Aberaeron Allotment Association Main Page

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Local Weather

The Allotments Regeneration Initiative (ARI) was launched by the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG) on behalf of the Esm? Fairbairn Foundation in 2002. The project is currently funded by the Big Lottery Fund, Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Fund for the Environment and Urban Life. One of the aims of the ARI is to support and develop allotments regeneration and the creation of brand new allotment sites in the UK.

This society's origins date from 1901, as a members' co-operative. The NSALG is the recognised national representative body for the allotment movement in the UK. The society is owned, managed and funded by its members to protect, promote and preserve allotments for future generations to enjoy.

STOP THE DEATH OF BEES. A plethora of recent studies from Italy, Germany, America and other countries are implicating Neonicotinoid insecticides (an insect nerve poison) in causing sub-lethal and lethal affects to honey-bees that are exposed to plants grown from seeds coated in Neonicotinoid insecticide or treated with Neonicotinoid insecticide - typically maize, sunflower and rapeseed. These sub-lethal effects, influence the bee's ability to orient itself and return to it's colony; additionally it is likely the detrimental effects are compounded synergistically as the bee is weakened and becomes more susceptible to natural disease, parasitic fungii and parasites such as varroa destructor - implicated in the world wide colony collapse disorder we are currently experiencing. Neonicotinoid insecticides have recently been banned in other European countries and are being reviewed in the US - home of the corporations who are pushing these systemic insecticides. Click HERE to see an information video online . . . .

How can having an Allotment

mean a more healthy way of life?

Nothing is more important than your health. Having a productive allotment will help toward...

A Healthy Diet

You only get dietary fibre from foods that grow from the ground. The peas, beans, vegetables and fruit that can be grown on an allotment will form an essential part of a healthy diet. Many fruits and vegetables are also very good sources of vitamins. Food starts to deteriorate as soon as it's harvested, so obviously food that gets from the ground to your plate in a truly fresh state is of added benefit.

Exercise

Visiting and working on the allotment will provide valuable forms of exercise that is not too strenuous and has the added value of being out in the fresh air. The following benefits to your health can be achieved with regular allotment gardening:

Heart pumps more efficiently, circulation improves
Fitness muscle tone and stamina improves
Digestion and sleep may improve through increased relaxation
Weight control is easier
Emotional Health improves, one feels better, happier and more contented

