Page 46 - ALG Issue 2 2019

Celebrating a
shared harvest
National Allotments Week 2019
From the 12th to 18th August we will once again be celebrating the many benefits of allotment life.
This year the focus is on the ‘Shared Harvest’. Most plotholders share their crops with family and friends; some people take baskets of spuds and green beans in to work for colleagues, and others distribute food to care homes and food banks. To support plotholders and associations who donate to food banks, the Society is preparing a set
of good practice guidelines; if you have been considering this step but do not know where to start, email diane@ nsalg.org.uk for advice.
How many people will your plot benefit during National Allotments Week? We would like to take a snap-shot during the campaign week of how many extra people have benefited from home- grown food. Please SIGN UP to let us know by emailing diane@nsalg.org.
uk and we will send you a reminder email during the week for you to reply
with the numbers of lucky people who have dined on your green beans or courgettes in the weeks around National Allotments Week.
As usual, the Society will also be supporting associations that open their gates for Open Days and Events with a striking poster and publicity via our website and Facebook page. Email natsoc@nsalg.org.uk with details of your event and we will post you 3 A4 posters.
new guy on the plot
At the beginning of this year, I decided to enquire about taking on an allotment in the village.
Being quite new to the village, I didn't know anybody at the allotments, so took a walk
down to see how it was set up. It is only a small allotment site. I spoke to the only guy on site, who was tending his chickens. He told me that a few plots were available and gave me a phone number of the Chairperson of the allotment committee. Phone call made, an invite to view the available plots, and within 3 hours I had an allotment. I was the newest allotment holder for a few years, and the talk of the allotments as the ‘new guy’.
The first three weeks were a lot of hard work every weekend and a few hours after work
on weekdays to get it ready for growing and working on the fruit trees and raspberries left on the plot. The amount of time I spent down there meant I met my allotment plot neighbours.
After a month of working the plot and not having a shed, I was taking a spade, fork, hoe and rake from home in my car each visit, and home again after. I was given an old hoe and rake from one plotholder, an old wheelbarrow from another, and space in a shed on the next plot to keep them in until I can buy my own shed, to save me bringing the tools from home each visit. This plotholder was the old keeper of my plot, who had scaled down their growing area.
As a new allotment holder, the best free
thing I have got from the allotment is the free advice, information and support from the other plotholders. I never realised how good the allotment community can be. My seeds from Grow Your Own magazine and bought from
the local garden centre, started to make my allotment productive with potatoes, onions, cabbages, beetroot and broad beans all picked and eaten. I was offered a second allotment at half price, to extend my growing next year. Again, a lot of work required to get it ready for next year’s growing season, but I love a challenge.
Brian Wright, Bunny, Nottinghamshire
Sharing the joy of gardening
Since 2001 I've been a keen allotmenteer... So keen I've grown far more fruit and veg than I can eat. Friends and neighbours helped, but still I had too much, and the capacity to grow more as my vision for every vacant plot to become productive becomes a reality.
I found a food bank that could distribute fresh fruit and veg if I could deliver it, as they opened their doors to the folks with food vouchers twice a week. As I'm a retired car owner this wasn't difficult to do. I started talking to the people who run the food bank about volunteers to help with the growing. The Centre also provides support for asylum seekers, so they put heads together and offered these people the opportunity to work in my garden, harvesting food and helping develop the land. They take some of the harvest for themselves, some
for the food bank, and some for me. For over a year now there has hardly been a week goes by without half a dozen strong young people coming
to enjoy learning to garden. They bring a multitude of skills... not much English... lots of enthusiasm, and fun.
We take on a vacant plot and cover
it with carpet or black plastic, leave
it for a few weeks, roll up the covers when we can see the growth has died down, remove anything that won't decompose in a few weeks, and level the land. We then cover it back up,
this time with cardboard under the carpets. It will take a good year to kill perennial weeds, after which it is ready to plant. If there is no one wanting to rent this plot out for their own use, we start using it to grow for the food bank or sow a green manure crop; whatever there is time for.
My wonderful asylum seekers are only with me for a few weeks, when they are moved to other cities, but there are always a few more arriving so turnover of people power is swift. I've not really kept count and sometimes I've not even known a helper’s name, but I'm pretty sure that about 100 people have enjoyed this experience... at least half come eight or ten times before leaving Derby. Some come only once. Many share phone numbers with me and keep in touch. They are so glad to give something back to the city that has taken them in, and to socialise outside
the hostel where they have temporary accommodation. They have picked fruit and veg, mended and painted sheds, fixed up gutters and water butts, made ponds safe, cut back brambles and self-set trees, refurbed and painted benches, built raised beds
using timber found on vacant plots, moved soil and wood chips and manure...
We have such a lot of fun.
Anne Jackman
46 Allotment and Leisure Gardener