Idea in a Nutshell

The People's Plot will deliver a project called The Seed Plot, at their community site on Southwestern Allotments.

The People’s Plot is a registered co-operative (Community Benefit Society), established in 2021 to address the desperate need for allotments in the city, enabling locals to join a community plot while on the waiting list and offering an opportunity to participate in a growing space without or before committing to a full allotment site.

Over the last four years, The People's Plot's open volunteer-led group has focussed on two areas: Land and Plot. While they have currently exhausted their energies and capacity on attempting to access a piece of land through Glasgow City Council’s various schemes, The People's Plot have re-focussed on developing their community plot.

Originally an abandoned dumpsite, with issues like flooding, pests, soil contamination, invasive weeds and poor light quality, their plot has been a litmus test for how to grow under trying conditions. With support from Glasgow Allotments Forum’s Allotment Development Awards and Glasgow City Council’s Let’s Get Growing fund, The People's Plot improved their plot significantly in 2023-24, building raised beds, a composting system, a polycrub and a large, natural clay pond.

Following this work, they have expanded their growing space by adopting an adjacent plot. This significantly increases their capacity to grow more plants, support individuals who currently lack access to land for growing and foster community collaboration and collective understanding of local food systems and climate change.

The Seed Plot is a project The People's Plot propose in collaboration with Glasgow Seed Library. Locally adapted vegetable seeds and skills in community plant breeding are needed to build climate resilience in The People's Plot communities. With their plot, they believe they have a challenging environment which is also typical of issues faced by urban growers in Glasgow, and so is ideal for building resilient and diverse populations of plants.

Working with Meg and Rowan at GSL, The People's Plot aim to nurture and harvest seed crops produced as part of a Crowd Breeding initiative. Crowd breeding is a form of citizen-led science, in which communities work collaboratively to breed new crop varieties. The Seed Plot will grow populations of landrace okra and heirloom tomato (in the polycrub) and landrace broad beans and collards (in the new plot area).

The funding will be used for necessary infrastructure: building raised beds using willow, which is both sustainable and resource-efficient, repairing and reskinning a shed to allow for seed drying to take place on site, and some tools and equipment. All labour will be provided in kind by The People’s Plot and Glasgow Seed Library members.

As well as involving the wider community in the practical aspects of the project – from bed building to sowing to harvesting and winnowing – they will host open seed plot days for the public to visit and learn more about the importance of vegetable genetic diversity, what landrace gardening looks like in community settings, and how to create their own diverse seed flocks.

This project will expand The People’s Plot’s growing capacity for the future and serve as a model for community-driven climate action, where knowledge, resources, and skills are shared for the collective benefit of Glasgow’s residents.