Junior Gardener's area

What pleasantly surprised us when taking on new tenants is how many young families showed an interest in having a plot with us and in total we now have 39 children under 12 on board. A trip to the allotment site is not every child's wish for a good day out but we think we found the answer to the visit not just being a learning experience by having a dedicated safe area where a bit of steam can be let off and an opportunity to make new friends offered.

The very far corner was sown with decent grass seed with the helpful Fullwood children the first year we opened, then a wendy house, many toys, plastic and rubber of course were gradually added. The area is mown weekly and the whole patch is something that we are proud of and very well used by the juniors. In fact one parent told me that their children beg to come to the allotment nowadays instead of having to be persuaded to go.

The committee keep the toys in good order, anything broken or split is removed and we freshen up the choice available usually with donations from far and wide. 2 years ago we were visited by Camilla from the Eden project, who liked what we were doing, donated a lot of rugs and cushions some of which now sit in the wendy house and the small tent which was put up this week for the school summer holidays to give a bit more interest.

Being fenced in on the 2 outside boundaries by the 7' deer fence means the children are perfectly safe and an option for parents to sit and watch the very young is possible by sitting at the adjacent picnic table and having lunch or tea with them.

We've had some negativity with one person's view that children are there to learn, NOT play but in my experience of bringing up 5 girls and a boy (only 2 mine!) a mixture of the two really works and if a child is bombarded with information, they soon get very bored. We intend keeping this feature as it does work and is very popular.