This year we’re encouraging all our plotholders to up their game and consider entering the competitions run by the Birmingham and District Allotment Co-operative – Best Plot and Best Newcomer on a Birmingham Allotment Site. We have fourteen ‘Newcomers’ – people who’ve only started renting a plot on or after October 2024 on one of our five sites – Blackpit Lane, Fairholme Road, Lime Tree Road, Northleigh Road and St Margarets Road so any of these could have a go. You can find more details about what the judges will be looking for when they come and look at the plots in August, on the BDAC website; .https://bdacallotments.co.uk/.
In 2025 three of WEGA’s plotholders entered the Best Plot competition – Jamil Abuleyth at Northleigh Rd won a Gold award, while William MacClue at Blackpit Lane and Noor Hashemkil at St Margarets Road won Silver Gilt awards. Trophies and certficates were presented at the Half Yearly meeting of the BDAC in November.
The awards for these plot competitions are linked to achieving certain standards and cover things like the range, vigour and health of your plants, the lay-out and tidiness of the plot and environmental aspects – composting, recycling and water conservation. The outright winner of the Best Plot competition receives the Cliff Jones Memorial Trophy. The winner of the Best Newcomer competition receives the Flo Pickering Memorial Trophy but all participants can expect to pick up a Gold, Silver Gilt, Silver or Bronze award if they get the necessary points for the standards set.
So although only one person can be an outright winner in these competitions, the main point of them is a campaign to raise standards of cultivation for everyone who has a plot and see what you can do to improve your gardening practices and make the most of your growing space. Getting a good harvest is one thing. Growing beautiful flowers for everyone to admire is another. Making room for nature, avoid waste and harmful use of chemicals, increasing biodiversity on our sites – these are all important things we can do as individual plotholders and it will make more impact if we all make an effort.
The other competition we could go for is the ‘Most Improved Site’ in Birmingham. This is new this year – though it has been run in the past and the winner receives the Robins Trophy. The point of this campaign is to encourage sites to follow through plans to improve their sites – to make a better allotment experience all round for everyone, including families of plotholders and any visitors who come to our events and activities. This could involve making the communal areas tidier, repairing and improving facilities such as toilets and tearooms, planting flowers and bushes to attract pollinating insects etc. It’s also about encouraging everyone to contribute to water conservation and recyling such as composting, and discouraging rubbish dumping and waste. And the judges will also be looking for examples of co-operation between plotholders and better management generally.
Any of our sites could go in for the Robins Trophy if plotholders on them want to try. Having an external assessment on a definite date in August will help to focus our minds on what needs doing most, and actually doing it. We’re looking for plotholders prepared to do that extra something for the site as a whole as well as maintain their own plots. It’s up to the people on each site whether they want to make use of a deadline, and the comments of the judges for what can be done in future years. Any which way, we have nothing to lose by trying and getting a Bronze, Silver or Silver-gilt award will give us a goal to aspire to in following years.
