Topic: Anecdotes concerning potential newbies

[BAK]

I chuckled at some of the anecdotes when reading the the thread on 3 year waiting lists ... http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,62848.0.html.

Here are a couple ...

we did have somebody who after coming to the top of the list about this time a few years ago said that they only wanted a summer allotment  :( another said they don't remember putting their name down.         ;D ;D ;D

we've also had someone who took on a plot but didn't do anything although they appeared several times to look at it - eventually they asked 'when will my plot be dug and ready for me to plant' - and when it was explained they had to dig it, we got a reply along the lines of 'well I'm renting this off the Council, surely they will dig it for me to start with, they can't expect me to dig all that' - and they didn't, they just left it, got an 'uncultivated plot' letter and then a termination letter!

Any others?

I was thinking of adding a selection to the "for newbies" wiki page.

[Ellen K]

Well, when I started, like all newbies, I was a little light on the "operational" side.

Someone gave me a pot of celeriac plants but I was too clueless to know how to separate them into individual plants (it's one of those things you need to see done just once, and then you can do it) - so I just planted them in clumps and surprise surprise they didn't make anything.

But it still makes me cry inside when I see others start off planting brassicas and, although our site is a Soweto of brassica cages, they think they won't bother with any netting and of course they come back to stalks.  Ditto slug pellets.  Steep learning curve eh?

[elvis2003]

speak for yourself! our newbies either spend every spare moment on their new plots (as we did) or we dont see them at all,except when the sun is out. we all keep a watchful eye and give gentle words of advice,esp when it comes to brassica nets as the pigeons are ruthless in our area.

[Melbourne12]

We've had three newbies this year, after one of our neighbours moved elsewhere in the country.  She had a full allotment to the west of ours, and a tiny 3 pole bit to the north.  The full allotment has been split into 2 halves of 5 poles each. 

The small plot to the north has apparently been let to a retired academic  of some sort.  His son and daughter in law were going to do the hard work for him.  So they started by appropriating a large piece of our allotment to bring their plot up to what they thought would be an acceptable size.  We arrived one evening to find that our plants had been cut down, our compost bins relocated (and all my lovely compost gone  :'( ) and quantities of rubbish from their plot piled against our fruit trees.

We sorted it out amicably enough, although the council had to tell them that 3 poles meant just that and not another 3.  The daughter in law and her children built a rather rickety raised bed to mark their boundary, and they dug a couple of deep trenches.  We haven't seen them since, and the weeds are now shoulder high.  Maybe the academic gentleman is doing a study into the consequences of neglect.

To our west, a very nice young lady has taken over the half plot, and hasn't done at all badly, although she's only really cultivated half the plot.  She inherited some really good raised beds, so it was in a decent state.  But at least the bit that she's cultivated has been done nicely, with good crops of onions and beans, and leeks now coming on well.  We see her quite often at weekends.  Her idiosyncrasy is that she has a mobile phone permanently sandwiched between her ear and shoulder.  It's quite a contortion to do gardening whilst chatting on the mobile, but she manages it brilliantly.

The final half is also fairly neglected, although the tenant has recently dug a piece of it.  We don't see much of him, and he's really only cultivated around 1 pole with a bit of spinach and a few brassicas.

[grawrc]

There was the tenant who replied to my request that she tidy up her overgrown plot by saying: "don't be ridiculous! We're surrounded by nature and what you call weeds are just wild flowers!! >:( >:(" She had nettles, thistles, dock, brambles, cow parsley .... etc etc..

[Squash64]

A woman took on half a plot in October one year and visited it a few times to begin with but did very little to it.  The following spring I asked her when she intended to start digging and planting and she said that she had a week's holiday coming up in August and would start then.
She is now an ex-plotholder.

Another woman also took half a plot in October, but never came until the following April when she turned up with a man and showed him someone else's plot thinking it was hers. The plot she thought was hers was weed-free and had broad beans and onions growing.  Maybe she thought the plots looked after themselves.
Also an ex-plotholder.

[BarriedaleNick]

Caught one newbie nipping out the side shots on her tomatoes until I pointed out that the flower shoots were not the ones to be picked off..  She had left the side shoots alone so had a nice bushy flower free plants.  She simply didnt realise that fruit comes from flowers - She is now a very good plotholder..

[Trevor_D]

One new plot-holder had a couple of men build some sturdy raised beds. She did a bit of work and then disappeared on us. By chance I met her next-door neighbour while we were dog-walking, so I asked if she was OK. The reply was that she was fine, and was loving the allotment: she'd got it all planted and at the end of the summer was going back to harvest it all!

[gp.girl]

There was the tenant who replied to my request that she tidy up her overgrown plot by saying: "don't be ridiculous! We're surrounded by nature and what you call weeds are just wild flowers!! >:( >:(" She had nettles, thistles, dock, brambles, cow parsley .... etc etc..

Well at least brambles and nettles are edible... ;D ;D ;D

Joe Swift has a lot to answer for  :'(

[cornykev]

I blame Borlotti.  ;)        ;D ;D ;D

[AdeTheSpade]

The woman who has the next plot to me, which she's somehow managed to keep for 3 years now, once said to me on one of the very odd occasions when I've seen her, that she really liked to grow flowers, and wasn't that bothered about veg and fruit.  She puts in some plants like caulis, cabbage, lettuce, broad beans, and lets them all go to seed, doesn't ever seem to harvest anything.  Think she must be one of these people who actually doesn't like veg at all. She's also got 5 fruit trees/bushes which she must have bought 2 years ago, still in their pots, never watered them, and they've died - in their pots.  What a complete waste!

[caroline7758]

Well I'll confess to pulling up my purple sprouting broccoli in the autumn of my first year, thinking it was a failure, not realising it would have been ready the following spring. ::)

[Trevor_D]

My ex-next-door-neighbour used to grow the most fabulous broccoli every year. But he only picked the leaves. As soon as one started to flower he grubbed the whole lot up and binned it!

[chriscross1966]

Looking round our site I fear I'll be able to add to this thread next summer.... I'm about halfway through the initial digging on my plot (about the same as the only other plot on our newly reopened site that is occupied but didn't take up the offer of haivng it ploughed and rotavated at the start..... I've got some weeds appearing in the bits that I've dug so far but they're all from seed, or nearly all from seed..... my next door neighbours plot is turning itself into a field of couch grass.... that said there are some folk who seem to be doing a bit better, there's one family that seem to be hoeing their plot every day.....

chrisc

[lavenderlux]

Back ten years or so ago when there wasn't much interest in allotments and our field had lots of empty plots no one was ever chased up about an overgrown plot - the view was taken that they were paying their rent and so what, if we chase them to tidy their plot they will leave and we will loose their rent. 
One of my neighbours who had a ten rod plot only ever cultivated the same small area of about two yards square and always planted only broad beans but she never weeded them and so the crop was light as they had to compete with thistles and other weeds, she never use to take the beans for eating, but left them for seed for next year saying that it saved her money by keeping her own seeds to re-sow!

[gwynleg]

Sadly my own newbie mistake. I put in (well actually OH did) stakes for trees to keep them upright but put them on the south side of the trees - trees are now trying very hard to grow round the stakes to get to the sun - der.....

[chriscross1966]

Looking at some of the raised beds going in on our site I think the local woodyards have done well... and the clean new, not-made-out-of-old-pallets-and-spit sheds too.... I'm off for some digging....

chrisc