So I’ve been asked by Vin to write a few words about how all this began. Buckle in folks, this is gonna be a bit of a journey!

Just kidding, it’s probably the same story as about 90% of folk who have an allotment, but it did start during one of the most monumental moments in the 21st century so far…

It was 2020 London, England and like the rest of the country (and most of the planet) we had gone into lockdown. As I’m sure many other Londoners no doubt felt, as we stood on the balcony banging on pans in support of the NHS, we found ourselves wishing we lived elsewhere with a bit more outside space. So, I did a bit of googling and put our names down on a waiting list for our local allotment.

Fast forward a couple of years, the world went back to normal and we’d forgotten all about it, along with all the other things we did to keep ourselves sane during that time (the weekly zoom quiz, life drawing classes, and a failed attempt to learn Latin).

Then in 2024, about 6 months after we’d been trying to grow tomatoes on a west facing apartment with zero sunlight, we got the call (email, to be more accurate and much less dramatic) informing us that we were at the top of the waiting list and there was an allotment for us to take a look at!

As I suspect will be the case with most first timer allotment offerings, it was in a right state. It consisted of dumped garbage, uneven ground, a cherry tree standing proud but very unkempt, and was covered in something that we were told was called ‘bindweed’ which we knew nothing about, but certainly do now!

It was pretty daunting, but we gleefully accepted without any hesitation!

One year on, we’ve had some successes, failures and even injuries (more details to follow) that we’d like to share with you. It’s become somewhat of an obsession, hence the creation of this website!