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Allot of Old Rubbish?

Posted on 06/03/10 | Posted by The Fat Gardener

I first visited an allotment in 1979 – I was 8. I remember being struck by the neat rows of green shapes lining the plots like fat, leafy soldiers on parade. There were also irregular rows of knurled old men bent over, lovingly tending their brassicine armies. Many of these gentlemen were not only producing crops for their own table, but also for friends and relatives. The thing that stayed with me for many years however, were the wonderful Heath Robinson contraptions that had been constructed by these allotment generals; yogurt pot seed scatterers, mechanical wind powered bird scarers, tractor tyres used to raise carrots out of the range of the hated eponymous fly, refuse sacks used as potato planters, plumbing pipes to frame fruit cages, old beer glasses used as mini individual cloches and even a bicycle driven irrigation system!

The above is not designed to be the nostalgic ramblings of a bitter, fat, balding gardener on the verge of his forties, but more an exercise in contrast to the current explosion in demand for allotments.

This week the gardening world heard the extremely sad news of the passing of Geoff Stokes, the general secretary of The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners and tireless campaigner for allotment gardening. I spoke to Geoff many times on the telephone and there was little he didn’t know about allotments, including the very complicated area of allotment law/legislation, on which he was an expert.

Ever since the late 1500s the British poor were allowed to grow vegetables on allotments near their tenanted cottages. By the Enclosure acts of the mid 1800s, over two thousand acres were already marked as ‘field gardens’, again to produce food for the poor. The Allotment Acts of 1887 and 1908 put into law the responsibility of provision of allotments by councils for their own citizens. Since the high point of 1943 where there were 1,400,000 plots the number of British allotments has dwindled to the 1996 figure of 297,000 (although this will have almost certainly dropped again during the last decade).

With the roots of allotmenteering deeply buried in providing cheap soil to those with limited funds and no land, I wonder how today’s middle class ‘allotment land grab’ would strike the pioneers of the original allotment legislation. Ealing Council’s own report of April 2008 showed that over 50% of new plot holders fail within the first 12 months and yet there is an allotment waiting list of approximately 300 people each having to wait about 18 months before a new plot becomes available. Similarly, in December 2008 Woking Borough Council had 769 plots with 153 people on waiting lists. Have we yet reached the point where fundamental questions need to be asked about who qualifies for an allotment plot? Should families be given priority? Or perhaps the retired? Or unemployed? Should they be for people with no gardens (as was originally intended)? Or means tested? Are the plots too big? Or too small? Are allotments still a sanctuary for working men, brow-beaten by their demanding jobs and families?

With well intentioned suburban families now embracing the ‘grow your own’ explosion, are we seeing a shift in allotment culture from those original working class heroes with their ‘make do and mend’ philosophy to a media inspired, shinier sort of plot holder? Will my son’s first impressions of allotment gardening be car parks full of 4x4’s and Toyota Prius’, with brightly coloured, Boden clad families quickly transplanting newly delivered Thompson & Morgan ‘plug plants’ between violin lessons and family therapy sessions? Rather than seeing unhygienic cups of tea and greasy bacon sandwiches produced on ancient camping stoves, will my son come to think of ready-cut Waitrose carrot batons, washed down with Daylesford Organic grape juice and maybe an Oatmeal & Manuka Honey Savoury Biscuit (as an after prep school treat) as normal?

The ‘Grow Your Own’ Junta (both media and trade sponsored) have told us that many of the problems of life (obesity, healthy eating, children’s concentration, family cohesiveness, horticultural education, community spirit, etc) can all be improved by growing veg. I am sure that this ‘trend’ has helped to fuel the massive increase in allotment waiting lists with no consideration being given to those who have limited incomes and no garden.

The thing that upsets me the most though, is the disappearance of the wonderful inventions I saw on the allotment as a boy. When I recently visited an allotment in a Surrey commuter belt town, I was greeted by pressure-treated blond wood raised beds (with decorative corner finials), fruit cages with sweeping peaked roofs and Victorian ‘style’ cold frames – thousands of pounds worth of kitchen gardenalia with half a dozen rows of very ordinary looking vegetables trying to grow in the gaps! An allotment should not be a status symbol, nor should it be a place for the well-off middle classes to ‘do their bit’ for the environment. I think we need to make sure that every plot available is being used to produce good food for someone who really needs it.

You can visit the website of The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners at: www.nsalg.org.uk

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