Promoting Wildlife on Your Allotment: Why It Matters

 

Encouraging wildlife on an allotment is a practical step that benefits crops, the environment, and the community. Allotments are green islands in towns and cities. By welcoming birds, amphibians, insects, and small mammals you help restore habitat, increase biodiversity, and build resilience plots for cultivation. Conflicts can and do arise between cultivation and nature.  With careful thought, these can be reduced and avoided.

 

Benefits for the Allotment and Harvest

 

• Natural pest control: Predatory insects (lacewings, ladybirds, and other beetles), amphibians and birds reduce aphids, caterpillars, and slugs, lowering the need for chemical interventions. Hedgehogs and frogs eat snails and slugs, even foxes eat slugs! Other forms of non-chemical pest control are discussed in a couple of articles on this site - Pest Control for common crops blog and Slug and Snail control blog.

• Pollination boost: Bees, wasps, hoverflies, moths, and butterflies improve fruit set and yield in peas, beans, courgettes, and many flowering vegetables. The RHS and the Wildlife Trust have useful information regarding plants that promote and attract pollinators.

• Soil health: Earthworms and other organisms break down organic matter, improving soil structure and nutrient cycling - which means healthier plants and better crops. It is worth considering using a no dig system so that the soil ecosystem is better preserved. This RHS article gives a little more detail.

 

Environmental and Community Advantages

 

• Biodiversity corridors: Allotments link up with parks and gardens to form networks that support species movement and genetic diversity.

• Climate resilience: Diverse ecosystems are better at withstanding pests, diseases, and extreme weather. More plants and wildlife also help cool urban heat islands and manage rainwater.

• Wellbeing: Watching wildlife increases enjoyment and mental wellbeing; our allotments are a great place to unwind and enjoy nature.

 

Practical, Low-Effort Ways to Help

 

• Choose to grow fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers which attract native wildlife.

• If you have sufficient space, you could dig a small pond and leave a small area of longer grass or create a log pile for insects and amphibians. You will need to keep within the Allotment rules and please get consent for a pond from the Council first - email philip.bruce-green@stalbans.gov.uk

• Install a simple bird box and a shallow water dish for drinking and bathing.

• Use organic compost and avoid herbicides and pesticides to keep soil and invertebrates healthy.

• Grow diverse plantings and rotate crops to support different species and reduce pests.

• The RSPB has some useful activities for the benefit of wildlife on this link.

 

A small change on each plot adds up.

 

Promoting and monitoring wildlife on the site as a whole

 

We are also, as a whole allotment site, promoting the natural world.

 

• We have a strategy for maintaining and improving the perimeter of the site for wildlife Click here for more information.

• The butterfly population has been monitored for over 30 years by Malcolm Hull (plot 38). See Malcolm’s report on this link.

• Since 2023 we have been surveying the site for amphibians, insects, spiders, birds, bats, flowering plants, mosses and fungi in the hope that we can show that our efforts to support nature here are increasing biodiversity. We are getting to a point where we have good records of what wildlife can be found on the site. Whenever suitable lengths of time have elapsed since the last survey of an animal or plant group we will invite wildlife experts to return to survey the site again. The records for these surveys are found in the Wildlife Survey blog.

• We will continue our annual bird survey in January, and Malcolm will maintain his butterfly records.

• Everyone is encouraged to record their own wildlife sightings using iRecord or iNaturalist. If you need help, send a photo, date and location to the WhatsApp group and Liz Leicester will record it for you. Liz is also happy to show you how to use the apps.

• Some species, such as rabbits are best kept away from allotments.  Our resident population of foxes helps with this task.  If you ever see a rabbit on the site please report it on our FLAG WhatApp group chat.

 

By promoting wildlife on allotments, we not only nurture our own vegetables but contribute to a healthier, more vibrant urban ecosystem for plotholders and wildlife alike. 🌱🐝🕊️