GardenLend – rescuing neglected gardens

In their own words, “UK Aware is the UK’s only green and ethical lifestyle exhibition … Exhibitors will be showcasing thousands of products and services ranging from cars to computers, from fashion to food and from travel to advice services.” It’s held at London Olympia on 16th and 17th April.

Quite a few of us went last year and it was fun! Loads of interesting exhibitors, a clothes-swapping event and a place to make your own handbag out of recycled materials. Freegle is having a stall this year to help more people to ‘get Freegling’ and we would love to see you there.

We’ve had to pay to book a stall, and we’d hope to recover the costs from ticket sales.

If you buy your ticket from http://freegle.it/UKAware then Freegle will get a portion of the cost and you’ll also only pay about £7 as opposed to £15 on the door.

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The announcement of the four areas to be the nascent Eco-Towns is, for may people, too little, too late and in the wrong place.  The upheaval, maladministration and bureaucracy involved makes the whole prospect quite unlikely to reap benefits for an appreciable period.  Then the results will be analysed, mulled over, reported upon, have money wasted in stated the bleeding obvious about, then reappraised with some potential further action along simlar lines, perhaps, maybe, sometime later.

These eco-towns are, for the most part, away from major centres of population and industry.  On most levels, it would never be noticeable if they were a success as they are effectively being measured in a void.  Unless fully sustainable, the additional impact of transport and provision of services, utilities and goods may well wipe out any benefits accrued.

Why not start nearer to home, if not at home itself?  Most people live in cities; the most populous in the UK being London; the same will apply to all conurbations.  Why not change food miles to food feet by growing your own food.  Your garden would be a starting point; failing that, an allotment.  With the scarcity of municipal land available, why not volunteer to use some council, church or state-owned space that has gone to wrack and ruin?  The LandShare scheme started after GardenLend approached Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to help promote our garden-sharing and home-grown food and flowers message.  The best systems seem to be ones organised on a face-to-face basis, on a local level – how local do you want?  Miles from anywhere?

Have a scout along the road where you live – has someone got a garden that really could do with a make-over?  Offer to help out; it will brighten up the area and help someone else, as well as providing a healthy outlet for pent-up energy – much more fruitful and cheaper than a session at the Gym.  The owner could guide you as to what their dream garden might be, or perhaps you could volunteer a few ideas of your own.  The social benefits, along with the more obvious health and environmental ones, are potentially enormous.  Why not help your neighbour? Just be prepared to lend a hand.

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Counting your food miles

What’s the real environmental impact of your weekly shop? Caspar van Vark reveals the truth about food miles.

An obsession with locally sourced food is sweeping the nation. Restaurant menus boast of the local provenance of their ingredients, while TV chefs remind us that British is best. If we buy a pack of mange tout from Kenya, we do so with a vague sense of shame.

The environmental impact of food miles is now a big issue for shoppers and supermarkets. On the surface, it seems simple.– buying apples from Dorset must be better for the planet than transporting them all the way from New Zealand.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=101544638307&h=9PmLk&u=wCrMl&ref=mf

Counting your food feet

Why not turn over your garden – or your neighbour’s garden if you don’t have one of your own – to food production? Negligible food miles, plus social, health & environmental benefits all round!

More at http://find.GardenLend.co.uk

“food feet” is possibly hereby used for the first time to illustrate the possibility of growing food in your garden or in one nearby and its authorship is claimed by Ian Springham for and on behalf of GardenLend.co.uk

Any questions, drop us a line: info@gardenlend.co.uk

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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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Good news from the “Coupar Angus Bulletin” for the residents of Coupar Angus, Ardler and Bendochy
www.coupar-angus.org Issue 42 April 2009

“As reported in the March issue of the Bulletin, some 19 folk have to date expressed an interest in having an
allotment in Coupar Angus in response to the joint campaign by CART and the Community Council.
In response to specific proposals from CART and the Community Council, Perth and Kinross Council agreed to a meeting to consider the initiative, which was held on 6th March. Although we were hopeful of a positive response, regrettably the Council is not able to consider the release of land in their ownership or provide direct assistance for the community to acquire a site for development as allotments at this time.
The Council did, at least, commit to including the demand for allotments in Coupar Angus as part of a Greenspace Strategy across the whole of Perth & Kinross to be developed next year.
As a result CART and the Community Council have decided to put on hold allotments development until next year. We are, however, looking into developing a Garden Lend Scheme.”

http://www.coupar-angus.org/bulletinpdf/cabapr09.pdf

The Coupar Angus Regeneration Trust (CART) is a working community regeneration organisation which was constituted in 1999, the purposes of the Trust are for the regeneration of urban and rural areas in and around Coupar Angus and the nearby villages of Ardler and Bendochy, where there is social and economic deprivation … In short, the aim of CART is to make Coupar Angus a better place to live and work.

