Digging in at the plot – 04.10.25

Even though thanks to Storm Amy, the weather was less than conducive to an enjoyable session of gardening at the community fruit and vegetable plot in our local park, we still made the effort to get over there and get on with it. This is simply because it’s a community plot and as such, we have a responsibility to not only keep the plot going but, as far as possible, to keep it looking reasonably tidy. This was the write up of yesterday’s work session that I posted up on social media:

It was a bit of a blowy one today, that’s for sure!

The last few not at all large courgettes were picked, the plants removed and placed in the compost bins. The remaining beans were picked and those plants were cleared away as well. The last few carrots were dug up. Given the weather conditions this year, they have done pretty well despite the odds being stacked against them.

The removal of the Aztec broccoli was completed. The cleared beds were given an initial digging over plus a few other areas. As you can see from the images, it’s starting to look a lot like autumn now as the bare earth re-appears.

Despite this, there’s still a lot to do when it comes to weeding, path maintenance and general tidying up. As well as this, there’s horse manure sitting in bags waiting to be applied to the beds.

We could have done more today but, there’s only so much working in high winds we can take, so by 3.30pm, we’d called it a day. We’re thinking about an ‘unofficial’ work session sometime next week to give us all a chance to catch up. We’ll advertise it here on this page a day or so in advance.

The next scheduled Dig In at the plot is on Wednesday 15th October, starting at 2pm - it would be great to see some of you then:)

It’s a community plot. Those of us who put in the work to keep it going are merely its custodians. A cast of custodians that over the years will change as new people come along to get involved and others have to take a step back for various reasons. When it comes to the level of interest in the plot, support for what we’re doing and new people getting involved, we’ve turned a corner. The last couple of years have been about just keeping it going. Now we feel that we have sufficient support to become a bit more ambitious for 2026.

Involvement in the plot isn’t just about people coming along to get their hands dirty on the day of a work session. There are other, equally as important levels of involvement. One is talking about and promoting what the plot does. This is something that the town council and the local radio station do and, we’re incredibly grateful for that support. It’s also the local businesses that will take a pile of flyers for their customers or display a poster promoting what we’re doing. All of this matters…

It’s autumn so, while there are still a few crops left in the ground and a lot of maintenance work to undertake on the paths, we can pause for a bit and reflect on where we want the plot to go in 2026. Part of that is working out what crops were successful and what ones we should never think about trying again! Suffice to say, there are some lessons to be learned from this year. A major part of what we need to think about is making what we do even more relevant to the community we live in. That will mean us having to take on a bit more in the way of outreach over the winter months to build on the interest in the plot ready for the spring. It also involves thinking about how we can better thank those supporting what we do with the plot.

Then there’s the need to think about how we can increase the productivity of the plot with tried and tested crops. As we’ve written before, food prices are going up and as a community plot, we have a responsibility to distribute our surplus to help those being hit by these rises. That means choosing crops which we know will produce a yield as opposed to some of the more esoteric ones we’ve been trying out with little or no success.

To conclude, the thing to keep in mind about any community food growing project is that it’s always a learning curve. We’ll always get a few curveballs thrown our way so, we have to learn how to deal with them as best we can. That’s on top of the fact that as any experienced grower will tell you, no two growing seasons are ever the same!