Susan Berger - Allotment Gardening: An Organic Guide for Beginners

Allotment
Gardening

Allotment
Gardening

An Organic Guide for Beginners

Susan Berger

with drawings by Jennifer Johnson

and photographs by Nicola Browne

First published in 2005
by Green Books Ltd
Foxhole, Dartington
Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EB

Reprinted 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

First published in ebook formats 2010

Susan Berger 2005-2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted
or reproduced in any form by any means without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover design by Rick Lawrence
samskara@onetel.com

Illustrations Jennifer Johnson

Photographs Nicola Browne
www.nicolabrowne.co.uk

Text printed on Corona Natural 100% recycled paper

Printed and bound by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
available on request

Print edition ISBN 978 1 903998 54 0
PDF edition ISBN 978 1 907448 22 5
ePub edition ISBN 978 1 907448 23 2

To Tom Hardwick, whose Oxford allotment should
prove the perfect antidote to academic life.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my editor Amanda Cuthbert at Green Books, whose clarity and patience kept me on track and focused just when I needed it most; John Elford, whose enthusiasm and support for the book was there from day one; and Jennifer Johnson for her delightful drawings.

Also Geoff Stokes from the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardens who patiently answered endless queries about allotment rules and regulations, and Jackie Gear at HDRA for her willingness to confirm questions about organic practice.

My thanks too go to Sonia Ashmore, whose abundant allotment inspired me to become an allotment gardener, and I particularly want to thank Karena Batstone, who encouraged me to write the book in the first place, and Charlotte Packer who then kept reminding me that I could do it.

Part One

GETTING STARTED

Introduction

The allotment today is a stress-free oasis offering a chance for the creativity, calm and pleasure that gardening in the fresh air can bringand its cheaper than joining a gym! The aim of this book is to help you get the most from your allotment by making the best use of your time on site. It can be a formidable challenge when you first take it on, especially if your only gardening experience has been to keep a pot of supermarket herbs going for a week or two. But its a satisfying challenge working in the fresh air, placing a tiny seed in the ground and bringing the results to the table a few months later.

Allotment gardening is a fantastic opportunity to grow the sort of food you love to eat, and with this in mind there are some simple recipes in the A-Z lists in Part Two. You need never again spend a fortune on those pre-packed bags of salad leaves: instead you can sow a packet of seeds for the cost of one bag, and be picking leaves twice a week for the whole summer. And potatoes! Those waxy salad potatoes beloved of the French are often the most expensive to buy, and all potatoes are easy to grow. The same can be said for dwarf French beans, red onions, beetroot, Swiss chard, raspberries, sugar snap peas and rocketthe ingredients for a cooks paradise. Imagine sharing a mid-summer supper of tortilla cooked slowly with allotment potatoes and red onions, accompanied by freshly picked salad leaves and Cos lettuce tossed in a garlicky dressing. You may even get a late crop of asparagus to coincide with a bowl of early strawberries. Above all else, you will know that the produce you are eating is as fresh as is humanly possible and entirely free of chemicals.

The produce chosen for the book is based on two considerations. First it is easy to grow, and second it is high in flavour. In the last forty years, multi-nationals have bought up large seed companies within the countries of the European Union. A Common Catalogue makes it illegal for commercial growers to sell any vegetable not on their countrys national list. Seed suppliers stopped producing many extremely flavoursome and pest-resistant old varieties because there was no demand from commercial growers. However, several companies have reintroduced these old varieties for the amateur gardener. They can be found in many of the seed catalogues listed at the back of the book. In 1975 The Henry Doubleday Research Organisation set up the Heritage Seed Library to promote and conserve genetic diversity in vegetable crops. Membership entitles you to six packets of vegetable seeds free annually, plus seed-saving guidelines.

Today we want the least possible chemical intervention in our food and we understand the benefits of fresh air and exercise. These factors may explain the rise in popularity in allotment gardening and reflect the diversity of gardeners renting allotments. On a site in Bristol, retired men and women include an eighty-year-old who has a rent-free plota concession to honour the fact he has been gardening there for over fifty years. Despite having had major heart surgery, he cycles in most days. Other allotment holders on the same site include students, a docker, a university professor, a novelist, a herbalist, shopkeepers, teachers, single parents, families and a huge variety of age groups and nationalities. Ruth, a Polish woman with a long grey plait down to her waist, grows bucketfuls of beetroot. Tom, an Irishman, mostly grows potatoes for his friends and family. Each plot varies in its orderliness. Some are immaculate, a weed-free series of eight raised beds separated by firm paths of compacted earth. Others are more chaotic, but nonetheless productive.

HISTORY

The benefit of growing your own food has long been recognized as a means of improving the quality of peoples lives. In the mid-19th century, people throughout Europe were flocking from country to town to find work in the industrialized areas. Conditions were far from ideal. Overcrowded working and living space combined with poor nutrition resulted in ill health and subsequent unemployment. In 1830 Germany was the first country to set up gardens for the poor, offering a chance of self-sufficiency and physical activity in the open air. Many of the migrants from the country had grown vegetables in the past and were more than willing to get their hands in the soil again. In 1869 Schrebergartens (allotments) were developed in 100 sites throughout Germany. By the 1900s, workers organizations, factory owners and local authorities combined to provide Kleingarten, the first chalet-gardens where families could spend weekends away from the polluted cities. These spread to other parts of Europe, and were known as summerhouse gardens in Holland and garden colonies in Denmark. The Danish model inspired the Swedish allotment movement, which was founded in 1909. This second home culture is prominent throughout Scandinavia today, with many owners growing produce and flowers, and all demonstrating the benefit of time spent in the fresh air.

The history of the British allotment can be traced back to the feudal system and the steady loss of common land from the 16th century onwards. By 1818, 5 million acres of formerly open land had been enclosed by Acts of Parliament, denying those without land any means of growing their own food. As in the rest of Europe, poverty and disease were widespread by the mid-19th century. In an attempt to reduce poverty, and under pressure from a small number of landowners who realized too much common land had been enclosed, the government passed the General Enclosure Act of 1845 to provide field gardens for the labouring poor. The