Topic: allotment shop

[injeanuity]

Hi All

I have volunteered to research allotment shops with a view to starting one on our site.
We thought we would start small with multipurpose compost and growbags. Can anyone suggest suppliers, makes, etc that they have found to be reliable and good quality.

Jean.

[manicscousers]

Hi, welcome to a4a  ;D
whereabouts are you?

[injeanuity]

Thankyou

I am in West Yorkshire

[Flighty]

Do you have any nearby allotment site, or horticultural society, shops that you could visit to see what they stock and talk with them about who they order from.

[shirlton]

I would ask your plotholders what they would want you to stock. Ater all they will be your customers. You don't want to be landed with a load of old stuff that you cannot sell.
Find out what onions and spuds seem to be the favourites with the plotholders before you buy any in.
At Walsall Rd all plotholders get an email to let them know what is in stock and the price of it.

[Ellen K]

I have thought about this for my site (though not for very long lol) and personally, I would start with stuff you can buy in 25kg bags and sell in 500g / 1kg bags: onion sets, growmore and the like.

I wasn't so keen on compost as it would be a pallet delivery; you need the space to store it and if outside it can get nicked.  But bamboo canes definitely have potential, big roles of netting you can cut down, anything really that you use a lot of and isn't too pricey.  Allotmenteers are a thrifty bunch and you will need to be cheaper than Wilkos or you won't sell much.  I would not do seed potatoes myself as the quality has been a bit variable in the past - we dropped them on the Kings Seeds order for that reason.

Good luck with your venture  :)

[Ellen K]

http://www.worthingallotments.co.uk/Page11Stores.htm

^^ and some of them have their own webpage!

[macmac]

I must confess we don't use our "hut" any more.
It is run by the horticultural society and has a subscription £6(which includes lots of talks and social events which we don't use) annually we only really bought the odd packet of seeds or compost so +£6 made our small purchase a bit pricey,as we found local suppliers inc Wilkinsons far better.We even bought a large quantity of 8' bambooo canes,online, far far cheaper than the hut.Several plotholders shared them.
So like other posters check what your plotholders want,several on our site don't have transport so find buying compost on site useful.
ps My OH helps unload deliveries of compost etc and the delivery charges they pay are huge  :o
our canes were p&p free as we spent over £50  ;)

[manicscousers]

We sell
netting, fleece, weed control
bfb, calcified seaweed
plant labels
75ltr bags of compost
we also buy in onions and potatoes on a bulk order
sorry, too far for our supplier  :)