National Allotment Week 2018 (and spare plots)

[bazzaboy]

I've drawn up a draft of my probably over-optimistic ad to try to attract new recruits to our vacancies.....

Here’s my draft for our village Facebook page (have removed pics and phone numbers). This open page now has 1200 “members” (who Facebook calls “fans”) plus a lot of visitors, its Readership Profile is two thirds are female, predominant age range 25-45. There are several very active younger groups in the village but none so far has taken on allotments...
Any thoughts? bb.

- - -

Every thought of having an allotment?
[pic]
It’s “National Allotment Week” and in this era of the Internet and social messaging allotments are changing. Increasingly they’re being taken over by a younger set who are quite health-conscious, eager to benefit from cheap fresh organic food and wanting to avoid excessive air miles and plastic packaging. The era of old blokes growing military rows of cabbages is on the wane and new allotment owners are more into fruit and flowers as well as veg. There’s a new interest in “potager gardens” where fruit, flowers and veg are grown together, plus some young parents like to encourage their children to learn where food comes from.... New theories are reducing heavy work and time commitments and there’s masses of online information about “No Dig”, “Salad For All Seasons”, “Perennial Vegetables” etc. Some sites these days even do cooking tips and recipes for making beauty products. Above all they make it fun (with the occasional on-site Prosecco party!)

The village has some spare allotments and now is the time to start planning for 2019! Available to residents for a token rent, help is available with initial clearing and setting up. It’s possible to share or divide up larger plots to make them more manageable including “Starter Plots”.

There are loads of YouTube videos on new allotments: e.g.
Tanya’s allotment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAH24VOCihk

Katrina’s allotment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdGHTOZs9yA

Matt’s allotment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h3750C-rxE

Anne’s allotment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbl4SuAqDjg

Rachael’s Allotment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lZkzzcIJvw

So check out whether friends are interested and if you’d like to receive further details leave your name and contact details on ******* or with Amy on ************.

= = =

[Two_Sheds]

Good ad Bazza, lots of photos would be great to see. Are people able to come and look at the plots, no commitment to take one?

I take issue with No Dig being a new theory though - it’s how forests are made!
Ditto Organic/Permaculture: this is how gardening was done before the invention of petrochemical sprays & dusts

[bazzaboy]

I take issue with No Dig being a new theory though - it’s how forests are made!

Yes good point, I was just thinking of the Dowding line... he does actually call it the "natural no-dig way" so I'll tweak that. Ditto "organic". Thanks.

[bazzaboy]

lots of photos would be great to see. Are people able to come and look at the plots, no commitment to take one?

I was just going to use a photo I've found of a young woman carrying 2 trugs of crops and looking very pleased... Not inclined to use photos of the site but will add a note that you can come and look at the plots without commitment, good point, thanks.

[bikermike]

To me, that would get my goat - are allotments really being taken over by a "younger set"? (what is a younger set? I'm early 40s and am at the younger end of our demographics) But if you think it will sell to your target audience (and give you people who stick at it) go for it.

It's a fine line that doesn't involve slating the old guard for simply being old.

the new plot thing is a thing. Especially as when you take a plot over, you generally end up digging through the wreckage of the last few failed endeavours (lots of buried plastic in my case). But it's time, isn't it? I'd love to have time to devote to the good of the site, but I'm at work 7.30-7.30, have a small child to raise, a wife to see and bikes to build etc etc. There simply isn't the time.

One thing lots of preserved railways do is have a "[]day gang" - if you come in on that day wearing old clothes you will get a job to do. If someone had the time to organise that, that might be a way of making best use of time.

[Jay-ell]

Yes good point, I was just thinking of the Dowding line... he does actually call it the "natural no-dig way" so I'll tweak that. Ditto "organic". Thanks.

I assume you're changing the "new theories" but to organic rather than the no-dig as organic has been around a long long time.

[Two_Sheds]

To me, that would get my goat ...

It's a fine line that doesn't involve slating the old guard for simply being old.

Nobody is slating anyone - it’s still the case that the “old guard” dominate sites, because they’re the ones NOT raising small humans or building bikes, and aren’t rushing home to see the wife ��

I’m always happy to see younger people get plots, and we have a lot of women now too, but absolutely no ethnic minorities, which is to our detriment. I’d love us to be more mixed.

[bikermike]

I dunno - from Bazzaboy's advert text "The era of old blokes growing military rows of cabbages is on the wane" - feels like it's moving toward the idea of young=good. It's a feel, and I offer my feedback as if I read that ad, it wouldn't make me more likely to take on an allotment. And if I were one of the old people with neat rows of veg, and saw that, I'd be less likely to help out.


It's a tricky one, and it's not to say that new blood isn't important, and they need to feel they have space to do their thing. Maybe I'd say something like "you don't have to grow your carrots in neat lines, and no-one is going to tell you off for growing flowers or even having an easy chair to survey your work from".


And as I mentioned before it was an old lady who tried to tell me how to weed when I got my plot (I'd been growing veg for some years in my garden)...

It's not an easy balancing act, I'll grant you.

[Two_Sheds]

I hear you.

When I took this plot, one of the old fellas said "ah, you're having a go are ya?"

I didn't say that I'd been allotmenting for 12 years already

[bazzaboy]

Update on this item…. Changes to text made as recommended, thank you, and approved by The Committee (of one Parish Councillor) but publication delayed by several events including the Village Show, the TOB Cycle Race coming through the village this week, and, sad to say, recent raids on allotments and local private gardens where fruit has been taken wholesale (not casual scrumping but targeted stripping of trees probably for sale in car boots). They haven’t started on veg yet but probably only a matter of time – e.g. pumpkins as we near Halloween? Such events don’t exactly encourage newcomers or even old hands to take on an allotment so for the moment nettles and docks rule on the spare plots.
It’s a sad day if we have to start setting alarms on fruit trees and raised beds. One current allotment holder’s response illustrated. tbc...