GardenLend – rescuing neglected gardens

Organic food is no healthier than ordinary food, a large independent review has concluded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8174482.stm

It may have no more or fewer nutrients that the processed equivalents, but organically produced food has a lesser, if not positive, environmental impact and – especially if you GIY (grow it yourself) – converts the equation from “food miles” to “food feet”.

If you have not got your own garden to grow fruit and vegetables, why not ask your neighbour if you may share theirs?

What do our readers think?

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My allotment borders on two others that are archetypal “modern” allotments – raised beds with wooden borders, bark paths – devoted almost obsessionally with neat and tidy vegetable production.  No weed, wild flower, nettle or bramble, dares raise its ugly head.

I find this quite disturbing.  My allotment is run on a much freer basis.  I have fallow beds every year where wild grasses and flowers grow, and I have a border-come-hedgerow of brambles and nettles.  I consistently have better crops than my neighbours, and my wilderness sections are alive with bees, birds and insects, busy getting on with their lives alongside mine.

I’ve had two warnings about my “unruliness” from the council, but, considering the fragile ecosystem we’re all trying to maintain as responsible inhabitors of this planet, I feel I’m doing the right thing, because, without our widlife colleagues, we’d have sparse pickings in the food department and a lot more pests to battle against.  I’d be interested to hear what other allotment holders think on the subject.

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Which is nice and shows our monarch ‘mucking in’ to some degree – which can only be a good thing.

This does raise the question for us lesser folk who do not have a spare palace or castle to turn over to the land: what can we do?

Following Her Majesty’s example, looking out directly around our various estates, there is quite a bit of green space that is not really doing anything, not even just looking pretty and providing relaxation and solace – ripe for agricultural development.  Step 2 is the really cunning bit: if it is not in your gift to just march in and plant whatever you like, just ask the owner or person entrusted with looking after the said plot if it would be alright to plant some fruit & veg, tend the land and share in the bounty.

This has been the ethos set forth by GardenLend since its inception in 2006: keep it local, personal and sustainable.  If you are still stuck for somewhere to plant, tend and till, then why not join GardenLend and post a message on the boards saying for what you are looking and where you are based?  Similarly, should you have the odd county, field or patch of garden that could do with becoming more productive, why not sign up and post your request for serfs to till the land frustrated gardeners to transform it into a horticultural Paradise?

You will help save the planet, save yourselves a fortune and follow a Royal example.  What could be better?

Full story at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8098799.stm

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The London Paper has a fascinating article on where to plant if you do not have a garden.  Places suggested include: balconies, window boxes, rooftops and (hence the bad pun) Wellingtons.  Read the full story at:

http://www.thelondonpaper.com/cs/Satellite/london/eat/article/1157160556234?packedargs=suffix%3DArticleController

Another method that springs to mind is to ask your friends and neighbours if they have garden space that they would let you turn over to horticultural use.  You could even go so far as to join GardenLend, one of the longest established land and garden sharing schemes.

Please join at http://find.GardenLend.co.uk

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“An influx of allotment applicants has prompted Frome Town Council to appeal for residents with large or derelict gardens to come forward.

Around 80 people are on the waiting list for a plot in one of the seven sites in Frome, and now the council is considering a number of new ideas to help these people gain a pitch.

The council, which now owns all the sites, has already been sub-dividing a few of the larger 115 plots, and has been looking at buying and renting new sites in the town.

But so far this has proved fruitless.”

From http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Frome-goes-crazy-allotments/article-768935-detail/article.html

My suggestion would be to look towards neglected and underused gardens with a view to asking the owners if they would like to share them with the burgeoning number of allotment growers.  This would provide numerous additional social and personal benefits, leading to greater social cohesion, along with fruit, vegetables and a better quality of life all round.  What will the good Burghers of Frome decide? You’ll have to read the article at http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/news/Frome-goes-crazy-allotments/article-768935-detail/article.html

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Cyclist Leela O’Deal was given her job by British Waterways of scouting out for places along London’s canals, including the Grand Union, which can be turned into allotments.

She said: “Even in central London we have plans for mooring unused barges filled with earth, for people to come along and manage them as allotments.

“My job is to help make more use of some derelict pieces of rough land as well. There are little patches even a few square metres that can grow vegetables, quite near very built-up areas.

“We’re appealing to people to get together, and offer to run these places.”

Ms O’Deal’s job was sparked after British Waterways agreed to help London Mayor Boris Johnson fulfill a target of finding 2012 new allotments in London by the year 2012. There is currently a huge waiting list for plots in areas such as Fulham allotments, in Bishop’s Road.

Chimney sweep Fenton Willis, who has a barge called St Florian and lives on west London’s waterways, revealed what rich land can lie behind banks of canalside scrub and grass.

