Story by Laura Jones of the Evening Leader

“HOMEOWNERS in a Flintshire village are being asked to give up parts of their gardens to meet the soaring demand for allotments … Flintshire county councillor Klaus Armstrong-Braun has backed the idea, saying that local authorities are legally obliged, to provide allotments and also that more urban land should be allocated for ‘agricultural’ use, adding “People using gardens as allotments is a win-win situation.”

from http://www.eveningleader.co.uk/news/Flintshire-councillor-backs-39give-up.4632052.jp#3377934

This is a brilliant idea - one that my wife and I have been expounding for some time.  At the end of June, I contacted the Wrexham Leader in response to the rise in food prices push up demand for Wrexham’s allotments.

Nearly 4 months ago, I said

“According to Matt Sims of the Wrexham Leader, demand is soaring for allotments in Wrexham as rising food prices, growing concerns over food miles and demand for organic produce prompts a new generation to grow their own. http://www.wrexhamleader.co.uk/news/Rising-food-prices-push-up.4219320.jp

The scheme - although online - is locally based and led, based on need and availability.  People wanting garden space to grow fruit and vegetables register their desire so to do, giving brief details of their aims and ambitions.  Others, with gardens that are underused or neglected, post the details of the land they have that could be turned over to more productive use.  Either by browsing the lists or by replying to details posted, the two then contact each other - firstly online - and, should they want to take matters further, arrange the finer details, including share of produce and take matters from there.  Couldn’t be simpler and avoids all the waiting involved with local authorities coming to a decision.

Please register at http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/ucp.php?mode=register and take the first steps towards your green dream.”

Quoted from:
http://blog.gardenlend.co.uk/2008/06/29/rising-food-prices-push-up-demand-for-wrexhams-allotments/

Similar voluntary schemes are taking off in Totnes, parts of London and are being discussed in Transition Towns.  Surely Wrexham is ideally placed to take the lead in Wales?

Will keep you all posted of developments; why not get on to your own council to see if such a scheme would take off in your area?

• Leave a comment... (0)

My daily crawl of the Internet for gardening and garden-sharing schemes finally paid off today; two such schemes outside of GardenLend being launched - in Totnes and The United States of America.

Garden Swap
By Homegrown Evolution(Homegrown Evolution)
Urban gardens are not only fun; they support low-carbon food production, create economic development, inspire healthful eating, build community, create opporunities for education, address watershed health concerns, create productive …
Homegrown Evolution - http://www.homegrownevolution.com/

The Totnes Garden Share Scheme on the BBC
By Rob
Rather than waiting for allotments to be forthcoming, Garden Share is a great way of unlocking land for growers, especially when it is accompanied by the gardening training we are currently runnning. Garden Share is run by TTT with …
Transition Culture - http://transitionculture.org

At last, the penny is starting to drop and people are realising that in these increasingly financially straitened and environmentally perilous times that co-operation is the only sustainable way forward.

Please join GardenLend at http://find.GardenLend.co.uk and help both yourselves and your neighbours grow nutritional, quality foods locally.

The BBC have a video of the Totnes scheme on their site at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7668344.stm and the Totnes scheme is online at http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/gardenshare/home

Now that we can truly said not to be lone voices in the gardening wilderness and that such schemes actually do work, why not join us?  Membership is free and the usual rules of posting apply - basically good manners and respect for each other.  We do also have a shop on the site for all your gardening needs.

Frustrated gardeners and garden owners - now is your chance to take the plunge and to help transform not only your lives but that of those around you and - in time - make for a better planet.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Well, it just goes to show how unaware you can be: I just found out that October 1st was “World Vegetarian Day.”  What a relief that I did not miss out on the whole month.

More info at: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/world-vegetarian-day.html

“What”, I hear you cry, “has this to do with me?”  Well, quite a bit.

