Pete Martin, chair of Ambleside Allotments Association, believes that having an allotment brings many benefits

The stereotype of the allotment holder is an older man with baler twine instead of a belt, or maybe real life, earnest, Good Life Tom and Barbara characters. And the site is either a ramshackle collection of sheds or a regimented collection of rows.

In truth, it’s all a bit more varied down on the allotments.

On our site there are plots where straight lines abound and weeds dare not show their leaves, but others where the plot holder dreams of being that ordered, and some where a straight line wouldn’t be recognised if it appeared.

The truth is that there are many different kinds of allotment and allotment holder: young and old, male and female, obsessive and relaxed.

We try to recognise that with a prize each year for the most interesting allotment, rather than the one with the 'best' crops or tidiest features.

This variety, of course, reflects the many different reasons for allotment gardening.

It’s for those people who like exercise outdoors; like good fresh food; like scientific experimentation; want to reduce food miles; like being creative; like community endeavour; like wildlife (a survey last year showed that allotments were the best habitats for bees); like recycling (we've had

wormeries in wardrobes and beds used to make, well, beds); like pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.

Growing sweetcorn 500 feet up in the Lakes? One of our plot holders has shown it’s possible for the last couple of years.

Want to fill your house with sweet peas for five months of the year? It’s possible with very little effort.

Want to be self sufficient in garlic (and keep the vampires from your street)? A couple of hours in November and you've done half the work. The gift relationship thrives as plot holders share seeds, plants and produce. What’s not to like?

Perhaps that’s why growing - and allotment gardening in particular- is so popular these days.

Many sites have waiting lists. But not all. If you’re interested, go and ask at your local site.

Don’t be put off by tales of huge, unmanageable plots: many sites will offer smaller plots or arrange plot shares.

If you haven’t got a local site, then don’t despair. It’s possible to create them: that’s what we did in Ambleside and Grasmere, tapping into a huge amount of goodwill and turning it into growing space with a bit of help from funding bodies.

Other sites and a National Association gave us lots of advice. All it took was a bit of effort to lobby for a site, and patience.

And then there are garden shares and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s Landshare movement that offer other avenues to obtain land.

Each year we hear of sites that are under threat from developers: hard-pressed local authorities and other landowners putting sites on the market. Centuries - in some cases - of hard work improving the soil gone under the bulldozers.

Of course, people need places to live. But the big new developments often only allow for tiny gardens. Perhaps developers should be compelled to produce allotment sites - a certain number of plots for every dozen dwellings in the scheme?

The thing that unifies allotment holders is optimism. Optimism that a piece of land can produce food.

Planning for the long term. When you plant a fruit bush or an asparagus bed (let alone a tree) it’s for longer than a parliament. And plants want to grow. The famous philosopher Bertrand Russell is reputed to have said: “When I talk to a wise man I feel happiness is no longer a possibility. When I talk to my gardener I am convinced of the opposite”. Growing’s good for mental health too!