Grow your own

All over Britain are areas of land divided up into sections for individuals to cultivate their own food. A nominal fee is paid to rent one of these sections of land, known as allotments. Allotments have been around since the middle ages. However, the allotments in use today are areas allocated for the Dig for Victory campaign during the war, which were then handed back to the public in the 1950s.

Over the last fifty years interest in allotment cultivation has waned as food became cheaper and more widely available in supermarkets. Just lately there has been a resurgence as people have become more concious of what they eat and where it came from. Indeed, organic gardening is now very popular!

I tried and subsequently failed to start growing my own food on an allotment for a number of reasons. Here's some tips I have learned from my mistakes!

• Pick a site that is just a short walk from home.
• Looking after an allotment is hard work! Start off small with a "5 pole" allotment if you can.
• Only bother starting an allotment if you've got the time and energy. Neglect a site for two to three weeks and the weeds will have taken over!
• Try not to take on a neglected site at the height of summer when weeds and grass will be at their thickest.
• Get a shed or storage container of some sort if you can - transporting your tools to and from the allotment can be rather tedious. Make sure it has a good lock.
• Blog about your allotmenteering adventures. It will give you greater incentive to keep going. Read other peoples blogs too. Visit Jane Perrone's excellent Horticultural. There's plenty of links to other allotment blogs from her site too.
• Join the HDRA, the organisation that is dedicated to the research and promotion of organic food. They have a library of factsheets available online and through the post.

My allotment was too far from home, 20 poles in size and seemed like an endless task. I had no shed, and rarely had the time to visit and continue the work. I spent three weeks doing some quality clearing and digging but had only got through a fifth of the summer weeds. Needless to say, I soon gave up.

If you're thinking of giving it a go, I say all the best to you, and I hope you get some great results. For more information, try visiting these other essential sites by clicking here, here and here.

caldini