix of Kelvedon Wonder, Ambassador and Meteor = 8oz = 220g.

Unknown beings continued to eat the Pea leaves in a destructive manner. The destruction was viewed by from Ella Montt, but not by the unknown beings, who consumed the Pea leaves as their vital food source, and left the Pea pods undamaged.

Mid Summer

23rd June 2011 – Allotment Plot at MERL – One of the Comfrey plants in the Brick Composter was starting to grow out of the Composter. Comfrey can be harvested regularly through the growing season to be used as a plant food and as a compost activator.

Ella Montt adjusted some of the Climbing Beans to encourage them to grow up the Bamboo. The Beans that had been planted by the Bamboo looked healthier than the plants grown to seedlings and then planted out. Ella Montt harvested a mixture of Peas and also the onions, because their foliage had collapsed. Some of the Carrots had failed; they were removed to the Brick Composter. It is a very unpredictable growing year. Seeds were harvested from the herb plants Chive and Sage. The Borage, Cosmos and Pot Marigolds plants were coming out, a number had self-seeded from last years planting, others Ella Montt had placed on the Plot. Ella Montt planted six Tomato plants where she had removed the Carrots, these were; 2 x Chadwick, 2 x Koralik, and 2 x Brandywine, .

It was Midsummer, across the garden was a braying Donkey, and a Wall appeared with a chink through which Pyramus and Thisbe attempted to kiss.

23rd June – Allotment Plot at MERL – Harvest: Onions Swift = 2lb 10oz = 1.2kg; Peas, Ezeta’s Krombek Blauwschokker = 2oz = 60g, a mix of the green Peas = 13oz = 380g.

26th June – Allotment Plot 326 – Harvest: Kale Red Russian Curled = 4oz = 100g; Peas Oregon Sugar Pod II = 2oz = 60g.

29th June – Allotment Plot 326 – Ella Montt planted more Climbing and Dwarf Bean seeds. Birds or other wildlife seemed to be eating and flattening the leaves of the Peas. The Pea plants looked chaotic, but luckily were producing produce. Ella Montt made a mental note for next year that it was not enough to put a net fence around the Peas with sticks for supports. The Peas needed to be able to climb up strong supports, be fenced in and have anti bird CDs hanging as a defense mechanism. So far Ella Montt had not deployed any Heavy Metal CDs at Allotment Plot 326, this was perhaps a mistake on her part that needs to be rectified. If it is one-thing birds do not seem to sing a long to, it is heavy metal music. The Perpetual Spinach that was already growing on the Plot when Ella Montt acquired it, is developing seeds, which will be allowed to continue to form until ready for harvesting and seed saving.

Harvest: Peas Oregon Sugar Pod II = 7oz = 180g.

30th June – There had been Wood Imps that came through a wormhole portal by the woods next to the Allotments. The Imps had caused havoc by breaking things. Captain Swing was unimpressed. Ella Montt and Captain Swing had seen some of the Imps watching them while they were working. The Imps were hiding behind piles of compost and then a shed. Ella Montt had spoken to the Wood Imps that she found in a hollow under a pile of large oak trees that had experienced deforestation. The Imps were not yet mature. A whisper passed around that the Allotment that the Wood Imps were seized and taken to a Panopticon.

At Allotment Plot at MERL, William Morris was waiting by the doorway wearing an elaborate print in shades of black and gold. The morning started off bright and sunny, but by midday dark clouds started to assemble over head.

Ella Montt planted out the last of Celery and Celeriac seedlings, (the seedlings that were planted at Plot 326 were not doing very well). Ella Montt started to remove the rest of the Pea plants, because they had stopped flowering and were descending to the ground. The Peas were harvested and the Pea plant residue was placed in to the Brick Composter. Slugs and snails that had been hiding under the Pea foliage were moved to different locations in the garden. In the place where Ella Montt had removed the Peas, she planted out four more Tomato plants, these were; 2 x Koralik and 2 x Brandywine.

Ella Montt inspected the Climbing Beans at each Bamboo station, then the remaining Bean seeds were taken from the packets and planted next to the Bamboo. At both Allotment Plots, although it was still early in the season, Ella Montt remained unconvinced that the Climbing Beans were going to grow successfully this year.

The sun came out and there was no rain, so Ella Montt fetched the watering can from the shed. Borage, Pot Marigold, Cosmos and a Dwarf Sunflower had opened their petals to flower, as had male Squash flowers, but not yet female Squash Flowers. Ella Montt broadcasted a mixture of seeds around the Plot, they consisted of Fenugreek (to act as green manure), Leaf Beat Swiss Chard, Rainbow Chard, Perpetual Spinach, Rhubarb Chard, Dill, Onion Ramrod, Coriander Santos, and Florence Fennel Romanesco.

Harvest: Peas (a mixture) = 1lb3oz = 540g.

4th July – Allotment Plot 326 – Harvest: Peas Oregon Sugar Pod II = 7oz = 200g.

Comfrey Soup

June 20 2011 – At Allotment Plot 326, Ella Montt placed the netting (that she had removed from around the Peas at Allotment Plot at MERL), around the Climbing Beans. A fence around Plot 326 had still not been constructed. A crack had appeared in the Utopian dream. Ella Montt did not have the time to manage every aspect of Plot 326, wildlife was free to roam and eat whatever it liked. The weeds were growing relentlessly. It will take several years to stop their onslaught. Time, that at this current moment, Ella Montt did not have, so the Plot thickened of its own accord and was barely controllable. Seeds that had been planted with good intent to grow in to vegetables barely made it to seedling stage before they were consumed by an invisible force field that was Nature.

