GardenLend

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.

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“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/

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 According to yesterday’s Evening Standard, a “Third of all new homes being built on gardens” and the “Number of homes built on gardens doubles in just 10 years“  Given the global environmental, ecological and economic downturn, forthcoming plummeting property prices and the needs of growing plants for food and material use, along with the concomitant reduction in carbon dioxide, this surely seems to be reckless folly of the first order.

It is as though Eddie Izzard’s Anglican Inquisition has started up - “Cake, or death?” - and we have chosen the latter option.  Those voting for such a mass suicide, kindly leave out the rest of us.

Back to our chickens, however.  Given that concreting over what little remaining green space (no, it is not brownfield - that is specious sophistry worthy only of the most cynical) remains is a bad idea, what are we to do about it?  Short of ripping down the new developments (another bad idea, but not without some merit), we can at least stop such further plunder of the limited space that we have and more sensibly use that which remains for the growth and production of fruit, vegetables and flowers.  As such space is, now by definition, somewhat limited and so - short of an agrarian revolution - we must endeavour to use best and most wisely what we still have.

Gardens, communal spaces, balconies, roofs, window boxes and window sills are ideal places for planting things - another given, I think.  For those of us not lucky to have many, much or any of these, there are allotments, the uptake of which is steadily increasing, after the slump during which it seemed that only pre-prepared tasteless mush, irradiated out-of-season forced vegetables and other increasingly expensive “conveniences” were considered acceptable sustenance.

There are, I hear the more observant amongst you collectively cry, still quite a few gaps in the provision and availability of space for horticultural use.  Three solutions spring to mind:

• Join GardenLend.co.uk and either find a frustrated gardener willing to help with your garden, or look for a garden that needs help.  Membership is free and relatively easy to join  There are few restrictions, outside of the usual ones regarding legality, privacy, common sense, taste, decency, good manners and appropriateness.  Donations, however, are gratefully accepted.
• Make greater use of farmers’ markets and similar collective horticultural mercantile activity.  I recently came across the South London food cooperative FareShares who are “a non-profit-making voluntary project that stocks simple unadulterated food (often called wholefoods) and related products. It was set up to relieve hardship among local people by providing good food at affordable prices and in the belief that decent food is a basic necessity for health, regardless of means” and “supports patterns of consumption that promote the causes of social justice and sustainable agriculture and foster awareness of the political and ecological effects of consumer actions.”  If you don’t have something like this near you, why not try to start one?
• Take matters a little more into your own hands, read how David Tracey came up with “Guerrilla Gardening” (available from our shop - we too must make some money somehow) where “modern-day Johnny Appleseeds perform random acts of gardening” and contains tips for effective involvement.  Also available is “On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries” Packed with photographs, anecdotes and sound horticultural advice, it is an irresistible invitation to shoulder your shovel and to join the revolution that is blooming in the world’s shared spaces.
• I know, this is more than 3, just one last plug - “Food for Free” by Richard Mabey is an essential, pocket-sized, forager’s guidebook.  Published by Collins GEM, this ‘Fantastic Feast of Plants and Folklore’ ranks alongside Mrs Beeton and the Enc. Brit. (imho) - no modern home should be without one.

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