Allotment-Farming

We've had three seasons of growing on our allotment plot in Hingham, Norfolk.
Plot 22 is a source of joy, sustenance, healing and growth for us. In journeying towards food sovereignty we’ve learned that this act of resistance and self-determination is most fruitful if it is shared.
Everyone has the right to determine their health and their food. Anyone can grow things, but the reality in the UK is that very few people are able to exercise this right, with access to land being an intrinsic barrier, amongst a myriad of systematic social justice issues.
We want to dismantle the narrative that gardening and basking in nature are privileges reserved only for the dominant culture.
Being an allotment farmer has a deep history in the commons, resistance, and people feeding themselves. Let's reclaim that history to sustain our future.

Practices
We use agro-ecological principles, autonomously designing the practices and systems that work in harmony with Nature. We are learning how to grow all the time by reading, connecting with growers and sages, making mistakes, and observing the natural world.
Some of our practices:
- Wood chip paths to feed the soil and the plant roots from beds
- Feeding pollinators with a diversity of flowers
- Compost teas and plant foods (using nettle and comfrey)
- Propagate softwood and hardwood cuttings
- Seed saving
- Weaving live willow structures
- Growing pulses (dried beans and chickpeas)
Seeds
We get our seeds from Tamar Organics and Real Seeds. Unless we have to because of supplies, every seed we use is organic and not F1; meaning it can be saved and will continue to produce healthy, chemical free, pure nourishment.

Annuals
We can sustain ourselves, friends and family from the plot, and we want to do this year round.
- We’re growing a lot of different varieties of kitchen table veg and fruit.
- Practising growing all year round by overwintering and learning how to store veg through winter
- As well as familiars like carrots, potatoes, kale, tomatoes etc, we are growing interesting varieties like okra, mooli, peanuts and aubergines, inspired by food from Mauritius where two of our members have roots.

Perennials
We are committed to cultivating more perennials, which help to feed and improve the soil longer term. Perennials are plants that live on, they come back every year as opposed to other plants which need to be sown from seed usually every one or two years. On our plot we have some fruit trees that we’ve been nursing back to life, peach, apple and pear, and we have comfrey, berries, rhubarb and plenty of herbs. And of course, nettle.

Structures
We build the structures we need using recycled and found materials whenever we can.
- Our first big build was our shed, made from timber, recycled cladding, reclaimed windows and pallets
- Next was our greenhouse built with a collection of windows from Gumtree
- Our shed and greenhouse collect rainwater with a guttering system that pours straight into old whiskey barrels
- 3 bay wooden compost bin built from second hand waste wood. We compost our food waste, weeds and clippings from our plot
- We grow our brassicas in a fruit cage that was donated to us
- Our polytunnel will houses our sun loving plants
- We grow beans on a tunnel we built from pallet wood and coppice poles
- Fencing around our plot is a mash up of woven fencing using tree cuttings, pallets and old fencing saved from the landfill


