Allotment sites and community gardens run on cooperation. Plot holders swap seedlings, warn each other about blight, organise the shared water rota and decide who gets the spare compost. A Telegram group makes all of that easier, until spam and scam offers start crowding out the useful messages.

This is a practical setup for a garden committee or whoever ended up as the group's admin.

Disclosure: published by the makers of 虾宝 (Xiabao), a Telegram bot that filters ads and scams. Group owners use it free of charge.

Problems specific to garden groups

Rare seed offers. Listings for "blue strawberries" or rainbow roses that do not exist, paid in advance and never delivered. Photos are usually edited stock images.

Plot-waiting-list fraud. Messages promising that a small payment gets you a plot sooner. Real committees do not sell places in chat.

Tool-rental deposits. Offers to rent a rotavator or a wood chipper with a deposit sent upfront to someone nobody at the site has met.

General spam. Crypto, betting and adult links posted by bots that found the group through a public link on a noticeboard photo.

Rules for the noticeboard pin

• Fees, deposits and waiting-list questions go only to the committee's named contacts listed in the pin.
• Seed and plant swaps are free or in person. Paid seed sales need a committee OK.
• Tool rentals are arranged face to face at the site.
• Photos of pests and diseases are welcome; links to "miracle cure" products are not.

Keep the pin short and repeat it at the start of each growing season, when new plot holders join.

Joining the group

Ask new members for their plot number or the name of the person who invited them. This works because everyone in a real allotment group has one or the other. Accounts that cannot answer are almost always bots.

Let a bot do the weeding

Committee members are volunteers who check their phones between watering cans. An automated filter clears the bulk junk while they are busy.

Once added as an admin, Xiabao catches junk links and scam offers as they are posted and shows persistent spammers the door. Chat about tomato varieties and slug patrols stays put. The Xiabao setup guide for neighbourhood and volunteer-run groups shows how to add it in a few minutes. Because it is free for group owners, the committee does not need to vote on a spend.

End of season

When the last harvest is in, rotate the invite link, remove inactive accounts that never posted, and archive the seasonal swap threads. The group then starts the next spring clean.