The POWER of yellow

Despite some initial reservations, allotment champion Steve Neal recounts the success of opening up an allotment site in Somerset to the National Garden Scheme

Steve Neal

Photo: Rick Anderson

The NGS yellow book is published annually and lists all the gardens that are open under the NGS. The information can also be found on the website and in the regional handbooks.

‘What did you say? You ‘re charging £4.50 to get in?Who is going to pay that to see some old allotments? Do you really know what you ‘re doing? You ought to stick to selling pickles and jam. ‘

As an allotment association you get used to receiving a regular dose of unsolicited advice on how things could be done better or differently. It goes with the territory, as they say, but this comment from one of our own members made us momentarily pause in our tracks.

Had we really grown a little bit above ourselves, opening our allotments alongside some formal gardens, belonging to fairly grand houses or old rectories, as part of the National Garden Scheme (NGS)? Iford manor, Bath Priory Hotel, Corsham Court, Algars Manor, Dyrham Park, Muriel Jones Allotment Fields – Frome. It doesn ‘t take much to spot the odd one out on the list. And any one man or woman with a dog can, and often does, wander down the allotments any old day and has a nose around, without having to fork out £4.50 for the privilege. A vision of potential public humiliation grew in the collective mind of the committee. The bunting all out for an open day where no one turned up, and a pile of unsold cake drying out under the gazebo.