Sunday 12 October 2008

Allotment politics; part 2

Back in May I blogged about my antisocial nettles, now it seems I am in trouble again. Yesterday I received a letter from the council informing me that since my plot clearly hasn't been tended in some time I have been evicted!

After plenty of anger and shock I have managed to get hold of the Councilor and arrange a meeting for Tuesday so that she can convince me that it really is my plot she is talking about; I mean it is a bit messy but surely not so bad I should be evicted? Needless to say that this weekend has seen some frantic nettle clearing. I will let you know how it turns out.

Wish me luck.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have my sympathies. We too have received 'The Letter' on a few occasions, but a phone call has always sorted it out, including my explanation that we're in this for the long haul and that the allotment is part of our work/life balance but that since we work full time we do have competing priorities. Could you not say that the nettles were there as a deliberate eco-plan ie to encourage ladybirds and butterflies?

Our plot is looking pretty ragged right now, but then again, so is everyone else's. The only ones that aren't are swathed in black plastic weighted down with broken chairs, bits of wood and assorted junk, which to my mind is not a good look.

Anonymous said...

Good luck - heard from the FooGroBlo Meet what a nightmare the lottys can be - glad its just me and my dad in my back garden.

Fingers crossed!

Cat x

schmut said...

probably not your allotment.
our council has never been on the site and doesn't seem to know which allotment is which.
a few months ago, their team dug up what they thought was a newly leased allowment, but it happened to be half of my (newly leased) allotment. my roses and strawberries - gone.

and, tell her that nettles are man's best friend when it comes to organic gardening. that and comfrey.

Amy said...

Thanks for all your support.

I am pleased to report that Schmut was correct, it turns out the council think my allotment is on a different site! This was actually a huge relief, I was starting to think they had very high standards!

Anonymous said...

We have taken our allotment over from the council and run it as our own association with a committee which is voted for by all plot holders. The council like this because it saves them money on admin and upkeep and we like it because we don't get angry letters from council staff who have never been to the plot. Maybe you could put forward the idea of your plots being run in this way?