Ulla and Janne at the allotments

The weather has warmed up, and there is alot of activity down at the allotments. The Chinese and the Cambodians are the most active, and the Kurds and Afghans a close second. The Finns and myself are late starters. I talked to a Finn who once had once owned a plot near to mine and I was complaining that the ground was so wet and heavy it was difficult to turn. Heavy clay which when it gets baked in the sun turns to concrete. He said he gave it up just becasue of those reason. The plots where I am gets lots of runoff water from the slope above the allotments.

I borrowed a rotovator from Veski and I have broken up the ground as best I could, and then I have turned in loads of horse manure to lightern up the ground. Over the weekend I put in Timo potatoes and onions. Nobody grows potatoes except me and the Finns. Why is this? Well a Kurddish boy says you can get potatoes for 50 cents a kilo so it is not worth to grow potatoes. This opinions was reinforced by Gulam from Afghanistan who only grew things that were expensive in the shops, or things that would not be eaten by hares or rabbits.

I loaned the rotavator to Salem and Behzad, and in turn they dumped manure on my ground. Behzad also gave me some rhubarb cos he did not like it... too sour... I think he must have been eating it raw, and never thought about putting it a pie. Salem also sowed some "tartur" for me. It is a Kurddish salad which they sow and cut when it reaches 15cm, and then it grows again. It reminds me of some sort of cress, and Salem says it should be up is 3-4 days.

Now that I have got the ground into a reasonable condition Ulla and Janne tell me that the local council have plans to use the allotment area to build a library and a culture centre. So this may be the last year. Typical!!! you bust your gut getting the ground into condition only to discover that you won't reap any benifits next year. I walked around and looked at all the black current bushes, raspberries, rhubarb, strawberries, apple trees, and all the other perenials. If the development goes ahead then everything will be ripped up.

This is really ironic that the allotments are mostly worked by displaced peoples. People who have lost their homes and their land. The Kurd who works the plot next to mine once had 50 cows and a farm in Iraq. Now he has a plot of hard clay 10x10 meters and that will be taken away from him. No wonder people get the impression that they are continually being oppressed.

But that is the price of culture.