Cancelled: Community Plot Smoky Saturday

With the recent torrential rain and the current conditions underfoot, plus the current forecast of more rain and a storm this weekend, we've taken the difficult decision to cancel Smoky Saturday. Keep an eye out for our plans for later in the year, coming soon.

23rd February - Spring Seed Swap

Seed Swap planned for Sunday 12 March 11am-1pm on the Community Plot (middle lane, half way up). We won't over-engineer it. You donate seeds (or make a small cash donation), and take seeds. We'll lay on some tea and coffee, so people can hang out and talk about this year's growing plans. If anyone feels like making cakes, we can offer them out in return for donations to the Association coffers. Please bring any unwanted seeds (or seedlings!) for the swap table. Your well-thumbed and no-longer needed gardening books or magazines might be someone else's treasure, so do bring those too. Hope to see you there. You can leave seed donations at the shop before then or find Emily on plot 62 (middle lane) on Saturday 11th from midday til 3pm.

1st March 2022 - End Of Season Bonfire

 As the end of bonfire season draws close, the Community Plot will be holding a bonfire on Sunday 13th March (with a fall-back date of 20th March if the 13th is wet). Take the hard work out of bonfore making by bringing your wood, logs and branches to us to burn

6th October 2021 - Fire Friday Returns

 Friday 5th November sees the return of the popular Fire Friday event, as we welcome in the start of Bonfire season with a get-together on the Community Plot. There'll be food and drink available, and all are welcome

15th October 2019 - Thanks to everyone who came to the bulb planting day and helped plant over 600 bulbs!

• 300+ Daffodils
• 100 Crocus
• 100 Snowdrop
• 60+ Tulips
• 40+ Alliums
• 20+ Grape hyacinths
• 20+ Irises

About The Moorside Community Plot

In February 2019, the Association Committee decided that it would allow us to develop a Community Plot as a space to enjoy, gather and hold events that bring the Moorside Allotment community together more often that we currently do. 

 The plot, which is halfway up the middle lane on the left (coming from the ‘Trading Hurt’), needed a huge amount of work over the summer and autumn to clear glass, metal, wood and 40-odd years of assorted debris. (You may have seen the kind volunteers who spent months hard at work to clear it.) The plot had been in the hands of one very experienced and industrious gardener, John Reid, for decades. Sadly he had to give it up due to ill health. The giant pile of scrap wood which began to build up in September gave us the idea for First Fire Friday, a communal bonfire event with hot food and drinks which was held on 2 November 2018. Over 100 plot-holders and friends turned up and many said, ‘Why don’t we do more things like this, where people can get together?’   

 This led to a proposal to turn the plot over to the Moorside community and plan more, regular events throughout the year. There are a small band of volunteers who have kicked things off but the more people who get involved, the merrier to help us make a success of this: the Committee have rented us the single plot for only a year at first, and we’ll be running events and fun activities throughout the year to help us grow and develop the plot. These are likely to include summer barbecues, an autumn fire, weekend gardening demonstrations and seed-swaps, amongst other things. Above is an artist’s impression of how the plot could look, with plenty of space for congregating, fruit trees, flowers, shrub and veg borders, annuals area and sheltered seating (somewhere to eat your sandwiches on a hot summer’s day) – but we want to work with all plotholders to shape the design and use of the plot

Our goal is to create a space for everyone to enjoy, a focal point for our community that means we can get to know each other better, and so we can help one another to be better growers and gardeners.  We hope to see you there!

 From the Community Plot Working Group 

Rich, Emily, Ann, Beverley, David, Pattie, Frank