In 2023 Friends of the Park are refurbishing the allotment beds
We are keen to involve new volunteers in this project who are knowledgable about gardening for fruit and vegetables but perhaps don't have room at home, and also volunteers who'd like to get involved in a project like this to learn more. If you are interested in joining our allotment team please get in touch via our Contact Page.
New raised beds supported by Stockport Hydro
We're kicking this new project off in 2023 by building two new raised beds. The first was constructed in January and February using recycled materials from last year's Marple School Gardens Project. We had always planned to recycle the materials from this project in the park and taking over the allotment beds has become the perfect opportunity.
For help with materials for the second raised bed we submitted a grant application to the Stockport Environmental Challenge 2023 in January and we were delighted to learn that this was successful. On 17 March 2023 (see above) we received funding of £500 towards the cost of materials including sleepers, fixings and top soil for our second raised bed.
Raised bed construction
We constructed the second raised bed during March and early on the morning of Tuesday 21st, Offerton Sand and Gravel delivered 4 tonnes of premium topsoil. A BIG shout out to their driver, who was incredibly helpful and saved us a great deal of shovelling during our next task day by dropping the soil directly into the raised beds for us.
Recycled paving slabs thanks to Stockport Council
Stockport Council have been extremely helpful with this new project by transported old disused paving slabs from Etherow Park for us to recycle for paths and foundations for the raised beds. Most of these are so old they are imperial sizes, so it's great to find a new purpose for them after so many years.
Thank you to Marple Allotment Association
When Friends of the Park adopted the main flowerbeds in the park in 2011 to prevent the council grassing them over, Marple Allotment Association also came to our aid. They took-over from us one of the beds near to Hollins House and turned it into a small allotment. This was really popular and they did such a good job that we helped them to extend it in 2013.
After a brilliant 10+ years, in 2022 the Allotment Association's volunteers were dwindling and those remaining were finding it a challenge to keep on top of things. They were also disheartened by vandalism to cages and structures they had built. In June they contacted us to say that they would need to downsize their involvement, or pass the beds onto others.
Although we know little about gardening for fruit and vegetables we decided to see if we could reinvigorate the allotment beds ourselves.
We would like to thank Marple Allotment Association volunteers for their support from 2011 to 2022 and we hope you'll continue to support us with help and advice when you can.
