Can an Allotment Become More Stress Than Joy? 🌱 Allotment Gardening UK
Hello everyone and welcome back. Today I am at my allotment plot, and it has been a while since I gave you a proper update from here. There are reasons for that, and I will be honest with you about all of them. The site is empty this morning, so I took the chance to walk you round my tiny plot and show you exactly where things stand.
Ground that refuses to cooperate
For anyone new here, I have had this allotment since October or November last year. Every plot on this site was handed over completely empty, so all of us have been building from scratch. There is still one patch of mine that I have not covered yet, and the soil there is rock hard. You could not plant anything into it.
When I first got the plot it was the opposite problem: completely waterlogged and boggy, which you can see in my earlier allotment vlogs. It is proper clay mixed with gravel, because the site was created as part of a big housing development and very little was done to prepare it for tenants. So we have all brought in manure and compost, and anyone who could get hold of wood chip used it for paths. Even deliveries are hard, because the site has no fixed address that shows up on Google. Everything you see behind me, I carried in myself, and I do not say lightly that it has been physically challenging.
A summer of drought and hand watering
The onions and garlic were in several of these beds, and the onions came up shortly after we got back from holiday. Since then most of my visits have been about survival rather than progress. The UK has been hot and very dry, and on a plot where every drop is carried and poured by hand, watering alone eats up all your time. My husband has been coming with me to help, which makes it quicker and means I am not here on my own.
The weather also took away any appetite I had for starting new projects. The last proper job I did here was at the beginning of June, before our holiday, when I planted the brassicas into the three beds under mesh.
What is still alive out there
There is a pattypan squash grown from my own saved seed, and it has already given me two hand sized fruits. Next to it is a Big Max pumpkin still going and, happily, not stolen. There was a second one, but I think that turned into the sacrificial pumpkin for the slugs. In the middle sits my rhubarb. On one visit I put in chilli pepper seedlings from a garden centre and a few are hanging on, with one chilli already forming, if the wildlife leaves it alone.
On another visit I planted cabbage plug plants into two beds and, silly me, did not net them. They are being devoured by slugs and whatever else is out there. In the netted beds I have Brussels sprouts, broccoli and kohlrabi with beetroot down both sides, though I can see tiny black bugs starting on the broccoli. The sweet corn is my first attempt and I do not think it will give me anything. The ground cucumbers have produced a few, and the beans picked up nicely after looking terrible when we got home. Three beds I have left empty on purpose, because there is no point bringing more plug plants when I cannot stay on top of them.
The comparison with home is brutal
The courgettes here tell the whole story. Two plants have a bed entirely to themselves with nothing competing, so they should be enormous. Instead the leaves are small and all I have picked is one smallish green one. The single courgette I squeezed into the corner of a raised bed at home, surrounded by other plants, is huge and has been cropping for weeks.
It is the same with the Small Sugar pumpkin, which is micro next to the plant at home that is setting its third fruit on one stem. Another Big Max down here has been nibbled, which was a shame to find. The lack of rain explains a lot of it, because at home I look at my plants every day and can keep up. Here that is simply not possible.
Thieves, intruders and not feeling safe
The harder subject is this: people have been coming onto the site and stealing crops. A few weeks ago my husband, our daughter and I arrived just to water and noticed someone lurking at the corner of a plot across the site, watching us. It was nobody I recognised, and we all know each other here by name and by face. When I walked over, two girls of maybe ten or twelve ran off, jumped the gate and made a rude gesture at me as they went. They had been standing on somebody else's plot.
We reported it to the site management, but this is a privately run allotment rather than a council one, so they brushed it off and told me to go to the police. I did, and realistically nothing will come of it. Another tenant told me that late in spring a group of kids jumped the fence when they could clearly see she was there, walked up to her filming on their phones and asking strange questions. She was alone too. So while I stand here I keep glancing round to check nobody is approaching, and I do not feel comfortable being on the plot by myself.
Is it still worth keeping?
I have barely spent any real time here since the end of June, and it is not because I mind the hard work. I never minded hauling in compost or building beds from nothing. What I do mind is having to worry about whether I feel safe on my own plot.
So I have been having different thoughts about whether to keep this allotment at all, and I honestly do not know yet. It is a shame, because I have put so much work, time, effort and money into getting everything here. But this was meant to be an enjoyment and a help to me, not another source of stress.
In this video
- A tour of my tiny first year plot on a brand new, unprepared allotment site
- Rock hard clay and gravel, and hauling in every bit of compost by hand
- Weeks of drought, and what daily hand watering really costs in time
- What survived: pattypan squash, Big Max pumpkin, chillies, beans and cucumbers
- Unnetted cabbages devoured, and the netted brassicas starting to get nibbled
- Courgettes and pumpkins here versus the same varieties thriving at home
- Crop theft, kids jumping the gate, and not feeling safe alone on the plot
I will water the beds now and leave it there, because I do not think you need to watch me with a watering can. If you hold an allotment plot, I would really like to hear whether you have had anything similar: people coming over the gates even when they can plainly see someone is on site, or crops going missing. Share your experience in the comments, it would help to know I am not the only one. Next time I should be back in my own garden, because I think the potatoes are finally ready to come up. Thank you for listening to me.
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