A vegetarian diet is good for you because:

• It is healthier - processed foods are just not as good for you
• It takes far more cow food to feed a cow only to eat it than is required to gain the same nutrition by people eating the grain and cereal crop - and cutting out the middle cow from the cycle of birth, exploitation, death, use of dwindling resources and general rumination
• the Bible tells us so; as do most religious texts if you squint at them hard enough with the lights low
• it is far easier to grow plants to eat than to have a cow wandering around your back garden, although possibly not as much fun in the short term

Since the chances of finding someone willing to make garden-space for your errant bovine is limited to the point of extreme unlikelihood, why not instead offer to grow plants, fruits and flowers in their garden?  The garden gets to look better and become productive, you all have a nice warm feeling like you have just eaten the Ready Brek kid and helped save the world and the cow gets to roam freely elsewhere.  All this and the added health benefits thrown in for free.  What are you waiting for - some gun-toting longhorn to rally the sleeping herds?

Another benefit - you can even get to cook and eat the resulting produce.  Some fab recipe books are to be found in our shop.  Please drop by and have a look around.

Thanks for bearing with me, please join GardenLend, if only for the cows …

Ian

• Leave a comment... (0)

A headline inspired by this morning’s “Pearls Before Swine” cartoon by Stephan Pastis.

With world-wide financial meltdown, dwindling everything, too many people and too little space, along with a planet nearing exhaustion, the timeless expression “surely something must be done” springs to mind.

The “HowStuffWorks” web site has a great article on “Victory Gardens“, along with the thought that “Although the U.S. is engaged in a war today, some Americans are turning to victory gardens for economic, not patriotic, reasons.”  Full article at http://home.howstuffworks.com/victory-garden.htm

The site does have a few suggestions for those without gardens: indoors, container and community gardening; all laudable ideas in their own right, but no thought or mention of sharing existing under-used or neglected gardens.  The resurrection of the (sub)urban sharecropper  is surely due?

Meanwhile, the intrepid reporter Gayle Ritchie of Scotland’s “Sunday Mail” has been out and about with Glasgow’s Guerrilla Gardeners to work on a patch of neglected land at the back of Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary. More at http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2008/09/28/gayle-joins-night-garden-guerrillas-in-latest-eco-craze-78057-20756884/

With one journal having to rekindle a long-forgotten siege mentality reminiscent of the “Dunkirk Spirit” and the other passing off people’s desperation to plant and sow as an “Eco-Craze”, until we take a level-headed practical approach to local sustainable food production, the  future does look rather blighted.

Your thoughts and feedback are - as ever - welcomed.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Please let us know your thoughts about GardenLend …

Comments are naturally also welcomed.

This poll is from the members’ site and can be found at:

http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9

Results as they come in can be viewed at:

http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=d&view=viewpoll

Please let us know what you think.

• Leave a comment... (0)

From the Harborough Mail 15th September 2008
http://www.harboroughmail.co.uk/news/39Stay-of-execution39for-allotment-holders.4479046.jp

‘Stay of execution’ for allotment holders  

Summary

“ALLOTMENT holders in Lutterworth have been given a reprieve in their fight to keep their De Verdon Road plots. Harborough District Council was due on Monday to decide whether or not to buy land in Moorbarns Lane as a replacement site for the allotments. The district council has an option to buy the Moorbarns Lane site but this is due to expire on September 20.

Cllr Alistair Swatridge, who was elected leader of Harborough District Council at Monday’s meeting, said: “My personal feeling is that council would be wrong to recommend the purchase of land without first obtaining planning permission.

Cllr Swatridge added that there could be a considerable risk to the authority if the De Verdon Road site failed to earn planning permission.  Other town councillors pointed out that Lutterworth Town Council had not paid its rent for the forthcoming year and allotment holders could be ‘kicked off’ the plot at any time.

Town councillors agreed to defer any more decisions on the allotment until their October meeting.”

A meeting that will occur after the option to buy the Moorbarns Lane site has expired.  Does anyone else spot a fait accompli in preparation?  Is this another example of greed over sustainability or just plain old ineptitude?

With the housing market in free-fall, ripping up prized allotments for ill-advised property development does seem short sighted.  What is wrong with buying up the land in Moorbarns Lane for housing, rather than forcing the allotment holders to start their horticultural efforts from scratch? Apart from the A4303, a school and a lorry park?

