Page 40 - ALG Issue 2 2021

Northern
Northumberland, Cumbria and Durham
REPRESENTATIVE
MENTOR
Mike Brannigan
Northern
0191 649 2542 mbrannigan.nas@gmail.com
Life with coronavirus
We are nine months into life with coronavirus. How has this affected us on the allotments?
In April in the wonderful spring of 2020 the allotment felt like a lifeline. There was sunshine and burgeoning life in nature and on the plot. There was useful, meaningful, and enjoyable activity which engendered healing and hope. There was socially distanced interaction plot to plot. How does it all feel in the depths of winter? Are all these benefits still tangible, and where do we go from here?
On a personal level, as a life-long leisure gardener now retired from full-time employment, I have learnt a lot, mostly the value of having a lot of time to garden. It’s beneficial for me personally and beneficial for the plot. I am happy and upbeat, despite the confinement of lockdown, and the allotment is in much better shape as a result of completion of the long-term projects. Having time also meant I started applying thought and planning to what I was growing. On the whole, everything I grew did very much better than usual. This more thoughtful approach has also led me to question why I am growing what I am growing. I realised how bored I am of growing some things and realised that it is not necessary to grow everything every year just because I can.
Having oodles of time also meant that for the first time ever I am not trying to catch up in the winter. My plot has never been so clean and tidy in January. The digging is complete, the greenhouse clean, pots and trays washed, and the seeds and compost ordered. There is nothing to do until the spring. I would actually love to be able to garden as I did in the spring to drive the blues away. Gardening would have been a good antidote to the low feelings engendered by the continued confinement of our lives and the diminution of Christmas. I am reduced to reviewing last year’s activity and planning next year’s, which is fun but not so good as getting my hands in the soil.
Beyond my own allotment activities, I am aware that plotholders have become
used to living with coronavirus. The laminated notices on the site gate about NAS Guidelines got wet and fell off, and although they are still on the site noticeboards, they have not been replaced on the gates. We all know what to do and there is no longer any novelty. Plotholder to plotholder we have functioned well; friendships and individual interactions have continued to flourish. Plotholders are all doing something they care about and are interested in and therefore have some conversation about something other than the virus. Having something else to consider, talk about and plan for stimulates the brain, keeps us cheerful and keeps the pessimistic gloom and monotony of life with coronavirus restrictions at bay.
However, the allotments as a community have diminished. There have been no meetings, no AGM. No medium for ordinary plotholders to catch up on what is happening with the administration
of the site, numbers on the waiting list
or forward plans. There have been no social get-togethers, no Plant Sale with additional tea and cakes or Halloween event. The seed scheme has been diminished to individual responses. These are a real miss. Events such as these were always a reminder that the allotments are more than a collection of plots, they are a community in their own right.
Saddest of all are the absences of friends and fellow plotholders who have underlying health conditions or have been self-isolating and are just not around. Their faces are missed, and their untended and unkempt plots are a reminder of where they gardened.
We have also missed the annual visits from classes from the local schools. Allotments have a relevance for the wider community, and this has not been apparent.
There is no doubt that deriving physical and mental wellbeing from getting back to nature, particularly through growing and gardening, has been one of the outcomes of lockdown. There have also been the issues, thrown
Saddest of all are the absences of friends... Their faces are missed, and their untended and unkempt plots are a reminder of where they gardened
up by the advent of the virus, around needing to respect and protect our natural environment and to grow
food in a way which is harmonious with nature. Allotments have a role
to play here. These issues, together with the wonderful spring, an excess of time and the need to home educate children led to a huge demand for allotments nationally. I am not part
of the management which runs our self-managed site but, as far as I know, there are no vacancies on the site and the waiting list, which was not needed in March, has been reinstated. In the depths of winter when even the most dedicated plotholders are absent it is hard to tell how these new gardeners are doing and whether they will stay the course and be back for another season. I fervently hope they will.
The virus has placed a huge additional load on local authorities. Staff involved with administration of allotments will have found themselves working from home. Site visits would have been curtailed, even if staff had not been seconded to other work related to the management of life with coronavirus. Since the financial crisis of 2008, cuts to local authority budgets have affected all local government services but as a non-essential service, allotments have suffered disproportionately. Living with the virus has not improved this situation and allotments may well be at the back of the queue when thought is given to Life Post Virus.
40 Allotment and Leisure Gardener