The State of New Plots

[goodlife]

We have long waiting list too...some of the older members who are having difficulties cultivating their plots are paired up with waiting list ones..
..and if/when time comes for the elderly ones to retire sharing member have then first right to the plot..
Our plots are generally quite large so we have some who are happy to do just half ones.
Last few years the state of the plots have become much better..we don't have vacant ones anymore and those coming available are not too bad..no bramble jungles anymore..

[BAK]

While I was site rep. I made a point of providing some help to any newbie who received an overgrown plot and who was clearly inexperienced. This usually took the form of clearing 25-30% of the plot for them - note that our average plot size is 5 poles.

The purpose was to impress on them the need to get the pernicious perennial weeds out. I had previously seen too many newbies simply dig the weeds back in and quickly get discouraged.

A side benefit was that these newbies that I helped invariably felt a bit guilty about being given assistance and were probably more assiduous in clearing the rest of the plot than they might otherwise have been.

[kymrob]

we just got a plot with losts weeds and stuff growing! its very overwelming gonna make start tomorrow! any advice would b great we gonna double dig and remove all weeds, clear all old veg eg. beetroot, sp onions! got big gooseberry bush!  its just knowing what to do with all rubbish can compost most!  oh an have two apple trees! just gonna sort 1/4 at a time so its not too hard,

[grannyjanny]

Macmac. The council wrote to everyone on the list for the site our daughter had her name down for back in January. This pushed her up the list from 9 to 2 & this week she got her plot & key. Now the hard work begins but not as bad as ours was .

[macmac]

Congrats to your daughter grannyjanny,I'll mention again about updating to the "main man"
and goodlife I like the idea of older plotholders and newbies

[goodlife]

 

I like the idea of older plotholders and newbies

Yes...it is win win situation...we don't want to evict somebody just because they are getting on..and not quite able anymore..and newbies can have valuable lessons and instructions how get on for exchange of some mussle power...
..and everybody is happy..... ..well most of time anyway...

[Alimo]

What a lovely idea Goodlife... 

I have a veg plot in my garden and I often wish my grandad was still alive so I could ask his advice - he was an excellent gardener. 

The newbies on your site have all that knowledge / information on tap if they take a shared plot with an elderly grower.

Alison

[chriscross1966]

The obvious problem with getting newbies adn oldies to share is that one of them has been watching "Edible Garden" and the other was brought up with "Dig for Victory".... very different philosophies....  .... I think if I hadn't grown some seriously large onions at the front of my plot last year the older folks on my site might well have been commenting more about the wierd nature of the rest of what I was doing (most of it under black plastic, planted thorugh seemingly randomly with squashes and potatoes plus a load of thing growing in builders dumpy bags...... Of course this year the plastic is peeled back, I've rotavated a great chunk of it and I've got straight lines of things growing.....

chrisc