“The wages of canal workers used to be at starvation level, and they grew their own food here to survive. This is just the sort of land that can be added to the idea of the floating gardens.

“Anything that makes our canals better known is brilliant. The more people know the more they’ll fight in the long term to keep this wonderful slice of history.”

Excerpted from:http://www.londoninformer.co.uk/london-news/london-local-news/2009/03/09/grand-union-canal-team-looks-for-allotment-land-113489-23098836/

Just think of all the gardens than back onto the Canal and towpaths that could be more productively used.  If you either have such a garden and would like it turned over to fruit and vegetable production or would like to volunteer your services and helping in such growth, please sign up and post your emssage at http://find.gardenlend.co.uk

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“Town fails to find allotment site.
A Somerset council has lost its chance to spend £10,000 of lottery money to buy land for allotments after failing to find a suitable plot” according to the BBC at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/7930123.stm

Looking from above through Google Maps at http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&sll=51.054371,-2.730575&z=15 the area seems surrounded by green stuff which farmers seem reluctant to turn over to useful local food production.

Two solutions spring to mind: (1) Guerrilla Gardening on the ample fertile land belonging to others and (2) sharing gardens for more productive horticulture.  The former has several failings and shortcomings, highlighted in earlier posts.

Those with gardens (of whom there appear to be several, from my aerial investigations) who are unable to plant fruit and vegetables could allow their neighbours to do so, sharing in the harvest, whilst those with green fingers and no space could offer to tend the gardens of those closest to them – their friends, family and neighbours.

The social benefits of sharing such resources are enormous: providing care, security, involvement, empowerment and increased sense of community in increasingly difficult times.  This would be a series of private arrangements between individuals, not beset by the bureaucratic bungling of their inept local authority that seem only capable of wasting and losing money and opportunity.

If Somerton Town Council – and all others, by extension – supported a scheme such as GardenLend they would not have to waste their time, effort and rate-payers’ money in the search for cheap land to allot when there is already so much of it available far closer to home.

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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

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Well, now that summer is well and truly upon us, as evinced by the appalling weather, all thoughts of global warming, imminent environment and economic disaster and who is doing what to whom on Big EastOaksDale Street are far from our febrile imaginings and we return once again to the thorny subject of growing food and the even thornier issue of controlling weeds.

The battlefield that is the allotment is flourishing: on one side, crowds of courgettes, avalanches of aubergines, kit bags of kale, tonnes of tomatoes, farragoes of French beans, regiments of runner beans, plenty of peas, battalions of beetroot, phalanxes of fennel, legions of lettuce and rocket; ranked in opposition are nettle Ninjas, throngs of thistles and encircled by brigades of brambles, all convulsed by Convolvulus. 

Into this maelstrom, I – the brave Ulysses of the piece – must venture, mattock and secateurs at the ready, with only a watering can for reinforcements, and – if I am lucky – a pair of gardening gloves to keep skin and bone together.

Heartened by the weekly broadcasts of Garrison Keillor with the news from Lake Wobegon online at http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/ I survey the allotment, making a note of my foes arrayed against me and the means and methods of overcoming their collective, joint and several baleful influences on my good nature and that of the plot where we grow food.  Immediately, an idea springs to mind: is it possible to eat *all* this stuff – weeds and all?  Hence the first Competition:

Competition #1

Which “weeds” can be eaten, how should they be prepared / cooked and what precautions should be taken to avoid heartburn, indigestion, flared (or drainpipe) ulcers and death?

Competition #2

Shortly after this flash of inspiration, the answers to which might be found in “Food for Free” by Richard Mabey, available from our shop, another question comes to mind: what on earth is that plant?

As you can see from the photo, it is rather larger than a domestic car, although perspective may have something to do with that; a more detailed photograph is available here.  It appeared first a year or so ago and its roots go somewhere down into the very depths of Abaddon, or at least under a neighbouring buried railway sleeper, and so is a bit of a challenge when it comes to removal.  Does anyone have any ideas what it is, if it is edible and – if so – any recipes for it?

Prize(s)

For both competitions, please post answers as comments.  Should either of these questions be satisfactorily resolved, the winner(s) will have a nice, warm glow in the knowledge that they have helped us and our readers find a better use for weeds generally and this Behemoth specifically.  As well as this feeling gained from the philanthropic sharing of horticultural and culinary knowledge, a permanent link will be placed on this site to a (suitable – Editor’s discretion prevails) site or blog of the winner’s choice, as well as the responses being made available on the blog, at which for all to marvel in awe-struck astonishment.

That’s the news from the allotment where all the vegetables are thriving, the weeds are threatened and the what’s-its-name is plain mysterious.  (Apologies G.K.)

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