Anyone with an allotment?

I’m in Waltham Forest and off the top of my head there’s at least 4 abandoned/underused plots on my site alone that really should be reallocated to people that are prepared to put the work in. One is the plot opposite that I’ve moaned about at length on here, 2 other ‘Santa’ plots and one that no one wants as it’s got 3 massive apple trees that have completely taken over the whole plot and would need felling, stumps ground out and a mini digger to drag the roots out.
They keep trying to fob that one off on people with no gardening experience which seems particularly twatty.

We do have a car but 99% of our allotment needs are taken care of with the b.o.b trailer :)

need a tonne of compost as well to have a chance of growing anything this year..

Need some tools to sort the brambles, a shed, current mower is also mains electric so no use

At least the plot only cost £45

I'm really conscious to try and keep allotmenting costs low, it's half the fun for me. Loving the blag.

yes, same, don't want it to become expensive but would like to get stuff growing this year. I can hack away at brambles with a small pair of secateurs and dig out roots with a fork.

Compost will be the main thing if I need to buy in some.

Keeping an eye out on FB for a shed and a manual mower in the mean time.

We bought in some soil at the end of last year, worth every penny. Think we’re going to keep it up annually, along with the manure we get from the council.

Think £180 got us a very full transit tipper load inc delivery and was enough to add a good few inches to each bed. Was enough to cover everything on our plot(don’t know exact size but it’s pretty big).
We’re not generating our own compost at a fast enough rate to replenish it all ourselves so it seems worth it to us to buy it in.
Equivalent amount would have been £700+ if you got it in 50l sacks from the garden centre…

Worth asking around if there are any local farmers who deliver well rotted manure. (Not sure where you are if this is practical).

Also if you can get sources of free organic material then that's how you can make your compost for free, but that's more long term.

Yes this is my way, scavenge and salvage.

Trying to find enough stuff to make a chicken coop right now.

assume you got it delivered to the allotment?

and yes @Monster1985 once I've managed to chat to some of the people on the allotment and find out good contacts i'll do that. Need to be wary of contaminated manure? Plan to make as much of my own as well but will just need a starting delivery 👍

I ‘think’ it’s more of an American concern with the extra strong pesticides they use……generally if other people have used it and had good results then you’re probably fine.

An old uncle of my wife won't shut up about weed seeds in manure... Think it's horse shit tbh.

If you can get proper well rotted cow muck (farmyard manure) it is markedly better than horse manure.

Yes, I used Thompsons of Crews Hill. They supply all of north london, think delivery was about £20.
They just dumped it onto a tarp. If your site has better access than ours they can deliver bulk bags using the crane but we only have transit van sized access.
Used them dozens of times for bulk back in my tree work days. Nice people, accept cash, tons of variety of soil, muck and soil improvers.

3 massive apple trees that have completely taken over the whole plot and would need felling, stumps ground out and a mini digger

Out of curiosity, how come they couldn't be pruned back hard over a 2yr period to a managble size?

How big are they?

It’s more that the root system would be a constant battle, regardless of how hard they were pruned. Currently the clump is about 12m high and crown spread covers the whole plot and overhangs the 3 adjacent ones. They’d been pollarded in the past so the regrowth is incredibly dense and tangled. Plenty of brambles and Virginia creeper in there as well to make it even more fun.
Apples root very shallow so you’d never be able to dig anything without hitting endless obstacles.
They’re fully mature and past their prime so don’t even really produce many apples at this point.
As part of my tree work career I spent a LOT of time restoring and supporting fruit trees. These ones are, to use a technical term, fucking shite.
It would be better to turn it into a community plot for bbqs and for the kids to play in rather than trying to palm it off on a tennant.

I provided a price to both heavily prune and fully remove the trees and the council said nah.

Not my plot, not my problem.

Cheers for the detailed response. That's interesting.

My dad has some apple trees. One of which is a massive inherited one that has been reduced and reduced to a managble size and shape. It's still fucking massive... maybe 8m at a guess. But has a good shape.

The only problem is controlling the mistletoe.

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We're just in the process of clearing a neglected plot between us all. Two massive plum trees have been chopped down, I think we're all avoiding the stump removal part though. Plan is to build raised beds on the plot as we have a few elderly people now who are finding it difficult to bend down on their plots so we're going to shift them to this one.

Apples rarely reach a fully mature crown so it’s nice to see them in good condition even if they need a surgical kicking every 5 years or so along with the annual tidy up of the central crown.

I don’t recommend felling trees for no reason but there’s a time and a place.
The overwhelming majority of fruit trees on our site are in excellent condition, my almond is looking a bit peaky but looks like it’s blossomed well this spring and most of the post-pruning dieback has settled down now. I did give it a real slap when we took on the plot as it had gone 10+yrs without being touched, I also removed a limb when I put my shed in but it didn’t seem to mind that so much.

Before and after on our plot :)

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Holy fuck, you deserve a medal.

Fucks sake, I can never get pics on here to post in the correct order. The after pic is about 6 weeks ago, looks much better now but only pic I had from same angle as the before.

It took 3 years to get it to that point. If I was still in treework when I took the plot I’d have rounded up the apprentices and some trucks and banged it out in 3 days :/ Brambles swamped the whole back, side and half the front of the clubhouse.

Seriously impressive turnaround! Chapeau! Other allotment-holders must love you.

Incredible plot make over. 👏🏽

It’s my belief that there should a policy in place that if a plot becomes neglected the allotment holders should have a right to take appropriate action. Strim every couple of weeks or carpet bomb with cardboard.

Then if it does get abandoned the next tenants have a fighting chance of making it work.

I wholeheartedly agree. Next time I’m up I’ll take a pic of the plot opposite mine. The holders have had it over 15 years and never once even dug the boundary of the plot.
In the 3.5 years we’ve been there he’s strimmed twice and never once planted anything.
Boils my piss as it’s just a massive eyesore.

Allotment officer turned me down when I offered to tidy it up a bit and at least strim and mark boundaries.
The grass is so thick and luxurious you’d have to scalp the whole plot.

Edit- decided to be a curtain twitcher and just sent the allotment officer an email to see if I can get the guy opposite booted off and a new tenant moved on instead.

Got a response:
Plot inspections are in August and she’ll issue a first warning letter if they’re not at 75% cultivation.
Absolute piss take, really should be more proactive when the waiting list is so long.

This is my frustration on allotments we had a neighbour who did nothing on a really great plot in the three years we were there, literally the same process - recieves letter, comes down, strims and disappears until next years letter.