A Quick "Start-up" Guide to Allotment Growing

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QUICK GUIDE TO ALLOTMENT GROWING
The Golden Rule is - don't take on more than you can cope with. A whole allotment plot is traditionally 10 rods, that is, 302 sq yd, 250 sq m, or about the size of a tennis court.
For all but those with the time, the stamina and self-sufficient ambitions, this may be on the large size for some beginners. A half-plot may be sufficient for your particular household needs. Furthermore, with huge waiting lists nationwide, splitting a whole plot, sharing it with the next person or family on the list makes good sense.
Down To Work
First job - knobble the perennial weeds before you start, particularly if you plan long-term crops such as asparagus and soft fruit.
Fork out roots, smother with black plastic or old carpets, you can use glyphosate (if you don't mind using harmful plant poisons - careful you don't allow it to drift on to your neighbours' plots, where it may damage their crops or cause animosity if they are sensitive to inorganic methods) or a combination of everything. In extreme cases, think about covering and forgeting about two-thirds of the ground for that first season, and just grow potatoes on the remaining third. Their cultivation can help break up the soil and cleanse it of some weeds.
Remember that some weed seeds can remain active in soil for years. Never let weeds grow large and go to seed - hoe them out as tiddlers on dry days. Boundary paths are weed hotbeds too, so mow and edge them regularly. No one wants foreign-looking allotments - all concrete paths, chain-link fencing and stifling rules - but good and tidy housekeeping benefits everyone.
Raised Beds
Don't be surprised if the current love affair with raised beds causes raised eyebrows among some of the old guard, who regard them as a waste of space and prefer regimented rows. Each to his/her own, but defined beds enable you to improve soil selectively, crop intensively - and with paths of (slug/snail unfriendly) bark, mown grass or even Mypex between beds, life is easier, particularly on winter-heavy soil. Don't make beds you can't reach across or you will have to tread on them; 4ft wide and about 12ft long is regarded as a good size, while others favour smaller square beds.
Regular Soil Improvement
This usually takes the form of an annual autumn or spring muck-spreading frenzy - it is an essential task. If your allotment association or gardening society can't organise communal muck supplies, get together with one or two plotters and share a delivery.
Although some enjoy the "catalogue" neatness of pristine expensive infrastructure, not spending money is actually a traditional culture of allotment growers. Most allotmenteers recycle wherever possible, often in very ingenious ways. Compost bins can be made from wooden pallets, old scaffolding boards and split tree trunks make good edges for raised beds. Ingenuity is honoured and respected among allotmenteers.
Crop Protection is Key:
Pests, (particularly flying and crawling ones) can quickly get the upper hand. Hoops of hazel, cut from hedges (failing that, polythene piping from plumbing suppliers and cut to size), make good supports for protective meshes and netting. And which netting? Drapey "pond netting'' is easier than that annoyingly springy nylon stuff that is hard to peg down and control.
Storage
If you live some distance away, a shed (with a water butt) is a boon, with hooks to keep tools (and that essential old fleece) off the floor. It also serves as a good cool and dark place to store crops - such as potatoes or carrots. And, (it should be added), an old chair is an essential!
Growing Don'ts
Don't grow too much of any one thing, get the hang of sowing seeds a little at a time every few weeks (a tough one, that - even though it's quite easy with a bit of aquired self discipline) and even if you don't practise classic crop rotation, at least don't grow the same crop in the same place twice.
Obviously only grow what you like to eat, but there are definitely 'easy' and 'difficult' crops. Potatoes and leeks as well as onions (from sets) all belong in the easy camp. Peas and beans, too, if you keep the pigeons off them. Strawberries (netted) and autumn raspberries (no need to net) are a popular and easy must for some. Unless you live on the doorstop, grow cut-and-come-again salads at home since they need almost daily snipping. Parsnips are tricky to germinate; carrots need fine soil (adding as much sand as compost before sowing helps). Without efficient mesh and netting protection ( to protect against pidgeons and butterflies), don't grow any form of the space-greedy winter cabbage family. Chard and perpetual spinach, however, are long-life, relatively low-maintenance crops worth learning to love, if you don't already.
Free, or even cheap, food is sometimes a myth, certainly at first. Needless to say, allotment growing is more cost-effective if you buy (and share) seed, rather than plug plants. Once you are established, producing compost and saving seed from your crops, you go into a different economic league.
Finally, something slightly controversial: Don't listen to the killjoys. It is perfectly OK to grow flowers for picking on your allotment and it encourages pollinating insects. If your association allows it - keeping bees is an excellent idea as they are the No1 pollinators on every allotment site in existence.

The Origins of Allotments

It's possible to trace the origins of allotments back over 200 hundred years - they derive from the enclosure legislation of the 18th and 19th centuries - and the word 'allotment' originates from land being 'allotted' to an individual under an enclosure award (Enclosures were used by richer land-owners to stop the poor grazing their animals on common land).

The most important of the Enclosure Acts was the General Enclosure Act 1845 which required that provision should be made for the landless poor in the form of 'field gardens' limited to a quarter of an acre. At this time, allotments were largely confined to rural areas.

The modern notion of an allotment came into being during the Nineteenth Century. A lot of people from the country went to work and live in towns; there was a lot of poverty.

The First World War prompted a huge growth in the number of allotments - from 600,000 to 1,500,000. After the War, many of the temporary allotment sites were returned to their original use.

World War 2 again increased the role for allotments as a major provider of food; there was a blockade from the U-boats, and many farm-workers went to the war. Allotments became a common feature in towns and cities, Dig for Victory posters were everywhere, and food production from allotments rose to 1,300,000 tonnes per year from around 1,400,000 plots - that's nearly a tonne per plot !

