What this site collects, why it collects it, and how to get rid of it. Written to be read rather than to be skipped.
Two things collect anything here: the monthly email signup and the contact form. The email list stores your address, your first name if you gave one, and the IP you signed up from. The contact form stores nothing on the site. There is no advertising tracking of any kind.
The Simple Allotment is a personal gardening site written and run by one person in the United Kingdom. There is no company behind it and no team. For data protection purposes that person is the data controller.
The quickest way to reach them about anything on this page, including a request to delete your details, is the contact form. A postal address is available on request if you need one for a formal request.
Everything this site holds about anybody is in this table. There is nothing else.
| Where it comes from | What is stored | Why | How long it is kept |
|---|---|---|---|
| The monthly email signup | Your email address, your first name if you typed one, the IP address you signed up from and the date and time | To send you the monthly email, and to show that you asked for it | Until you unsubscribe. Removed within 30 days of that |
| Opens and clicks in that email | Whether an email was opened and which links were clicked | To work out which subjects are worth writing about | Rolling 24 months |
| The contact form | Your name, email address and message | To read your message and reply to it | The message arrives as an email and is kept in an inbox. Nothing is saved on the site itself |
| Comments, once posts exist | Name, email address, website if given, IP address and browser string | To publish the comment and to filter spam | Until you ask for it to be removed |
| Web server logs | IP address, browser, the page requested and the time | Security and fault finding. These are made and kept by the hosting company, not by this site | Kept to the host schedule, normally weeks rather than years |
No data is sold, rented, or passed to anybody for marketing. Ever.
The signup form appears at the bottom of most pages. It is run by MailPoet, which stores the list inside this site rather than on somebody else s servers.
One email a month, about what to do on a half plot in the month ahead. That is the whole thing. No sequences, no sales funnels, no third party offers.
Consent. You typed your address into a form and pressed a button, and that is the only reason anything is sent. Under the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, marketing email needs that consent, which is why the IP and timestamp are recorded alongside your address.
Every email carries an unsubscribe link at the bottom, and it works immediately. If you would rather not wait for the next email, ask through the contact form and it will be done by hand.
Unsubscribing stops the email but leaves a record that you were once on the list. If you want the record gone as well, say so and it will be removed completely.
The form on the contact page sends your name, email address and message straight to an inbox as an email. It is not saved into the site database, it is not added to the monthly email list, and it is not passed to anybody.
The form does briefly store one thing: a short lived note that a message was sent from your connection, which stops the same form being submitted over and over by a bot. It holds no personal details and disappears after five minutes.
Small ones, and only the sort that make the site work. There is no advertising network here, no Google Analytics, no Facebook pixel and nothing that follows you to other sites.
| Cookie | Set by | What it does | How long it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| _lscache_vary | LiteSpeed Cache | Works out which cached version of a page to serve you | The browser session |
| mailpoet_page_view | MailPoet | Notes the last page a subscriber looked at | One year |
| wordpress_test_cookie | WordPress | Checks whether your browser will accept cookies at all | The browser session |
| comment_author_* | WordPress | Remembers your name and email in the comment box so you do not retype them | One year, and only if you leave a comment |
You can block or delete all of these in your browser settings. The site still works without them, it just forgets you between visits.
Two companies, both because they have to be involved for the site to exist at all.
Hostinger hosts the site and therefore holds the database your email address sits in, along with the server logs. The email delivery service used to actually send the monthly email handles your address at the moment of sending.
Neither is allowed to use your details for anything other than providing that service. Nobody else sees them.
Under UK GDPR you have these rights, and exercising any of them costs nothing and needs no reason.
Ask through the contact form. A reply comes within a month, which is the legal limit, and usually within a few days.
You can complain to the UK regulator at any point, and you do not have to come here first.
Information Commissioner s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Helpline 0303 123 1113.
ico.org.uk
If what the site collects changes, this page changes with it and the date below moves. Nothing new gets collected quietly.
Last updated 16 August 2026.