Pomme d'Allotment
All allotments have the occasional visitor. The odd mouse nibbling your raspberries, the occasional rat sharing your sweetcorn, pigeons picking at your brassicas, and the invasive army of youths kicking fifteen bells out of your shed. Happily there are some deterring remedies available for employment assuming you have the energy.
The raspberries can be netted off. This at least keeps the birds away, and the mice are generally less abundant than our feathered friends and so at least some rasps remain for human consumption. Is it rats that nibble my lower level sweetcorn? It's hard to say, but whoever it is tends to be not too greedy and is generally considerate in that they stick with the same cob rather than having a little nibble of several at once. In the allotment world this is a small mercy for which one is eternally grateful. Pigeons will not nibble what they can't reach. This is a universal truism the world over, and so a metal grid over the red cabbages will do the trick. So, what are we left with? Oh, yes, the malicious, wilful, vandalistic yoot. Here is my remedy for them.
It starts with fruit trees. The trees need to be hardy, able to carry the weight of a small human, easily recognised as a tree containing fruit, and the fruit itself must be desirable. It is vital that the fruit is desired by the yoot. Apple trees would be ideal. They would then be planted all over the urban landscape, but it would be made clear that the fruit is sacred or for some government use and must be left in situ for very good official reasons, especially if you are yoot. Now then, I feel you are already with me on this if not moving ahead at pace. Yes, reverse psychology will save us from the marauding delinquent hoards. We are creating a committee approved targeted forbidden fruit within the inner city boundary to divert the attention of the enemy to misdemeanors of a nutritious kind.
The kids will be tempted beyond all their primitive code of morality to harvest and consume these pommes de tour in great abundance up to their naturally occurring limit, or acute gut rot in their case. This scheme will reintroduce healthy devilment back into the kids' lives that doesn't involve stabbings or drug taking. Their replete bellies will negate their hunger for a McDonald's, at the same time filling them with vitamins and roughage. As members of the public we would all be complicit with our feigned disgust at their appalling behaviour which would encourage them to nick even more apples. It would be a virtuous circle of ever increasing health benefits and gradual weight loss.
So that's the Autumn sorted. Any ideas for what we might do to alleviate delinquency during the other three seasons?
The raspberries can be netted off. This at least keeps the birds away, and the mice are generally less abundant than our feathered friends and so at least some rasps remain for human consumption. Is it rats that nibble my lower level sweetcorn? It's hard to say, but whoever it is tends to be not too greedy and is generally considerate in that they stick with the same cob rather than having a little nibble of several at once. In the allotment world this is a small mercy for which one is eternally grateful. Pigeons will not nibble what they can't reach. This is a universal truism the world over, and so a metal grid over the red cabbages will do the trick. So, what are we left with? Oh, yes, the malicious, wilful, vandalistic yoot. Here is my remedy for them.
It starts with fruit trees. The trees need to be hardy, able to carry the weight of a small human, easily recognised as a tree containing fruit, and the fruit itself must be desirable. It is vital that the fruit is desired by the yoot. Apple trees would be ideal. They would then be planted all over the urban landscape, but it would be made clear that the fruit is sacred or for some government use and must be left in situ for very good official reasons, especially if you are yoot. Now then, I feel you are already with me on this if not moving ahead at pace. Yes, reverse psychology will save us from the marauding delinquent hoards. We are creating a committee approved targeted forbidden fruit within the inner city boundary to divert the attention of the enemy to misdemeanors of a nutritious kind.
The kids will be tempted beyond all their primitive code of morality to harvest and consume these pommes de tour in great abundance up to their naturally occurring limit, or acute gut rot in their case. This scheme will reintroduce healthy devilment back into the kids' lives that doesn't involve stabbings or drug taking. Their replete bellies will negate their hunger for a McDonald's, at the same time filling them with vitamins and roughage. As members of the public we would all be complicit with our feigned disgust at their appalling behaviour which would encourage them to nick even more apples. It would be a virtuous circle of ever increasing health benefits and gradual weight loss.
So that's the Autumn sorted. Any ideas for what we might do to alleviate delinquency during the other three seasons?
Labels: Apples