[HilaryG]

Next door to our plots are some dissused plots which are sadly turning back into woodland. I was able to collect 6 big bags of well rotted leaf litter within 10mins to take back to my plot.    When I returned there was a lovely goldfinch furtling around in the creeping thistle flowerheads that my neighbour has allowed to over-run part of her plot. I stood within feet of it and watched it for about 5 mins. Lovely

[sunshineband]

Always a positive side out there 

[granjan]

That's lesson to us all.  Perhaps we should  take a more laissez faire attitude.

[Trillium]

I have a piece of ravine at the very back of my property which i leave to wild growth for the critters. Better there than stealing from my garden. That is, until I found some neighbours picking all the wild raspberries and the birds had to  help themselves to my hybrid ones  The silly dolts thought it was unclaimed land (yah, right, like that ever existed) and couldn't understand why I'd waste the berries like that. I told them to get off and stay off. Lots of thistles, goldenrod and other seed sources grow back there. I also leave the seed heads on my coneflowers, daisies and bee balms for the goldfinches.

[DD.]

If I had a piece of ravine at the back of my property, I'd suddenly loose some neighbours!

[aelf]

If I had a piece of ravine at the back of my property, I'd suddenly loose some neighbours!

That could be quite useful... 

[Trillium]

Pretty good idea to my thinking too.

Fortunately for me the small piece of upland right behind my bit of ravine is flat and some fool bought it thinking he'd build a tiny house on it. Only to find its part of the town flood plain and can't be built on.
I'm quite happy to know that as I didn't when I bought my own property (none of which is flood plain). The critters are very happy too.

[sunshineband]

Love the sound of that ravine 

Any chance of a photo or two, please Trillium?

[Paul Plots]

No ravine and no untended plot but we do have a very small strip of land at the end of the garden on the other side of a shared track. Everyone else has cleared their patch and grassed over - another parking place!

We have left ours - it is used to plonk all the plants and shrubs that my OH has decided are in the wrong place or no longer suit their purpose in the garden. It is usually her intention to stick them through the shredder but I bung them out back. As a result it is wonderfully overgrown - only the fittest survives....bluebells by the drift, a rowan tree, a small oak, a tamarisk and a massive something or other related to the potato family as well as buddleia along with heaven knows what else - I just plant them.

Hedgehog paradise and a place for snoozing cats in summer.

[sunshineband]

No ravine and no untended plot but we do have a very small strip of land at the end of the garden on the other side of a shared track. Everyone else has cleared their patch and grassed over - another parking place!

We have left ours - it is used to plonk all the plants and shrubs that my OH has decided are in the wrong place or no longer suit their purpose in the garden. It is usually her intention to stick them through the shredder but I bung them out back. As a result it is wonderfully overgrown - only the fittest survives....bluebells by the drift, a rowan tree, a small oak, a tamarisk and a massive something or other related to the potato family as well as buddleia along with heaven knows what else - I just plant them.

Hedgehog paradise and a place for snoozing cats in summer.

snoozing again?

[Zippy]

Sunshineband - I love your sleepy kat. Any chance it could be used as a desktop pet?

[sunshineband]

Of course you can 

[Christine]

Unfortunately untended plots are apt to rile people who want an allotment and efficient management committees which have rules saying that you must cultivate X% of your plot.
Often the management wins.

[Paul Plots]

Unfortunately untended plots are apt to rile people who want an allotment and efficient management committees which have rules saying that you must cultivate X% of your plot.
Often the management wins.

Most plots have just a tiny spot of uncultivated land (don't they?) - well, mine does! It was once a compost heap (for nearly 50 years!). The soil is wonderful and I dig bucketfuls out for planting out new plants- black crumbly compost.....it's like coal mining.  Each season this 10'x6' patch is used for a few strawberries or the odd extra courgette....and once they are cropped the annual weeds edge back in again from the nearby timber pile - the remains of the old dismantled shed.

This patch serves as bike and trailer park.... every now and then I have time to clear the weeds but it is last on my list..... the foxes love digging in it!

[Christine]

I'm assuming Learner that no-one is going to come along and say that they have rules stating that 100% of the plot must be cultivated.

I'd be stumped as mine has a darned great concrete hard standing down the middle. 98% of the rest is cultivated though.