Biodiversity
Nature Friendly Allotments
As we know, allotments are great for growing everything from flowering plants to edible vegetables. Growing our own food also helps reduce our contribution to climate change whilst supporting local access to affordable and healthy food. In addition, allotments are often green corridors and habitats for wildlife, supporting our urban biodiversity. They can also act as nature-based solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change, helping with both carbon sequestration and flood risk reduction. It is always worth considering biodiversity when you first get your allotment and maintaining allotment sites.
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There are many ways you can consider making allotments nature friendly. This could involve including:
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Homes for wildlife through bat and bird boxes, bug hotels, etc.
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An overgrown corner of brambles/thorn species offering nest sites for birds
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A wood pile to give a home to a wide variety of insects and birds searching for food.
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Small ponds to support amphibious animals, which are very useful to gardeners as many forage on slugs and snails
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A saucer of water to provide water for hedgehogs and birds
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A hole at the base of a boundary fence to create a valuable, connected network of greenspace hedgehogs can roam through
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Setting aside part of plots for wildlife habitats
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Boundary trees and/or native hedges
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Linear or boundary orchards or a community orchard corner
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In Spring/Summer cater for pollinators and birds through companion planting and fruit trees
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In Autumn provide food and shelter for wildlife though wild corners, hibernacula for hedgehogs and amphibians, fruit trees.
Top Tips for Allotments:
Add compost: In spring earthworm activity is increased when organic matter such as composted vegetation or farmyard manure is worked into the soil. This keeps it open and aerated and retains moisture near to the roots of summer crops.
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Rotate Vegetable crop: This helps to prevent the build-up of crop- specific, soil based problems but also helps maintain the nutrient balance across the whole cultivated area.
Grow a range of fruit, vegetables and herbs: The early flowers of gooseberries and currants offer nectar to emerging bees and other insects. Later in the season the flowers of vegetables and herbs provide nectar. Different flowers attract different insects, and pollination depends on their visits.
Companion planting: Certain plants grown together help reduce attack by pests and disease. For example, onions or leeks grown with carrots help deter the carrot fly. French marigolds grown with tomatoes make whitefly infestation less likely.
Pollination can also be improved by planting flowering herbs among the vegetables: sage with carrots or brassicas, borage with tomatoes (or amongst fruit trees).
Grow some native flowers and berried bushes: The simpler the flower, the easier it is for bees and hoverflies to access them: bear this in mind. More than 70% of our birds depend on insects which in turn, depend on plants, so our choices are important.
Provide water: A regular supply of water can be provided in a shallow dish. Ponds or water features such as a water sink or barrel, flowforms or bog gardens can be a welcome feature in many community gardens and allotments.
In the autumn provide food and shelter for wildlife: Leave seed heads and foliage on herbaceous perennial plants, tidying them away only in the spring - many beneficial insects hibernate in plant stems. A pile of fallen leaves, twigs and other vegetation in a corner of the garden will help give shelter to frogs, toads, hedgehogs and field-mice.
Allotment buildings: if suitable, enhance with bird feeders, bird or bat boxes, or consider a "green roof' of sedum, mosses or wildflowers.