Today, allotments are (thankfully) again enjoying a resurgence; partly because people are becoming more aware of the benefits to their health and the environment and sadly because we are fast approaching a critical period in our economic system the World over. Today you're more likely to meet professional career people than the traditional 'poor' cloth-capped labourer - as having an allotment is becoming more of a lifestyle choice. Often the problem however, is where to find land to cultivate. If you have difficulty finding land then check out the new and exciting landshare programme that helps twin people with unwanted land with those who are looking for land.

Our Allotment Friends

The value of allotments is considerable - they provide the opportunity for eating healthy, locally-produced food, for healthy exercise and for youngsters to learn that food actually comes from the soil, not a supermarket shelf!

Food produced on an allotment is food you can trust. You know what, if anything, it has been sprayed with. You know if it is genetically modified (GM). You know what varieties you have grown, so hopefully you know it will be tasty and nutritious. Most certainly you know that it has been produced locally, so it has not been driven, or worse, flown for hundreds or thousands of miles, producing air pollution and greenhouse gases. What better reasons for growing food on an allotment!

But you don't even have to rent or work an allotment in order to eat the food. Many allotment sites now have shops where you can buy the excess food produced by plot holders. How much better to spend a bit of your money helping out the plot holders of your local allotment rather than the directors and shareholders of the big supermarkets!

We know that ALL fellow Allotmenteers are our friends, but the friendship doesn't end there! We also have a host of friends that are sometimes ignored and unsung, or worse still, even shunned by some who may not be aware of who their friends and who their enemies really are. We all know the real enemies - those pests that compete for our crops. However in our hurry to exterminate those pests we sometimes overlook what effect this can have on the long term. By destroying the pests indiscriminately ourselves we often deprive their natural predators of food. The predators decline and the pests increase, starting another round of an unending battle to rid ourselves of slugs, weevils, aphids, greenfly etc. etc. until in the end the only wildlife on our allotments are our pests!

Allotments are not only places of escape for people, they also provide valuable havens for a variety of plants and wildlife by providing a natural environment. If you want to keep your allotment as natural as possible, the first thing you should do is cut out the toxic chemicals.

Most of the toxins found in pesticides are non-specific meaning they kill friend and foe indiscriminately. The knock-on effect of this is that the next wave of pests that arrives has a free hand and can multiply unchecked, meaning you will have a worse problem than you started with!

Why are allotments good for wildlife & wildlife good for allotments?

Whatever you choose to grow on an allotment, you can minimise harm to wildlife and maintain natural balance on your plot by using organic methods. A compost heap is both garden and wildlife friendly. You can use the well rotted compost to nourish the soil and the heap can provide shelter for insects and other small animals. Hedgehogs sometimes shelter in compost heaps and will help to eat the slugs and snails which prey on plants. Soft fruit bushes are fantastic for birds such as blackbirds and thrushes, though they may be stripped of raspberries and currants before you have time to harvest them yourself! Some allotment associations don't allow these fruits to be grown. Companion planting is a natural way of maintaining balance and reducing unwanted pests. Plant marigolds next to tomatoes, for example, as they produce a scent that deters pests such as Greenfly and Blackfly. Nectar loving insects such as bees and butterflies will also benefit from the flowers.

Ponds are a wildlife magnet and are allowed on some allotments. Make sure that if you have a pond that it has a sloping edge so that animals can drink and climb out easily if they fall in.

If you really want to encourage more of the right kind of wildlife, there are several steps you can take to create suitable habitats. One is to create space for wildlife on your own plot; the other is to create a communal pond within the wider allotment area on an unused patch of land (unless you have a very large plot, you are unlikely to be able to sacrifice the space yourself). A pond will provide a watering hole for a range of beneficial wildlife, while also boosting the local frog population, some of the best slug predators there are!

Threats

There are a number of threats to wildlife in allotments for a number of reasons:

Lack of understanding of wildlife potential
Excessive use of herbicides and manual clearing of weeds - which are also wild flowers
Use of 'metaldehyde' slug pellets which also poison hedgehogs, etc. Ironically, hedgehogs are gardeners' friends as they eat slugs and other animals which threaten crops!
Excessive tidiness
Possible lack of education and therefore good practice in terms of recycling, air and soil pollution from fires, toxic wood preservatives and water preservation
Lack of resources available for allotment maintenance and improvement (in comparison to other priorities).

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