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| Allotments are great! | | Just ended a great Bank Holiday Weekend with time each day down on the allotment. Our local primary school has just taken on an allotment and we agreed to water it over 1/2 term ... and our own allotment needed some work too. Then on Bank Holiday Monday we joined some friends for a picnic at another allotment site - wonderful relaxed time of eating good food, some of it picked and eaten 30 seconds later (wonderful radishes and even the first strawberries!). Mind you, the rural summer feel of the allotment felt a little inconguous next to a huge golden-domed Sikh Gurdwara ... but that's London for you!
|  Dave Bookless 26/05/2009 15:08 | |
Yup, we've been busy on our allotment too over this weekend - as have lots of people I think! I think we should call this weekend 'bean bank holiday' because everyone's beans have suddenly arrived on their plots. This weekend we've put in runners, French, borlottis, cannellinis, as well as corn, courgettes, butternut squashes and celeriac - all very satisfying!
| You lucky people. I cannot even get on a waiting list for an allotment. Fortunately we have quite a big garden and it is packed full, but I could always use more! Everytime I finish picking a row of radishes or lettuce I replant or resow. We were just putting the netting around the soft fruit area when we got rained off by a torrential downpour, the rest will have to wait until tomorrow.
| I know what you mean. My mother-in-law has put her name down for an allotment in Portsmouth and she's number 376 on the list! What's encouraging though is to see people around the country finding creative ways of getting land with various community schemes springing up. I'm currently looking at setting up a gardenshare scheme for Chichester and there's another community vegetable garden scheme that I'm involved with too. And yes, yesterday I sowed a couple of rows of rocket and salad leaves on probably the only patch of bare land we've got left on our allotment!
| Landshare is worth giving a go. Visit http://landshare.channel4.com/ and there's a map with listings of people who have land to offer, as well as (rather more) people wanting land to use to grow veggies. For example, the following is listed for the town of Dronfield, where A Rocha has an associated project: Posted by jojo-26 on 04 June 09 "I have quite a large garden which I,m struggling to cope with and so would like to offer my back garden to someone to use for growing vegetables etc.
There is no outside access to water, but arrangements can be made to get water from the house. I am willing to make room one of my sheds for you to store your tools, and you can come as often as you like." visit http://landshare.channel4.com/listings/by/Derbyshire
| The waiting list for allotments is apparently more than 100,000 nationally - people are desperate to grow their own food locally. This weekend we hosted a group from Coventry who wanted to see A Rocha's work in Southall ... and part of what inspired them was looking at urban allotments and how they get people of different generations and cultures together around food. I agree with Bob that Landshare is an excellent way forward where there are long waiting lists.
| Just been sent a good leaflet on "Gardening for God" produced by Devon Churches Green Action. It contains a top 10 tips and a "10 Commandments for Gardeners". It's available for free download at www.exeter.anglican.org/society/ccs-downloads.php
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