Allotment to love

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

Running this activity

• Don’t worry if you don’t have access to an allotment – you could research community garden spaces, or ask trustees and landowners for permission to set up a growing space at your meeting place. You could even explore the possibility of using someone’s garden. 
• This activity is best split across multiple sessions. The first sessions should feature an introduction to allotments, and time here should be spent researching local allotment or community garden spaces that could be used by your group. Everyone should also get some time in the first session to think about what they’ll plant and how they’ll set out their plants. Finally, everyone involved in the project should make a commitment to continue to care for and maintain the allotment patch, which will involve making multiple visits.
• Leaders and helpers will need to make themselves familiar with the requirements of maintaining an allotment, and how to use Veg Plotter.
  • Alternatively, the plant and vegetable research could be undertaken using books, or perhaps a session visit from a knowledgeable parent or a local expert.
  • The plot planning could be done using paper designs. Create a ground template with cut-out shapes of the plantings and features of the land to then stick on.
• This activity requires each small group to register on Veg Plotter using an email address. Avoid using personal email addresses by creating an email address for each group ahead of the activity session.
• Let parents and carers know that you’re planning on carrying out a series of visits to manage an allotment. They might like to get involved and could know others who can help.

Run the activity

1. Everyone should chat about allotments. Talk about what an allotment is, why someone might have one and the benefits of maintaining an allotment.
2. Split into small groups of three or four. Each group will need writing materials, paper and a device with internet access. Instruct everyone to research local allotments, community gardens or viable alternatives (think about places with lots of land, such as farms). They should make a note of potential locations that the group can access, as well as any contact details they can find.

Volunteers should move among the groups and share ideas from their own research – everyone must stay distanced at all times. Encourage groups with suggestions they may not have thought of. It might be possible to set up a growing space at your meeting place. If so, permission from trustees and landowners should always be obtained before you get started. 

3. When everyone’s completed their research in their groups, gather together again at a safe distance to share thoughts and ideas. The person leading the activity should gather all of the written notes and contact details that the group have collected and make arrangements with the relevant parties.

Young people should never be solely responsible for reaching out to external parties.

4. Back in their groups, give each some fresh paper and a device with internet access. People could use their own devices, if they’re suitable and if this is appropriate in your meetings. Give each group the details of one of the email addresses prepared earlier, and have them go to Veg Plotter. They should use the email address to register on the site.

Groups will need access to their Veg Plotter account in future sessions, so remind everyone to make their passwords memorable, save the passwords to the device or make a note of it somewhere safe. They’ll also need to keep the details of their email account handy.

5. Everyone should go to the Grow Guides page on the Veg Plotter site. Each group should research and write down three kinds of vegetable that could be planted in an allotment at the current time of year.
6. Now, they should research online three kinds of hardy annual flower that could be planted in the allotment at the current time of year. Then, two kinds of bulb, herbaceous plant, flowering shrub or rose. Write all of these down.

Be aware that some vegetables can take months to grow – quick growing vegetables include radishes, beetroots or salad and herb shelves.

7. When this research is complete, gather at a safe distance again to share ideas. Using everyone’s research and considering all ideas, choose three vegetables, three hardy annual flowers, two bulbs, two herbaceous plants and two flowering shrubs that everyone can grow together. Agree on a specific length of time the group will be responsible for looking after the patch for, and how often you’ll need to visit.

Cultivating the plants will require several visits to the allotment. You can’t just plant things and then abandon them.

8. Everyone should get back into their groups and log back into Veg Plotter. They’ll probably need some fresh paper. Explain to the groups the size, shape and layout of the allotment, and remind everyone what plants they’ll be growing. Using the ‘MyPlots’ feature on Veg Plotter, each group should create a plan of the allotment land. Making sure to include fixtures like sheds, compost bins, water containers and most importantly, the planting bed where things will grow.

Plot plans could also be drawn with pens and paper, if this is easier or how the group prefers to work.

10. When everyone’s finished planning their allotment, gather together again and share ideas. Taking everyone’s suggestions into account, decide together how the allotment will be set out and agree a final plot plan. A leader should note down what was decided and collect the notes that the groups have made.
11. Now everyone should think about how they’ll record their progress on the allotment project. They should decide whether to keep a personal record or for groups to keep a joint record, which could be added to whenever any members of the group visit the plot. Encourage everyone to be creative and use a new method to record and display the data, like a social media group, blog, photo or video presentation or a traditional written log. This method needs to be agreed upon with the person leading the activity before getting started.

Make sure that anyone using an online platform or social media is the appropriate age to use the tool and has parental consent to do so.

12. It’s time to get started. Use the information below to help guide you through what needs to be done on visits to the plot.