A P(l)otted History

[peter]

So they were slung off after eighteen months.
The only thing that made progress was the brsmbles.

My interpretation is on the site notice boards for clarity.

Oh and the lady who subsequently took it on has cleared, almost levelled, bedded, pathed, grow tunnelled, fruit treed and removed every root by hand. Thats 5 rod, one older lady (not yet oap) her slightly younger freind and a few hours on acouple of weekeds from both husbands, all within five months.

[Pa Snip]

We have a couple of people I shall call 'strimmers' on site.

Let weeds and grass get so high over majority of plot then come up and strim the stuff and let it go all over the place.
Mostly over their neighbours plots, very effective way of distributing weed and grass seed.

By coincidence they also happen to be full size plot holders who work less than half the plot overall, just patches.

[Elaine]

I love your posts Pa, so do please carry on. Agree with everyone else, photos are brilliant.
Your plot is wonderful and the first photos of it reminds me of how ours looked when we first got it. Alas we never took photos and have always regretted that! Not that I would have managed to put them on here....

[Pa Snip]

Thanks for the continued input and comments,

before I proceed can I just check that there is only one setting for number of
posts to a page, I make it 15.

I would just like to check that we all start new pages at the same time and are all now on page 2.

[Motherwoman]

Love this thread Pa Snip. Better than gardening progs!

Unused plots are the bane of my life. I have a whole plot (10 rod) and the lower section is bordered by people who do their half plots brilliantly but the top half is very different! Held by the same person and in the last 3 years he has grown nothing. Occasionally he will strim or mash everything up with a rotavator. I pity whoever takes it on after him as perennial weed root cuttings are making a superb take-over bid! Meanwhile weed seeds blow around and bindweed creeps under the path towards my plot as do the slugs over the path! Seems to me that as long as he says he's working them and wants to keep them he is allowed to stay.

I took my plot on in 2000 shortly after having my last nipper (I blame the hormones for irrational decisions!) and at the time nobody was taking on plots so I sat in majestic state on my own at the top of the site surrounded by prairie... Frequently got locked in as them down the bottom couldn't see me. But it's perfectly feasible to be a full-time mother and do an allotment, in fact easier then than now with a job!

MW

[peter]

Best one I ever had was a women who was allergic to sunlight!

So she couldn't garden in good weather and bad weather on clay is SO easy, not. Took a few years and a rising waiting list before she could confront reality.

[Elaine]

We took ours on in July 2005...and we were both working full time back then. We started by strimming the head high grass and weeds, took an axe to the head high, tree like docks and cleared the lot in a week. A week later we had our first crops in. We dug a bit, planted it up, then dug a bit more etc etc. In between, Ken built a shed, we acquired a greenhouse and got that sorted. We were there every night after work until it was too dark to work and every weekend. And we LOVED it!

Looking back, I don't know how we did it! But we did...so if two full time workers aged 52 and 55 can get an allotment up and running from derelict to productive in three months, younger folks should be able to do at least half their allotment in 6 months to a year. We were only saying the other day, we wouldn't be able to achieve the same result in that time scale now, as it was back breaking hard work and we're not quite as fit now as we were 10 years ago.

As for being allergic to sunlight....surely that would mean she could only go out at night then, as the suns UV and Infra red rays are still there even if it's cloudy. I know to my cost you can still get sunburn when it's foggy......

[Pa Snip]

2013 Satisfaction

Height of season and by August 2013 there was little space unused.
We had been enjoying the fruits of my labours.

The side of the shed had been devoted to wildlife and it seemed that was being enjoyed as well.
Lots of butterflies and bees were busy toing and froing, frogs had found the small water feature and spawned

Life was good, but we were struggling to fit everything we wanted to grow in just a half plot

Wildlife Corner

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We settled down and enjoyed the harvesting for the rest of the season and I started thinking about how the layout of the plot may change for the 2014 crop rotation>

Plans A. B. & C. went through my mind and were duly noted on paper.

Events then came about a little later in the year which meant all plans were changed

[Pa Snip]

One of the plots adjoining ours had previously been split into one half and two quarter plots. Holder of one of the quarters decided to give up so I was offered that quarter.

Difficult to believe a quarter plot could be more difficult to deal with than our existing half plot had been but the pictures might tell the story.

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[Pa Snip]

We took over the plot on Nov 1st 2013, and this was state of play by Nov 16th 2013

The 'compost' heap contained little useful soil and mostly comprised of dock and couch grass roots.

Black plastic had not only been left to disintegrate on the surface but a proportionately large area (see first pic below) had had black plastic sheet buried between 2 to 4 inches down under bricks and paving slabs

Before taking it on I had negotiated that if I removed the rubbish off the plot the council would arrange collection, and I would have a rent free period on this quarter.

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All the tat ended up off the plot, under black plastic, awaiting collection.

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Meanwhile our original half plot still needed to be prepared for winter.

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[Pa Snip]

28th November 2013 and progress was being made.

Metal shed had been removed and replaced by new compost bin area which was placed to serve, and allow easy access from, both the new plot section and the existing half plot.

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[Pa Snip]

Plans were now being made to include this section in the 2014 rotation scheme.

However, best laid plans and all that because 5th March 2014 started with a very surprising email from the council allotment manager

[robo]

pa snip, thats a credit to your hard work, our own plot was used for a tip for 17 years before we where granted it ,we also had our name on the waiting list for 6 years before we had an offer i missed the first offer as i was away in spain and had only 10 days to reply but i got a second offer 3 weeks later ,we started with a half plot but the ajoining half was untouched for twelve months as people kept refusing it because of the state it was in ,i think some people expect to get a plot planted with all the vegetables for the coming year,we finnished up getting the other half to our plot so we know have a full plot but the soil is that badly contaminated we have had to put 8 large raised beds in ,unlike your council our are now on the boil we have inspections every couple of months with none cultivation orders given out to any plot owner who falls foul of the council contract you then have 3 weeks to bring your plot up to standard other wise its bye bye time, keep the post going its great reading

[Pa Snip]

Thank you robo

All the work I have shown here is replicated by you all up and down the country in some way shape or form.
It may be that the groundwork you do is in a different form but nonetheless it's hard work at times.

I'm under no illusion that many do it far better than I as well.

I don't want to create the wrong impression about our local council management. He visits the sites in the area very regularly and responds swiftly if contacted.

The policy however does seem to be one of not wishing to be too heavy handed and as stated before it doesn't seem to take too much to stay on the right side of their view of what the definition of 'being worked' is.


Having said that, it adds to my encouragement and enthusiasm to receive such comments from my peers on this forum.

Thanks

[robo]

I was on my plot one day in november when gary our council watch dog came to do his inspection he is usually met by our chairman but he did not show so gary asked would i walk round with him just in case he was not happy with one of the plots and i could shed some light on the owners lack of enthusiasm for want of a better way of putting it ,one plot owner has been left with 3 kids to look after as his wife has left him that sort of thing he would generally cut the plot owner a bit of slack, when we walked past our chairmans plot it was obvious why he had not shown up it seems he had a verbal warning on the previous inspection that week he had a written one, i must admit im not a fan of the chairman he seems to try and split people up rather than bring them together as one group i had to keep quiet all week about his none cultivation order it was hard but i managed it