Allotment association · since 1947 · 42 plots

Forty-two plots between the railway and the brook, and a waiting list we are honest about

A strip of council land run by its tenants. Five of us on the committee, one shed of shared tools, a water trough at the end of every row and a bonfire we are no longer allowed to have.

Put your name down

Allotment plots with bean canes, netting and courgette plants, houses and trees behind.

Plot holders walking between the beds on a bright day, flowering basil in front.

What a year costs

Full plot, 250 m²£96

Half plot£52

Raised bed by the gate£24

Membership, per household£6

Water, all you needincluded

Shed and shared toolsincluded

Manure, delivered in March£12 a load

Over 70s and studentshalf price

Rent runs from October to September and is due at the AGM. If it is hard to find all at once, say so to the treasurer and pay it in three. Nobody else will know.

Three sizes of plot

Most people start with a half and wish they had. A few start with a full plot and give half of it back in the second summer. Both are fine.

Lettuce and chives growing in a wooden raised bed.

A raised bed

By the gate, waist height, no digging. For people who want salad and a chair, and for anyone who finds kneeling hard.

Six beds, two free

Rows of lettuce and green plants in a wooden-edged vegetable bed.

A half plot

Enough for potatoes, beans, a row of flowers and a compost bin. About two hours a week, more in May.

Twenty-four halves

A large vegetable garden laid out in rows on a lawn, hills behind.

A full plot

A family's vegetables for most of the year, and a job. Usually shared between two households, which we encourage.

Twelve full plots

A small red-framed greenhouse at the edge of a wood, yellow flowers in front.

The rules we actually enforce

There is a rule book of eleven pages. These are the four that matter, and the only ones anybody has ever lost a plot over.

Three quarters cultivated: By the end of June, three quarters of the plot growing something. Weeds do not count, however well grown.

No hosepipes: Cans from the trough only. Everyone grumbles, and the brook is still running in August.

Paths are shared: Half a path each side, kept mown. It is the first thing the council looks at when it comes round.

Tell us if you're struggling: Illness, a baby, a bad year. Say so and the plot waits for you. Say nothing and we have to write a letter.

Work mornings

Four Saturday mornings a year, 9 till 12, for everything that belongs to nobody. Come to two of the four. Tea and a cake rota; the cake is not optional.

8 March

Manure spread along the top row, hedges cut before the birds nest.

10 May

Troughs cleaned and refilled, the shed sorted, the lost-and-found tools claimed.

6 September

Paths mown, the open-day tables built, spare seedlings potted up for the stall.

15 November

Leaves collected for the leaf-mould bays and the empty plots covered for winter.

Two hands working seedlings into dark soil in a wooden raised bed.

A garden fork standing in a heap of dug earth, bean canes behind.

A person in green gloves pulling a chard plant from dark soil.

Raised wooden beds full of young vegetables with canes and netting above.

One shed, everyone's tools

A rotavator, two wheelbarrows, a strimmer, forks and spades by the dozen and a padlock whose code changes at every AGM. Book the rotavator on the board inside the door; everything else, take it and bring it back clean.

Seed potatoes and onion sets are bought together in January and sold at cost from the shed on the first two Sundays of March.

Come to the open day