Topic: re-pegging the plot

[ACE]

My plot had got very untidy around the paths over the winter. I got my line out and re cut the edges to the original lines. Enough room gained for at least a couple of long rows of beans. A fivers worth of ground I am paying for, might as well use it.

[Tiny Clanger]

Absolutely Ace. We took on an extra half plot last year and did the same. A good extra strip to the side and enough at the rear for a new herb patch for me and a new 4 compartment compost/muck pit that His Lordship needed. 

[Beersmith]

Well good for you both cultivating what is rightfully yours

But this really made me smile.  One of the great mysteries of any allotment field is how paths take on a life of their own. Some get narrower and narrower, some get wider and wider, some disappear altogether, some seem to get an urge to travel and move east or west, some end their days under a shed or polytunnel or even a compost bin, or overwhelmed by a huge bramble bush.

It sometimes moves our long suffering field manager to despair.  All new plot holders get told the same. The paths are there for everyone. Don't remove them, don't move them, don't block them and don't let them get overgrown and impassable. Do they listen?

It's my plot, can't I do what I want?  Not if stops Mrs Scroggins getting to her five pole because you've put a fence in the way!!  Reinstate the path as it was or you will be evicted! It sounds harsh but some tenants really do push the boundaries.

[pumkinlover]

Then there's the people who dig out into the main track and nibble away at it keeping that part of the plot tidy, whilst letting the back third of the plot get totally overgrown!

[gray1720]

Yes - I have one half-plot a yard narrower than the other because someone, somewhere expanded across the old path line to the far edge of that. TBH, I'm not too worried - I have more than enough space, but after years of falling numbers and paths getting very, very wonky (there's one that's a good two yards from where it should be) I can see a different someone, somewhere starting trouble!

[Paulh]

Our site (which is a field with a public footpath through it) was re-opened to new holders in 2005, which is when I started. There were just a couple of plots still being worked then, the rest was roughly mown grass. It had been fully taken by neighbours at a time when housing was proposed on it, but that was seen off. The Council laid out new plots a little haphazardly - I think they expected most people to give up pretty quickly. My plot starts rather closer to the path than the others, because there was a spreading bramble patch behind it. (Actually, mostly rather good blackberries that must have descended from cultivated varieties.)

So I expanded backwards and had extra room for fruit bushes and compost bins.

When the Council decided to put in some (half) plots between these plots and the path, I thought my plot might be remeasured from the back and lose the front few feet. But no, and instead the nearby water tap was moved out of the way of the new plots and put right by mine!

We've now got about 40 plots, all taken with a waiting list. I suspect that may change as people go back to work and other interests resume.

[BarriedaleNick]

Years back we had a bloke with a 5 rod plot and he reckoned it was only a 4 and had been overpaying.
So we rigorously measured his plot and pegged out the boundaries only to find it was about 5.2. As we round up he ended up paying for a 6 rod plot!

[Beersmith]

Then there's the people who dig out into the main track and nibble away at it keeping that part of the plot tidy, whilst letting the back third of the plot get totally overgrown!

Closely related to the people who keep about 25% of their plot absolutely immaculate, while the other 75% resembles the Borneo jungle but are perplexed if anyone complains.

[gray1720]

We have someone who hires someone to tidy it up at the start of the year, then never actually gets round to doing anything, then hires someone to tidy it up again at the start of the next year... How much they've spent over the years for no reward I dread to think. It was fine while we were under-subscribed, but now we have a waiting list (Ye Olde Plague and a big development nearby)  I can see trouble ahead.

[Beersmith]

We have a reasonably competent gardener who started about three years back. The plot was a bit untidy when he started so he cleared it fairly well ending up with a big pile of weeds, roots and soil then cultivated the rest. I must say he did a reasonable job and got some crops off but then late summer seemed to lose interest. People suspected he might be a one season wonder. But while the plot got rather untidy over winter, next spring he was back. Again he cleared it making a second large pile of the weeds and grew his crops as before.  Then last spring he did the same again.

He has never made any attempt to properly compost the clearings or to dig them back in.  I've no doubt he will be back again soon.  At this rate in a couple more seasons most of his top soil will be in mud piles at one end of his plot. What will he do then?

[ACE]

I cleared my new plot about 3 years ago. The huge heap of clearings 4' high was left surrounded by some pallets. Just last week I scraped the top off and started another heap and moved the rest of it for mounding up the spud rows, only about ten barrowloads. It takes about 3 years to be useful again, all the turf lumps from edging the path have gone to the heap and will be left about the same time for some loam.