The Allotment - wrapping up

Posted on di 31 december 2024 in blog

I have decided end my contract with the allotment association. A number of factors have lead to this decision.

The allotment was evolving towards a miniature food forest. This meant that regular maintenance came down to mowing the "unwanted" plants about once a month.

I have found my enthousiasm for going to the allotment fluctuating wildly over the weeks, months and years. Nevertheless, I have been regularly going to the allotment. The past few years I was there about once a week but never more frequent.

I found there was little to do in the garden. I came away with a sense that the garden was very capable of taking care of itself and did not need, or even want, my involvement. Also I found myself rejecting the idea of investing more time in pushing the garden in some other direction. And besides, I had no other vision for the garden.

In addition I have found that gardening with more people around feels better. I like having the opportunity to socialize a bit while gardening. At the times I was gardening on the allotment the complex was almost completely deserted and at more popular times I had other activities that I would rather go to.

Looking back, especially the last few years, the garden was primarily a way (continue) to be a member to the board. As such it was only a means to an end. It had no real function in my life. Harvest from the garden last year was minimal: a few tomatoes, some pumpkins, fennel seeds, figs. We got more produce from a few pots in the backyard and from Proeftuin Meerhoven than from the allotment.

This sense of waning involvement had been growing over at least the past two years. I strongly wanted to quit last year for the same reasons already mentioned. At that time I did not take action. Things came to a head in late October 2024. It was a good moment to start wrapping up the allotment: I had given myself two months to move all the plants to new homes and to clean up the garden.

At the time of writing this, the garden is empty except for two fig trees and some thornless bramble. I was in the garden three times a week to dig out plants, shrubs and small trees. I have given most of these away to friends. For plants I could not find takers, I have moved those to Proeftuin Meerhoven.

When I left the allotment the last time, I thanked it for all our shared moments and I wished it the best for the future.

What went well?

  • I have learned a lot!
    • I don't particularly enjoy maintaining an intensive garden
    • it takes a lot of time, energy and skill to create a productive garden
    • 160m² is too much space for one person to maintain at 2 hrs/week
  • This brings me joy
    • the aliveness of the garden
    • seeing insects and small animals enjoying the garden as their home
    • experimenting with making cuttings from various trees and shrubs

What would I do different?

  • I have been putting off cleaning the fragments of sidewalk tile that littered the shed since I got the allotment in 2019. I would have cleaned that up earlier.
  • Some of the trees I planted, I planted too close to the fence. This made it more difficult to uproot them when I wanted to move them to a different location. Next time, I will plant any tree or (potentially) big shrub more then one meter from any fence.
  • After the windows of the small greenhouse shattered, I had left the remainder standing. I would take that down immediately as it had no real purpose any more.
  • We never used the allotment for pleasure or invited friends over. We could have done that differently.
  • I could have involved other people when Ina stopped coming to the allotment instead of going at it alone.

What is my vision?

Why did we / I start this project in the first place?

  • Learning about growing our own food;
  • Enjoying fresh harvest;
  • Running experiments on a larger garden;
  • Helping raise awareness.

All these things I can still obtain through another project: Proeftuin Meerhoven. I can put more effort in this project to better reflect my values and interests.

What is my next step?

For now (end December 2024) it is to wind down my activities as a member to the board. After that, I'm open to new developments and new activities.

I'm updating the design for the allotment.