Topic: Allotment boundaries

[Rowan]

What do you have as boundaries on your sites? We've got a large hedge as the boundary between our allotments and the garage next door and though it means you can't grow anything underneath the trees (mostly hawthorn and hazel), I like them and it's an ideal place to put the compost bin and bulbs in the spring.

The allotments all used to have chicken wire around them. This was then allowed to get overgrown and it disappeared in places under nettles and grass. We've pulled it all up and the plan is to mark the boundary with a small hedge. I'm going to keep it short, though, in one place it's composed of lavender bushes.

[glow777]

Mine is like Colditz 10' high corrugated metal sheets at the entrance - 4' high sheets between neighbours and an 8' chicken wire fence at the far end topped with barbwire (lovely view thru it tho). All put up by the previous owner. The entrance does cast a lot of shadow but only over sheds and animal pens.

And we still got broken into last year!

[Roy Bham UK]

Ours is a bit like "Colditz" and a little more secure now with 6 & 8ft steel fencing covered in gooey black anti climb paint. :P

[Rowan]

Yours certainly looks like Colditz, Roy. We don't have any problems with security, luckily, as our plots are all open - no gates, no perimeter fence, just the hedge. Mind you, we live in a small village and it's the sort of place where you can even leave your car unlocked all night. We've done it. (Not that I'm suggesting this is a good idea in any way!)  :P

[Mrs Ava]

Our site boundaries are hedgerows and farmers fields.  Our plot boundaries are only the paths...and I notice mine are getting thinner and thinner as I reclaim more and more!  Be like walking along a tightrope before long!

[grawrc]

we have a high fence with barbed wire on top too but outside there are mature trees so you don't really see the fence. Neither do you hear the traffic on the nearby bypass. Down my side (the south side) is the railway line. The only source of noise but keeps the plots apart from the nearest houses. Most folk have fences round their plots.

[loulou]

there is nothing  round our plots your boundary is the path on eather side and the one to the left is yours to look after round the allotment its self is net type fencing and most people have some prickly bushes there to just to help i think

[MattyJC]

We have a 3 bar post and rail fence nearest the road, and 3 starand barbed wire fences to the other 3 sides which are fields. A few people have fenced their allotments but otherwise it is just grass paths.

[Columbus]

Hi all,

We have a lockable 6 foot metal gate at the entrance to our site into a car park and a fill-in mesh so people can`t just take their bikes past the gate.

So the entrance is very secure when the gate is locked.

A short part of the boundary by the gate has a huge thick hedge and the lower part of the site has a fence, a hedge and a river. No-one is getting in that way.

The remainder of the boundary has a tubular barrier fence. One bar runs about two feet off the ground and the other is two feet above that. This fence runs alongside a pavement on a busy road. There is no filler mesh and despite their being a steep downwards earth bank on the allotment side any idiot can get through or over it and onto our plots. I did that all of last summer when I`d misplaced my gate key.  :D Any boundary security is an illusion.

There is some hedging on the site around plots because the site was extended when land was taken from the garden of a large victorian house the council sold. There a handful of "secret garden" plots behind one of the hedges which always seems a bit special to me.

Other than that the plots are divided by grass paths. I have a metal fence on one long side of mine because of a drastic drop in soil levels. I have a small wooden fence I used to protect sunflower seedlings and to tie them to on the other side. I have planted a lavender hedge there too. At the top and bottom short sides I have inherited and encouraged blackberries which grow to about six foot tall. My composting areas and shed back onto the brambles and my pumpkin patch is also protected by them

Col

[digswell]

We have a hedged boundary around most of the site, and nothing around the rest of it, as there are no locks on the gates and the hedges are missing in places it's lucky that we don't get much vandalism, especially as we back onto public land on one side. I suppose it helps that the enclosed part of the allotments stands about 30 inches above the level of the surrounding area.... All those years of being worked has raised the soil level somewhat!

[grawrc]

We all have our plots fenced in because otherwise the rabbits eat evrything.

[TEL]

Thats my plot with ply around the outside.
The rest of the site has a hedge & five bar gates that are never locked as there is a footpath that runs though the site.

[grawrc]

Cor that looks great! Does the ply not go soggy in the rain?

[TEL]

No its an external ply so it will take the rain as long as no one takes it. ;D

[adam04]

the main site has houses on a couple of sides. a hedgerow on another, now also has a builders type fence infront and on the other side has a chain link fence with barbed wire.

my plot is similar. Houses on one side, hawthorn on one, chain link between me and neighbour.one side is open, but that wll soon have its own chain link fence and gate :P

[bupster]

Mine has a (roughly) eight foot fence around the site with keycode access only through the two gates. Most of the fencing is also covered in brambles, etc, and where it borders the main road there is a double fence that has been interplanted with various trees, bushes etc. to attract wildlife and deter lowlife  :). It feels very secure; though some of the old boys say that there are break-ins I haven't heard of any in the eight-odd months I've been there.

[amphibian]

Ours has a 5' hedge along its roadside boundary, at my end there is twee little gates in the hedge leading to each individual allotment. My end used to have a row of cottages on it, and each plot is the old garden, with several wells dotted along. At the bottom end there is scappy fencing giving on to fields, the deer stroll through the gaps. At the other end of the allotments, the allotments are individually hedged, and are not all accesible directly from the lane.

We are not meant to errect fences (and there is no fencing between the lots at my end), but as the council have done nothing about the lack of fencing, and the destruction the deer cause, many holders have started erecting makeshift fences. Surprisingly you don't seem to need much, as the deer faced with an easy jump or an open plot with no fencing seem to walk around to the fencless plot and eat everything there. However as more people fence this will no longer work.

Personally I am planning on using deer netting around my whole plot.