Ella Montt made Comfrey soup in buckets to act as plant food. Left for several days the liquid becomes more than pungent!

June 15th and 16th

The previous evening (June 15th), Ella Montt had travelled with William Morris up the river to visit a group of humans who wished to hear Morris speak at a social space. The place was where it is oval down by the gasworks, a short walk from the river. Whilst Morris spoke, they had left his rowing boat tied up by a bridge in Vauxhall. The humans at the social were a mixed group of individuals who sort alternatives to the labour machines that they were reliant upon. William Morris explained the folly of over production or mass production of the commodity as opposed to the process of hand-printing wall paper and fabric in complicated 32 colour block designs. It was not just the aesthetic; the process of which although exacting was nevertheless purposeful and time consuming, but in terms of employment in time hours it allowed an hour or two left over in the day for cultivation of plant matter at the allotment. After the social event, Morris was sleepy and Ella Montt had to row back down the river, so she switched the boat to fast forward mode and they returned in no time. William Morris rolled himself in his carpet and slumbered peacefully under the Mulberry Tree. Ella Montt left him there and tuned into an electronic headset and processor.

June 16th – At Allotment Plot at MERL, Ella Montt removed the net that had been surrounding the Peas, then harvested Broad Beans and Peas. It was no accident that the words “botany” and “starch”, kept repeating themselves over and over again in Ella Montt’s head, she was under the influence of prescheduled programming and imagining the starch molecules moving inside the living plants. If she stared hard enough, perhaps she would see them. It is the plant starch that is part of photosynthesis that is keeping us all alive. The ability of plants to convert light, oxygen and water and to absorb carbon dioxide never ceased to amaze Ella Montt as she worked in the garden.

Eve Balfour strolled across the garden to check on her Potatoes and ask about the Oak Trees seedlings that Ella Montt was collecting from sprouting acorns at Plot 326. Beuys was interested in Ella Montt planting them in the field at the Farm to replace the collapsed 1000 year old tree. More plant residue was removed from one area of the Plot and placed in the Brick Composter to become another part of the Plot, an evolving ecotope. Ella Montt planted out Celery Tall Utah and Celeriac Ibis seedlings echoing the action that had taken place at Allotment Plot 326 on the 11th June. 1 x Koralik Tomato plant was planted within the row of Tomato plants beneath the large Bamboo Tripod.

John Ray, Carl Linnaeus, Philip Miller were standing across the garden discussing loudly their theories and evidence that constructed the science of plants. The Three had recently watched a BBC television program on Botany that presented their work to a 21st century audience and they were somewhat excited about re-comparing their findings even though they were several hundred years old. Tansley (also a Botanist), appeared at MERL’s reading library window. He climbed out and crossed the lawn so that he could converse with The Three on Ecosystems and the plant as a machine.

Meanwhile, Ella Montt had shifted 6 x 9ft dark Bamboo canes to MERL’s garden to become part of the Plot. One 9ft cane was added to each of the six smaller Bamboo cane arrangements so that they individually now contained four sticks of Bamboo. Ella Montt tied each Bamboo cane arrangement together with stripes of strong plant material that had been taken from a tropical plant near the fixed-up-greenhouse at another location. The Bamboo constructions became stronger and connected to the energy levels above the Plot.

Ella Montt removed slugs and snails from the Peas and placed them in a different area of the garden. Pot Marigold and Borage flower buds were starting to open. The visitors to the garden drifted off to their resting places. Then a vent in the sky opened and it rained.

Harvest: Broad Beans = 4oz = 100g; Peas (various mix) = 1lb = 450g.

Cultivation Field – Call for Papers and Proposals

Cultivation Field – Postgraduate Symposium – 28th September 2011

Exhibition – 28th September to 6th October 2011

University of Reading

The premise for this Symposium and accompanying Exhibition is that cultivation is leading to new art practices deserving of critical inquiry and articulation. Whether in the garden or allotment, the soup kitchen or the road, on wasteland or the tower block, or wherever there are cracks in the system, cultivation provokes questions about human being’s relation to and encounter with the earth and its growth systems and operations. The purpose of this Symposium and Exhibition is to encourage discursive exchange and productive encounter between art practitioners and researchers within the cultivation field.

Artists and research students are invited to submit 250 word abstracts for the Symposium and/or the Exhibition, accompanied by a short biography or CV. We are interested in proposals for paper presentations, performance (including culinary), film, intervention, sound, installation, or text works, that explore plant-based material, land use, growth, ecosystems, economy, taxonomy, environment, power and chaos in the field of cultivation.

Performances can be arranged in open-air locations on the campus. Individual presentations will be restricted to 20 minutes duration.

Deadline for submission is: 29 July 2011 at 17.00.

Submissions should be addressed to:

Cultivation Field
Department of Art,
University of Reading,
1 Earley Gate,
Whiteknights,
RG6 6AT.

Please include a S.A.E with correct postage if you wish material to be returned to you.

Or by email: cultivationfield@pgr.reading.ac.uk

Email submissions should be no more than 5MB, jpg, doc, docx, or pdf format, or with a link to the web address where work is hosted. Please include all technical requirements in your proposal.

The deadline for registration is: 23 September 2011.

To register for the Symposium please fill in the online form here.

Artist-made plant-based lunch and refreshments will be available.

THE EVENT IS FREE.