Page 44 - ALG Issue 3 2020
P. 44

North West
Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire
 REPRESENTATIVE
Mr John Irwin
16 Parkdale Ave, Audenshaw, Manchester M34 5LW
0161 3207779 nw.nsalg@yahoo.co.uk
MENTOR
Vacant
Contact diane@nsalg.org.uk
if interested in volunteering with the Region
  Allotments and Covid19: a case study
My wife Sally and I have had a plot
on Nutgrove Allotments in St Helens since 2006; we do our best to maximise productivity on the plot. Since around 2013 we have submitted annual harvest data to the MyHarvest project based at Sheffield University.
The project investigates food production in allotments and gardens throughout the UK with a view to calculating the potential food productivity of towns and cities. Concern about food sustainability due to future climate change is a key factor behind the project.
As we harvested our crops last season, we certainly had no thought that we would be plunged into a crisis of food availability long before all the year’s harvest had been collected. Although
the cause of the crisis was not the one the project had anticipated, the effect was much the same. With a lockdown imminent in March, many kinds of food became difficult or impossible to obtain, the pressure on online delivery from shops made means of obtaining food uncertain. Being in my 70s, and therefore vulnerable to the virus, obtaining our food from the allotment rather than from a shop seemed to be the safest option.
Thank goodness for the allotment. We have enough food stored, frozen and preserved in a variety of ways to enable us to keep going until basic essentials such as flour, oil and eggs run out. In reality a friend who keeps hens has kept us supplied with eggs, and in return we pass on vegetables, cakes and custard tarts to him. The produce is simply dropped at the house. As we moved
into May, online delivery of some of the essentials became easier; the last visit we made to a shop was in the middle of March.
The data submitted to MyHarvest shows that for the seasons from 2014-2015
to 2018-2019, our annual harvest of
the crops we weighed ranged from 306 to 481kg, with a mean annual total of 418kg. Not all crops were weighed.
Our three biggest annual producers are Cucurbits (pumpkins, squashes and courgettes), potatoes and onions. The graph below shows their productivity, and how variable crop productivity can be without the use of the pesticides and inorganic fertiliser used by commercial growers.
At the time of writing, early May, we have several kilograms of squashes, onions, and some potatoes, beetroot and parsnip left in store. We are still harvesting leeks planted last year and began to harvest asparagus for the 2020-21 season in April, demonstrating the overlap of harvesting from one season to the next.
The consequence of producing such
a good harvest of vegetables is that
our diet is largely vegetarian with the use of small amounts of meat and fish for variety where necessary. We have accumulated many excellent recipes
for the crops we grow. Very little of the food we harvest is wasted, as over the years we have learnt how best to store our crops. We freeze large quantities
of crops that do not store well, and preserve others in pickles, chutneys and jams.
We have 24 allotments on Nutgrove,
a friend has kept us supplied with eggs, and in return we pass on vegetables
so a simple calculation shows that if
all allotments were as productive as ours, the site would produce around
10 tonnes of food per year. In the context of the present food crisis it shows that a single allotment site can significantly reduce the demand for and competition for food from local shops. This level of productivity, if applied to allotments nationwide, would make
a very significant contribution to food sustainability in the UK.
Mike Edmondson, Nutgrove Allotments
           44 Allotment and Leisure Gardener
Welcome to our new members...
Brook House Drive Allotment
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Lymm Growers
Tawd Valley Allotment Society
9 Individual Members
  























































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