Ferry Road Allotments

Schools, Colleges and Horticultural Societies are being invited to take part in a 'pallet garden' competition at Gardening Scotland, billed as 'Scotland's national celebration of gardening and outdoor living'. The show is set to take place between the 30th of May and the 1st of June.

Entrants are invited to submit small, but perfectly formed gardens no larger than the size of a pallet. For more information on how to enter, see www.gardeningscotland.com/pallet%20garden%20comp.php 

You may be interested to read this article, that highlights the shortage of allotments in urban Scotland. Demand is on the increase as people are becoming more concerned about the quality of their food, and the way it is produced.

We've received a number of enquiries through this website, from people looking for plots on the Ferry Road  Site. So just for the record, if you would like a plot at the Ferry Road site, you need to contact the City of Edinburgh Council, and register on the waiting list with them. You will probably need to wait around two years for a plot, and it will help if you actively contact the council to 'remind' them of your interest at least once every six months. IT also helps if you can be flexible about which site you'd like a plot on too.

Most people will know by now that the council Allotment officer, Ian Woolard, has replaced the pedestrian gate padlock with a new one, that requires a new key. You should already have received this key in the post from the council. This should lead to an improvement in the security of the site, as Mr Woolard is taking steps to keeping a track over who has what key, and to make sure that the keys are harder to copy.

However, please note that the padlock to open both main gates (used for letting cars in) hasn't been changed so you'll still need your old key if you want to bring your car onto the site.

Lucinda Withinshaw has spent a year taking photographs around allotments in Edinburgh. She has an exhibition on in Haddington at the Peter Potter gallery.