[Christine]

Our committee does a number of  inspections in the year and awards a cup for the best kept plot in September.

It seems the criteria is that the allotment must be impeccable – neatly laid out and totally weed free, fully cultivated and productive, hedges neatly trimmed if you have them and paths made in an orderly style without weeds.

The slight amendment to this is that of course it’s very boring if there are just rows and rows of fruit and vegetables. So flowers are good.

Hey ho but there are few enough flowers that you can eat. Dandelions, nettles and docks which are edible as well as bee friendly don’t seem to meet the criteria as the committee rule these to be weeds and will send you the dreaded non cultivation letter if there are lots.

Of course if you are growing red clover, borage and phacelia under fruit trees for bees and composting, they are not tidy items which grow in neat rows.  

So there is just no pleasing some people. So what does one do with bored inspection committees?

[Zippy]

Sod them.

I allow the natural nitrogen fixers to grow around my crops - Black Medick, Red Clover and Oxalis but I wouldn't win any cups because of the "weeds" - but i am still harvesting veggies while those silly whatsits are busy rotovating their plots, destroying their soil structures and killing their earthworms.

Bless them.

[aelf]

My plot wouldn't win any awards, but then I'm not looking to. Our commitee does a 'tour' once in a while just to check that the plots are being cultivated and we do have competitions like 'biggest pumpkin' and 'tallest sunflower'.

[peterjf]

tell the committee that there is more then one way to grow things ,

traditional , new age lol , no dig , raised beds etc etc ,

get yourself on the committee at next AGM

[noshed]

I'm on the committee and my plot is a bit of a mess. But I've got lots of stuff to eat.

[plot6b]

Our plots are judged by an external source not by the committee for awards. Plot inspections are done internally though.

[Guzzik]

So there is just no pleasing some people. So what does one do with bored inspection committees?

Sometimes I get the feeling that our committee members are not on the same committee as each other.......................    Example, "Dearly Beloved" was washing her hands in the baths we have on our plot (she had been cutting back tomato's in the polytunnel) when a member of the committee wandered past and remarked that he hoped she was going to stop doing that as all the dirt would settle at the bottom and make it difficult for the NEXT plot owner to clean out the bath..................Now then gentle folks, three other plot owners use the same bath, one washes her tools in the bath, another washes everything in the bath and the third is always bending the ball cock lever up so he gets the bath to over flow and waste water..........Another chap at another bath who is a chum of said committee member, has a bath that that around 4 inch of silt in the bottom, does committee member say anything to those chaps?  Nope, not at all.  And, no, I am NOT whinging just showing the idiosyncrasities of committee members:)  So, maybe one has to be like this to be a committee member...............

[Zippy]

... feathering their own nests, bagging all the spare ground then claiming there are no vacant plots to hopeful newcomers.

Sure they did a service to the society when allotmenteering took a downturn in interest but now it is on the increase it is time for those with more than one plot to offer those extra plots to other members of the local community so allotmenteering can flourish again; not starve it off with monopoly.

I took a turn on our committee last year and i came out of it more convinced of the above than before.

[Yorkie]

Please don't tar all committee members with the same brush.

[peterjf]

im chair of our committee in hull. we inform council about unworked / abandoned plots to get new people in asap , usually 60 days turn around,

but all too often the new people will not accept an over grown plot , its a viscious circle

[Coach]

I wish our committee would walk round our field and see how many plots are neglected including our field managers 2 plots and his fathers!!!

[evie2]

when you can, you do and when you can't you go on the committee   I know there are good committee members out there but we never seem to here about them, which is a shame because they're also the ones who never blow their own trumpet  

[JohnB47]

im chair of our committee in hull. we inform council about unworked / abandoned plots to get new people in asap , usually 60 days turn around,

but all too often the new people will not accept an over grown plot , its a viscious circle

Curious. I took a truly terrible plot on and they gave me free rental the next year. I might have preferred to have had it cleared for me but now I realise that they might have rotavated it and made the bindweed problem much worse. So, I'm OK but it has been a lot of work.

Really surprised that people are actually refusing to take plots though. Do they get to stay where they are on the list 'til a better one comes up or do they go to the back of the list? I thought there was such a demand that people would take almost anything on.

[aelf]

I got my plot because no-one else would take it on! It hadn't been worked for ten years and had become a rubble/glass/general rubbish tip and was also covered in self-seeded trees, shoulder-high weeds etc. Absolute nightmare! I took it anyway, worked away at it for many years and now it's working for me. It is also the biggest plot on the sight so I guess I'm the winner! 

[Guzzik]

but all too often the new people will not accept an over grown plot , its a viscious circle

Bournemouth used to have a great big allotment at one time.  If someone left a plot or was thrown of for what ever problems, the committee would come along and weedkill the whole plot, everything, trees, plants, grass, veg, all gone.  When a newbie got the plot it was just a 5metre by 30 metre pile of dead "stuff".  Seems this was the best way to do things as all the new owner had to do was rake the dead stuff of, burn it and away he/she went witht he planting etc.