How big are allotments?

[Mike Vogel]

Yes, Johnboy, like OH I remember these extraordinary tables of weights and measures printed on the back of exercise books which you could buy at stationers - not, oddly enough, on those provided by schools. How they roll off the tongue, noggins bushels and pecks, rods, poles and perches [aren't those a kind of fish?] Metrication has been a mixed blessing, though; does anyone nowadys have any scruples?

mike

[Chantal]

A scruple is the same as three noggins, right?

[DahlisMarie]

That old song "I love you, a bushel and a peck etc."
just wouldn't sound the same with "I love you, a gram and a kilo".

JB
What a complete education on allotments I now feel I have been delivered!! Total surprise though, the history of them. I thought they were a fully urbanised object, so interesting to find out they originated on farms, etc. I thank you for the extremely full answer to my question

OH
As to Badgers - we find wombats and rabbits hate to go near Blood & Bone (the fertilizer - not any stashed corpses). I sprinkle it around where I want to keep them away. Also dog & cat poo placed along fences helps too (not around the vegies though).

[Chantal]

In Kettering, which is only 30 miles from Rugby, they don't have allotments, they have "garden fields". Is this what they're called elsewhere or is it just Ket'rin' ? I know it's an odd place 'cos my boss lives there.

[Johnboy]

Hi Chantal,
Suggest that this is on a par with "Rodent Operative"
as "Garden Fields" are still Allotments the same as the Rodent Operatives are still the Rat Catcher.
These names are dreamt up by some stupid council official, being over paid, needs to prove his/her existence.
JB.

[Chantal]

I'll agree with you on most counts there JB but apparently the Garden Fields thing has been going on for many many years. Richard (boss) says the old guys in the pub are always on about their Garden Fields. If it was just a Council initiative they'd still be talking about their allotments, right?