An Afternoon at the Allotment

I have shared some pictures in previous posts of Grizzly and Polar's garden, which has lots of flowers, some little ponds and a vegetable patch.  We bears love to explore it, as there is always something new to see or do, and we like to help our human guardians to look after it.

We know that some of our vegetables - like the onions and potatoes - come from another place, called 'The Allotment'.  We have often wondered what it is like and last week we found out, as Polar and Grizzly took us to see it.

'I'll have to carry you down in this,' said Polar, holding up a carrier bag.  'I won't have a free hand to carry your bear bag as I need to take my cultivator and this garlic for planting.'

We sniffed the bag suspiciously.  'Poo!' cried Hanley Bear.  'That will make our fur stink and we'll need to have baths.'

'No!' squealed Endon.  'It's too cold for bear baths!'

'You won't be in the bag for long, little bears,' said Polar.  'The garlic is inside another bag and anyway, the breeze will blow any smell out of your fur before we come home.'

We climbed reluctantly into the carrier bag, sure that we would be very smelly bears by the time we reached the allotment, but it was only a few minutes walk away and, as Polar had said, it was a nice, breezy, fur-fluffing day.

Polar and Grizzly's plot was at the top end of a sloping site, with very neat plots on each side which belong to Mr Chris and Mrs Jean.  They have other allotment friends, including Mr Steve, who likes engineering things, and Mr Peter and Mr Andrew who keep pigeons.  Unusually, Polar and Grizzly were the only people there that afternoon, so we did not meet any of the others.

'Don't run onto other people's plots and stay away from where Grizzly is trimming the edges of our paths with the shears,' Polar said.  'You can play anywhere on our plot, though - why don't you take a look at the pumpkins?' 

We found some squashes and pumpkins which were ready to bring home, but they were too heavy for small bears to lift.  There were some bear-sized ones, but they were too small to bring home.

'We'll leave those for a few more weeks,' said Polar.  'I'm going to plant this garlic now.'

There were several big bulbs in the bag, which Polar started splitting into individual cloves.

'Let us help!' cheered Endon.  'Sonning can rake the ground, I can use my walking stick to measure how far apart to plant the garlics and Hanley can dig the holes!'

'That's very kind, little bears.  Are you sure you don't just want to run and play?' asked Polar.

'We like to be helpful bears,' I said.  We set to work, just as Endon had suggested.  There were almost fifty garlic cloves to plant, so that kept us busy for a long time.  We were very pleased with our work.

'Well done bears!' said Grizzly.  He helped us up into his deckchair and Polar gave us a little pot of freshly-picked autumn raspberries, which we ate straight away, as we were hungry after working so hard.  Luckily, there were plenty more to take home for tea.

Grizzly and Polar carried us home in the trug holding the pumpkins, which had a much nicer smell than the garlic bag.  We helped to put them in the greenhouse, with the last of the tomatoes ripening in the sunshine.  

We are looking forward to having some nice roast pumpkin with our autumn dinners or even helping to make soup, and might save some seeds from them to grow next year.