Your thoughts, as ever, are gratefully appreciated.

• Leave a comment... (0)

“Want to grow your own organic fruit and veg but don’t have the time? Why not find a neighbour who longs to garden but doesn’t have the space? Tanis Taylor reports on the rise of garden-sharing schemes inThe Guardian Thursday September 4 2008” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/04/ethicalliving.organics

Summary of article

The idea of garden-sharing began in cities, among people who wanted to grow fruit and vegetables to eat but didn’t have the time, space or confidence. Communal gardens cropped up, gardening groups emerged. Fritz Haeg created an edible estate in the front gardens of a Southwark tower block. Projects such as the Tavistock Garden Share Alliance and pilot schemes such as LandFit and Swapaplot paired up unused gardens with the green-fingered. People began to share support and tips at first, then labour, compost, watering duties and harvests. The GroFun (Growing Real Organic Food in Urban Neighbourhoods) project in Bristol encourages members to pitch in on each other’s gardens and, in exchange, can call an “action day” for help in their own garden. Rich Andersen and Valentina Cavallini, self-confessed plant killers, posted an email on the GroFun Yahoo message board for help with their garden. In London, where locals retain a cautious distrust of their neighbours and face greater space constraints, project Food Up Front concentrates on the front garden. “Some 47% of members had never grown food before,” says co-founder Sebastian Mayfield. One neighbour grows potatoes in another’s border; and every Monday and Thursday a group of Streatham volunteers work the garden of an arthritis sufferer - growing tomatoes, brassicas, salad greens such as chard and sorrel, potatoes, cabbage and runner beans, and sharing the crops.

What a relief to find that we are not lone voices in the (urbane) wilderness.  GardenLend.co.uk has been running since 2006, putting forward this very idea.  Now that the idea has been shown to actually work, why not join us and share the benefits?  Please visit http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/ucp.php?mode=register to register.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Shun meat, says UN climate chief

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website Livestock production has a bigger climate impact than transport, the UN believes People should consider eating less meat as a way of combating global warming, says the UN’s top climate scientist. Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening. UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport. (Full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7600005.stm) All of which begs the question: where shall we all plant these vegetables?  Somewhere close to home, further reducing carbon emissions? Answers on a postcard, or at least on a forum - http://join.gardenlend.co.uk/ immediately springs to mind.

• Leave a comment... (0)

“During Soil Association Organic Fortnight, people across Britain will be celebrating all things organic. From 6-21 September, individuals, businesses and communities will be hosting events to raise awareness of the environmental, health and social benefits of organic production. Not only that, but the campaign gives everyone a chance to enjoy organic products from delicious food and drink to beauty and textiles.

The fortnight kicks off with the Soil Association Organic Food Festival, Europe’s largest organic celebration, which takes place in Bristol on 6-7 September. The campaign closes on a high with the Soil Association Scotland’s Organic Food Festival on 20-21 September.”

A fortnight is a laudable idea as a means of kick-starting interest; where do we take it from there?

With rising food prices, garden-grabbing by the unscrupulous or short-sighted and the increasing demand for decreasing public space for allotments, what better to do than to turn over one’s garden to organic food production?

Not a garden owner? Not willing or able to tend your garden?  Why not join GardenLend to find a garden or a gardener?

GardenLend links up neglected gardens and their owners with keen gardeners who have nowhere to garden.  The site has undergone a revamp and we aim to have as much as possible of the services and features available online.

Registering at our members’ area all that it takes to start to solve your problems. We provide the contacts and you take it from there.

By the way, it is free: no membership fees, no joining fees, no obligation to us.  All arrangements are those that you and your fellow members make privately between yourselves.

You can also find garden supplies on our pages and links to sites of interest to gardeners, as well as our shop.

What have you to lose?  A whole world to gain.

http://www.soilassociation.org/organicfortnight

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1064987_residents_in_allotment_battle

http://www.gazetteseries.co.uk/news/3631990.Council_land_could_solve_allotment_shortage/

http://www.loughboroughecho.net/news/loughborough-news/2008/08/28/more-demand-for-allotments-73871-21624198/

• Leave a comment... (0)