Garden centre allotments

Some seem quite keen on the idea of an overpriced piece of land that isnt any bigger than many peoples back garden
on which the usable external growing area will be even less by virtue of a shed & greenhouse
and which may well have times of access restricted to those of the attached garden centres opening hours since the website appears to give no details of when access is possible

thanks for writing my new business plan kristen

Hehehe! I nicked it from Jimmy Doherty "A Farmer's Life For Me"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00yb5jm - start at 23:50 - allotments dug by pigs

The thing is I have had people say to me that mine is far too expensive at £85.00 a year and there is no way they would pay that, but they are more than happy to pay £60.00 for  one round of golf, or £30 - £50 pound for a night out on the drink.

I agree. Following your football team around is VERY expensive, golf is certainly expensive. And there are many other hobbies, even those that are theraputic and those that are supposedly good for you (gym memberships comes to mind), that are FAR more expensive than these costs. Even buying lovely containers for stuff at garden centres, containers we don't actually need but would like to have on a whim, is expensive. Yet as with any hobby, we don't HAVE to do it - we WANT to. And if there is a price for that desire then so be it.

A friend of mine has an allotment and pays £120 a year and moans about that cost a lot. Yet he is a smoker and easily spends more than that  per month on cigarettes. He could cut down smoking even a bit and redress the balance.......hmm.

Ok it might bring out the "Daily Mail outrage" sentiment in all of us, especially for those of us on "established" allotments where we are spoilt somewhat that our annual fees are not that much in comparison. But if the higher prices at these garden centre allotments discourage the sort of person who wimps out when there is a spot of rain and lets it go untended for months on end, then so be it. Or, rather, encourages them to stick at it when they have paid their fee (or uses this as a temporary measure and puts their name down on a "standard" allotment waiting list once they have proved to themselves they can stick at it and enjoy it) then great.

I used to easily spend over £50 a month on veg from the supermarket (much more when I used local greengrocers and farm shops) yet even with overheads on the allotment, plus tools, seeds etc and even if I had one of these garden centre allotments, it would be economically much more viable. Not to mention the fun obtained from growing, and the taste benefits from home-grown produce.

People might want to try this route purely to see if growing is "up their street" rather than a bid for self-sufficiency. No worse than any other hobby where money is involved.

but people have a choice if this is a route they want to take for growing their veg. ie) they go for this option or they do not. Simple. There is no gun to their head telling them they have to have their allotment at a garden centre. And some will happily pay the rate for a bit of land - so good on them. Others instead will sit it out on a waiting list for the usual allotment route. As most of us had to do.

But it is easy from our side of things to take the high ground here.