Community Allotment

update by Felicity De Vries 1 Feb 2024

The Whittlesford Community Growers group is entering its third year on the Whittlesford allotments. The group was initially set up with a small grant from the Parish Council and is run by a member of the Council. The aim of the group is to learn about growing vegetables in an organic and sustainable way while having fun.

We have restored our allotment using recycled materials wherever possible; people in the village have donated things they no longer use like netting and slabs.  We fixed the chicken wire fence using a mixture of old pieces we knitted together and some new chicken wire. And it’s amazing what you can find (with permission!) in the builders’ skips which regularly appear around the village.

The group is made up of people with different skill-sets so we have people who build things like fencing, and our composting bins (which are made of reclaimed pallets), people who like to dig and people who like to weed and plant or water.

We are very lucky to have great soil. We also enhance the soil using our own organic compost. We are learning about soil structure and are using a three-year cycle on our beds to harness the nutrients, which one plant can produce for the benefit of a different type of plant the following year. Currently we work on a system of Roots, Brassicas and Others (which is just about everything that doesn’t fall into the first two categories, for example, beans). We also have a herb bed and a greenhouse and this year we’re hoping to grow cut flowers. We don’t use the free Soil Improver from the County Council, because that comes with a caveat not to be used on ground for growing vegetables for animal consumption; this is because the green compost bins which are collected by the council and turned into Soil Improver can contain meat products which we agreed at the beginning was not something we wanted to use as we have vegans among us.

The beauty of working communally is that we enjoy the produce but no one person has responsibility for doing absolutely everything. So although it’s still hard work, people only really need to commit for a couple of hours a week, and they can work on the allotment at any time that suits them. We also have regular Meet Ups with cake so that people who prefer not to work on their own have friends around them.

The group is open to anyone from Whittlesford and no previous experience is necessary. If anybody is interested in joining us please ask Eco Whittlesford for my contact details, or if you’re interested in setting up your own group I’d be happy to talk to you.