Vicky Celebrates 20 Years at 10C

September saw the 20th anniversary of Vicky Fairweather’s tenancy of a South Wootton allotment.

Plot 10C, which stands on land alongside Grimston Road, has been Vicky’s second home since she was just 12.

Vicky’s love of gardening grew as she helped her father, Kelvin, on his allotment. She had had a good idea of how she wanted to develop her own from the beginning, she said.

“I immediately set about digging a pond,” she explained during the celebrations on September 14th. “And I put Shasta daisies and lupins around it”.

The celebrations included a meal prepared by cooking some of Vicky’s produce on site with a friend’s camping stove.

Frogspawn has regularly appeared in the pond in subsequent years and several frogs have been seen.

In the early days, people gave her plants or cuttings. She has a row of small conifers established after she tried various methods to persuade some cuttings from a neighbour’s garden to grow.

“The flower garden came first,” said Vicky, who must have been one of the youngest people to take on an allotment.

Once she had got that settled, she ventured into fruit and vegetables and 10C now has crops of runner beans, cabbages and tomatoes, alongside plum, pear, cherry and apple trees.

Plot 10C, which stands on land alongside Grimston Road, has been Vicky’s second home since she was just 12.

Vicky’s love of gardening grew as she helped her father, Kelvin, on his allotment. She had had a good idea of how she wanted to develop her own from the beginning, she said.

“I immediately set about digging a pond,” she explained during the celebrations on September 14th. “And I put Shasta daisies and lupins around it”.

Frogspawn has regularly appeared in the pond in subsequent years and several frogs have been seen.

In the early days, people gave her plants or cuttings. She has a row of small conifers established after she tried various methods to persuade some cuttings from a neighbour’s garden to grow.

“The flower garden came first,” said Vicky, who must have been one of the youngest people to take on an allotment.

Once she had got that settled, she ventured into fruit and vegetables and 10C now has crops of runner beans, cabbages and tomatoes, alongside plum, pear, cherry and apple trees.

Her produce has gone on to win prizes at King’s Lynn Horticultural Society shows. And after those early years of nurturing plants she has set up her own gardening business.

A second pond was added as someone wanted to rehome some newts, but they never arrived.

Other wildlife is encouraged on site. There is a hedgehog feeding station and bird feeders.

The celebrations included a meal prepared by cooking some of Vicky’s produce on site with a friend’s camping stove.