Plot inspection time is here, and I am feeling strangely confident. Normally this time of year is filled with a vague sense of unease that a nasty letter is about to drop onto the doormat, but this year we have potatoes, winter squash, courgettes, brussels sprouts, sweetcorn, carrots, beetroot, cornflowers and sunflowers all planted out and free of weeds, and all the, ahem, meadow areas have been recently strimmed.
The nasty-letter threat has never been too acute, I have to admit, as our allotment committee has been incredibly tolerant and understanding of us. They gave us plenty of slack over the birth and early childhood of the two babies, when bindweed engulfed and those crops that were planted went to seed. They just trusted that we would come good in the end, which, I hope, we now have. They are quite simply a very cool and laid-back lot.
That is why I forget that not all allotment societies are cut of the same cloth. I have had a letter from reader Chris Smallbone, who has his own website called Dig My Plot.
He is very distressed because he has been given a Notice to Quit by his allotment council officer, supported by his allotment society. His crime? Filling his plot with flowers. He writes: "My plot was criticised for containing mainly pot marigolds and nasturtiums 'with a few crops in between'. It is a deliberate ploy on my part as they suppress growth at this time of year."
The allotment society has also complained that he does not dig it over (he does actually, he says, but would have thought a no-dig approach would be acceptable anyway), that it is not organised (it is, he says, as he has to ensure crop rotation) and, incredibly, that he has his "own way of doing things".
This seems an incredibly archaic way of running a site. We have a plot holder on our site who only grows flowers on all three of his plots, and he is not only tolerated, but encouraged. I look on them as a bank of nectar to draw in the beneficial insects and pollinators that keep all of our vegetables producing, and they look beautiful too. I always thought that your plot was yours to do what you wanted with, as long as you looked after it.
But what do you think? Is an allotment for producing vegetables, or should there be room for just a little bit of individuality? Show Chris your support (or not) below.
