ST. THOMAS
ALLOTMENTS ASSOCIATION
PROJECTS
BIODIVERSITY BOOST PROJECT
Alarmed by the lack of pollinating insects and threat to nature generally? We are encouraging all fellow plot-holders to do at least one more thing to encourage and support wildlife on their plots. That may include sowing flowers to provide nectar and pollen, making a small pond, having a compost heap, putting up bird-feeders or having a small log pile as habitat for ground beetles and amphibians. We have a YouTube channel with short, informational content. Check out the videos below. Meanwhile, if anyone is interested in being involved, please get in touch by contacting the STAA on our CONTACT US page.
BIODIVERSITY AUDIT AND BIO-BLITZ
COWICK LANE ALLOTMENTS - 7TH SEPTEMBER 2025
We were lucky enough to have the distinguished naturalist, John Walters with us at the Cowick Lane site. John has been a consultant on TV programmes such as the BBC series David Attenborough’s Wild Isles. He’s also brilliant at communicating his knowledge and expertise. John will led us in an audit of the wildlife that we have on our plots using kit on loan from Devon Wildlife Trust. We had moth-traps out overnight and had a moth expert with us. Plot-holders from many STAA sites came to learn how to carry out a biodiversity audit, taking their knowledge back to their own allotments. Why not check out the gallery below to see what we got up to?
BIODIVERSITY PLANTING
COWICK LANE ALLOTMENTS - 30TH NOVEMBER 2025
The Woodland Trust donated 30 young native hedging plants to Cowick Lane allotments to allow a hedge to be grown by our Trading Shed. It will provide cover, food and nesting places for all sorts of wildlife. The bareroot plants arrived and were planted on 30th November 2025 by an eager team of volunteers, who also transplanted wild flowers into pockets in the long grass in surrounding areas.
BIODIVERSITY ALLOTMENT POND
COWICK LANE ALLOTMENTS - 25TH JANUARY 2025
During a couple of dry hours, volunteers from the site worked with a team from Wales and West Utilities, who have funded the wildlife project. The pond has a dead-hedge around it and, once the chemicals in the water have evaporated and the weather is better, we'll plant native pond and marginal plants. Having a small pond on your plot gives biodiversity a big-boost. Contact us if you would like to make a much-smaller, but no-less-valuable pond. We'll get in touch to talk it through!
YOUR BIODIVERSITY ALLOTMENT POND
STAA ALLOTMENTS - ONGOING
We'd like to feature allotment and garden ponds, with photos submitted by YOU! If you'd like to send us a photo of a pond YOU have made (in a garden or local allotment), please send it to us via the form on our CONTACT page. Similarly, if you'd like more information about building your own pond to aid the biodiversity-cause, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
COMMUNITY POLYTUNNEL
The St. Thomas Allotments Association provides a Community Garden Scheme at a large polytunnel situated at Guys & Hylton allotment in Exeter. This offers small-scale indoor gardening opportunities for the growing of produce and flowers. It is particularly popular with people who find a full - or half-size allotment ground too big for their needs; or who prefer a sheltered, indoor growing area where they can turn up whenever they are free, rather than trying to second-guess unpredictable weather. Given these purposes, members of the Community Garden Scheme do not have to be existing or previous plot-holders at one of the association’s allotments.
In the spring of 2019, following successful fund-raising (including a substantial grant from Exeter Chiefs Foundation - thank you), the committee of St. Thomas Allotments Association allocated funding for refurbishment of the polytunnel. Parts of the structure - principally its outer skin - had degraded over the years. This project, completed in the summer of 2019, has extended the lifespan of the polytunnel, creating a lovely space well into the future. In addition, the structure now harvests rainwater, reducing our impact on the environment.
LOCKDOWN FOOD PROJECT
Guys allotment was involved in planting surplus potatoes on a vacant plot: plot no. 30 (this part of the project became known as ‘The G30 Project’). A test dig at the end of June suggested the crop of ‘first earlies’ planted at the start of the lockdown, were almost ready. Local food charities including FoodCycle at Wonford Community Hall, came to collect the potatoes each week from July until the end of September.
FoodCycle, with a demand for 130 food parcels each week, asked whether other fresh produce could be donated. Word spread, and soon, a wide variety of fresh foods were being dropped off at the collection point each week. Some fruits wouldn’t keep, so Kathy Northcott, one of the originators of the project, and her team of volunteers, set out new plans to make jars of apple sauce and allotment jams, besides growing potatoes and collecting vegetables. In September, Kathy was asked by BBC Radio Devon to talk about the project - which by then had appeared on the Association’s facebook pages every week !
CHARITY WORK
The STAA supports the work of the St Thomas Community Larder and Exeter’s Foodcycle. In recent years, 75kg of freshly dug allotment potatoes were distributed by St Thomas’ Larder. A similar sized potato crop along with fresh fruit and vegetables, and home-made jam and apple sauce from STAA allotments, were distributed by Foodcycle. The projects were led by R.J. and Kathy Northcott.
Our Trading Sheds support local charities by loaning tools to tenants for a small fee which is donated to charity. We do this by selling donated, unwanted gardening equipment, plants and seeds and other fundraising events at our nine sites. Our current charity is Devon Air Ambulance. We also make some of our Community Polytunnel spaces available to local charities.