What eminently sensible and worthwhile objectives.  Why doesn’t every area have such far-sighted representatives?  More importantly, what is stopping anyone else from following such a lead?

Please contact me at info@GardenLend.co.uk if you would like to have your local area represented more closely than on a regional level within the members’ area

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The Wandle Residents Conference 09 (FUN – Friendly, Understanding, Neighbour) was held on 25th April 2009 at the Croydon Park Hotel, Croydon. The introductions went off well enough, followed by the guest speaker, Maria Arpa from Wandsworth Mediation Service and Centre for Peaceful Solutions, giving an affirming speech on “Building Communities – it starts with ME.”  This was followed by morning workshops on:

• Understanding conflict and changing behaviour
• Interactive voting
• Practical DIY
• Leaseholders

Lunch followed, along with a chance to mingle and explore other activities on offer, which included:

• Healthy living and money-saving tips
• Head and neck massage sessions
• Face-painting and balloon modelling (for children released from the creche)
• Meeting and informal chats with Wandle’s directors
• Meeting resident candidates for the Board *

Afternoon workshops covered:

• Why do people fight?
• What are your housing options?
• Gardening workshop
• Saving energy, money and the planet

This last workshop on sustainable homes, headed by Waheed Chaker, was of greatest interest.  Along with tips for saving money, reducing energy usage and the environmental impact of one’s daily actions, we brought up the topic of GardenLend and the potential for matching up frustrated gardeners having no green space with those who are not able to get the most from their gardens.  To this end, as it says on the lid, a forum (well, two actually) was born for Wandle residents and Leaseholders in search of gardens and gardeners:

Gardens Wanted ‹ Greater London ‹ Wandle and

Gardeners Wanted ‹ Greater London ‹ Wandle

What could be easier?

We hope to be included in a forthcoming Wandle newsletter – watch this space … !

Should you want to get your Housing Association or Landlord involved in such a simple – yet effective – scheme to bring communities together, grow fruit, vegetables and flowers whilst helping save the planet, please get in touch with them and with us and we will do our best to facilitate your needs.  Just email ian@gardenlend.co.uk

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* Of the candidates, Abdul Basit (South West Area) was most impressive, with a background in public service, mediation, arbitration, and voluntary work with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association.  His traditional values and desire to help bring communities together is both obvious and tireless and he will be – in our opinion – an asset to the Board.

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One of our most recent requests from a fellow member of MAGA*

Gardener wanted to mind garden for six months – SW20

• very local (120 metres from the MAGA* shop)
• no lawn – lots of low-maintenance shrubs
• Nominally 4 hours a month
• use of greenhouse to end of year
• free seeds
• will pay sensible rate

Please contact Richard Davies on 07787 127506 or via email on < r.davies@ndy.com >.

Please reply soon – I leave on the 4th May 2009!

(I’m not giving up gardening! I’m spending six months on a bicycle, travelling from London to China!)

* MAGA: Merton Allotments and Gardens Association

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The “Land Share” listings pages have gone live, according to the email I received this morning:

http://landshare.channel4.com/

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Now’s the time to get out into your garden. Crooks have the same intention too. So South Yorkshire Police have issued a leaflet helping gardeners protect against crime.

Historically, around this time of the year many police forces state that garden crime increases, some blaming the car boot sales for the increase of shed burglary or theft of gardening equipment. However crime statistics from the last three years in South Yorkshire show that January is the month during which most garden-related crime is committed.

So South Yorkshire Police have created a new colourful leaflet, Rich Pickings,  that offers practical advice on making gardens, garages and sheds more secure. It also offers guidance on the types of prickly plants that can be planted to protect property, along with information on the types of approved security products available and where to purchase them.

The aim of the leaflet is to reassure people that because the warmer weather is drawing nearer it does not mean that garden crime increases. It offers some simple advice on how gardeners can increase security around their homes without necessarily breaking the bank.

Click here to download a copy of GardenWise 2009

From http://www.crp-news.com/htm/n20090404.216453.htm

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“PEOPLE waiting for allotment plots in Formby face a ten-year wait, after an incredible boom in demand.

Statistics obtained by the Formby Times reveal that some 571 people are waiting for one of 310 plots in five council-owned allotments in the borough.

Formby Allotment Association sites in Altcar Road and Hoggs Hill, which have a combined total of 58 plots, have a 74-name waiting list.

“People are more aware of organic food and there’s a big demand from people wanting to grow their own produce.

Sefton Council is to produce an Allotment Strategy to examine ways to deal with the increase in demand.”

Abstracted from http://www.formbytimes.co.uk/news/formby-news/2009/02/11/allotment-plots-in-formby-mean-a-ten-year-wait-66401-22898565/

One idea springs to mind – garden sharing, as pioneered by GardenLend.co.uk To join, just go to http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/ or the North West section specifically at Board index ‹ Gardens Wanted ‹ North West and post a request.

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