When Plotters Meet is a study of Edinburgh's allotments over the last 80 years or so, written by American student Caitlin Desilvey, for an MSc in geography at Edinburgh University.

Here are some extracts from the preface to whet your appetite for all of Caitlin's thesis:

"Susan Burns introduced me to my dock and thistle-choked allotment on a damp Saturday morning in September 2000. 'it's yours,' she said, 'if you want it'.

The next weekend I clipped grass, turned up lost potatoes, and fastened a lock on the battered shed. Eleven months later, I harvest the fruits of the year's labour and wait for my cucumbers to ripen. This thesis is the harvest of a parallel plot I have also been cultivating over the past year, a plot defined by scholarly digging and sifting. Although my muddy fingerprints are not on these pages, my peripheral allotment experience helped me breathe life into the archival material I consider here.

When I write, I need only look as far as my allotment neighbours to remind me how complex and idiosyncratic a cultural landscape can be. A collective of young idealists grows organic potatoes and onions in the plot to my north. In the far corner, old school plotholders John and George grow their vegetables in a linear 'field system'...... On my southern edge, Lynda's low maintenance plot produces broccoli and raspberries for her young family. Across the path, Ron (inspired by the islanders who bought Eigg) dreams about buying 'our' land back from the developers who are threatening to plant houses on our plots....

I uncovered the history of Edinburgh's allotments to present it to contemporary campaigners in a form they could use - in their negotiations with the local authority, in presentations to the Scottish Parliament, and in their reflexive explanations of what they do and why they do it. In exchange they shared their networks, their plots and their stories. This thesis grew out of those reciprocal relationships. I offer it, with gratitude to all of the allotment holders who trusted me to tell the 'proper history...'"

Read it here.