Allotment Gardens

sunflowers on allotment

Many allotments are under attack from councils and developers wanting to build houses, shops offices and generally concrete over the area. Why is this a bad idea?

There are historical, ecological, community and health reasons why we should be finding more land for allotments and community gardens not trying to squeeze them out of existence.

What is an allotment? Allotments are generally understood to be individual plots cultivated for private use, grouped together on a larger parcel of land. A Community Garden is generally a parcel of land which is cultivated by a group together as a whole plot. Most allotments forbid any permanent structures, for example sheds cannot have a concrete base or be larger than a specified size. There are some differences in the terms used internationally, but we’ll use the above.

allotment beds

Allotments are found in many countries; for example, UK, USA, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Philippines and Malta. These latter two are twenty-first century start-ups. Malta’s aim is to encourage more young people to take up organic farming. In the Philippines the allotments offer a means of growing their own food to poor urban families. The countries with long established allotments often started offering such land as a result of the increasing urbanisation of the population which left them without gardens in which to grow their food. The land itself was donated by private philanthropists and landowners or by local councils, on a leasehold rather than freehold basis.

Historically allotments have played an important role in feeding the various nations. They’re also important in showing how society has progressed at grass roots level (sorry for the pun). When the majority of the population was rural based, there was frequently a productive garden around the home and often an acre or more to provide vegetables and keep chickens and a pig. Well, there was until enclosures of common land from the mid eighteenth century onwards. These days most of us live in towns and have small gardens or balconies and probably not enough time to tend an acre after work; but we could manage to till an allotment.

swiss chard on allotment

Allotments can encourage and support local communities; the majority of plot holders will live within walking or cycling distance so may know each other away from the allotments and are encouraged to get to know each other with regular social events and general conversation when working on their plots. Community gardens can be even better at generating the neighbourly feeling as leisure space as well as productive space is shared.

The health benefits of gardening and being outside are as applicable to allotments as they are to your own private garden. Exercise, fresh air, natural sunlight (vitamin D) and fresh food plus the known advantages of the soil itself, as research has shown that soil micro-organisms could help lift our mood.

Ecologically and environmentally, allotments maintain an important diverse range of plant species and varieties within a species. They are a green space within urban areas, helping to reduce mean temperatures; providing a permeable surface to diminish the effects of water run-off and flooding; and improving air quality as plants take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen.

mixed calendula and brassicas

I think one of the delightful aspects of British allotments is that the parcel of land you are given is measured in ‘rods’. A rod is 5 ½ yards and was quite literally a rod used by surveyors to measure a plot of land; rods were joined together for measuring longer areas. The usual size of an allotment plot is 10 rods or about the size of a doubles tennis court.

The week 5- 11 August is National Allotment Week in Britain, run by the National Allotment Society. Many local allotment groups are having open days – so why not visit an allotment site near to you and see what they get up to? You could put your name down for a plot – or at the very least support allotment sites such as Farm Terrace so they don’t get built on; they are far too precious a resource as they are.

Marie Shallcross

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“In Your Summer Garden with Plews Garden Design” – the newest in our series of Gardening Almanacs makes good reading wherever you are.

sweetcorn on allotment

Molehills, Mountains and the Paralympics

You go to bed with a smooth lawn and wake up to new mountain range in your back garden…why?

Molehills

That’s probably an exaggeration; moles usually take a few days to fully turn your lawn over rather than an overnight job as they tend to be solitary creatures. You may have a family of moles in your garden of course, but look on the positive side: this also means you have lots of worms – mole food – which is a big plus for your soil and therefore your plants.

“Hang spring cleaning” was Mole’s comment at the beginning of Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Graham’s classic children’s novel; but the mole in reality is busy for most of the year. They need to eat roughly 70% of their own bodyweight every 24 hours (which is more than even Plews’ own Nathan consumes) and they eat predominantly worms but also other the larvae of insects like chafer grubs which will decimate your lawn and will even lunch on slugs.

Moles do not eat plant roots. This common myth results from the collateral damage done to the plants by the tunnelling, which disturbs and potentially uproots plants and seedlings in the borders. The small but impressive European mole (Talpa Europea) can shift six kilos of earth in just 20 minutes and tunnel up to 20 metres in a day. So those piles of freshly excavated earth hide a huge underground system. This latter is the real problem as it can literally undermine not only lawns and allotments but also sports fields and canal banks.

On the plus side, once excavated, the tunnels are often used for many generations of mole, so it should be possible to live with your mole; especially if it’s eating those slugs of which we’ve had a population boom this year.  And those molehills with their freshly sifted topsoil are an attractive source of food for insect-hungry birds.

Suddenly our little burrowing pest can be seen in a new, ecofriendly light; helping to control pests in the garden and allotment, and encouraging birds into our gardens. All those tunnels and holes can help aerate your soil too; although the sensible mole prefers to dig in lighter soils rather than heavy clay, where drainage is more of an issue. However, if you don’t want moles in your garden, and you’ve got them, what can you do to discourage them and hopefully send them away?

A few eco-friendly ways to deter these unwanted visitors:-

Helpful teens?

Moles hate noise and vibrations, so encouraging your teenagers to have a party and dance over the tunnels could be one solution. No? Ok, what about beating the back of your spade over the tunnel route? Sonic devices are also a possibility, but we would recommend you contact a Mole Catcher before going down this route, as they’re the experts if you have a real problem.

Moles dislike strong smells so you could try lightly crushing garlic bulbs to release the scent, digging in to a molehill and dropping them into the tunnel. Spraying cayenne pepper into the tunnels is supposed to be even more effective.

Speaking personally, I have been ‘bothered’ by moles and have learned to live with them; I made myself think of the positives and I was lucky that, barring the lawn disruption, it wasn’t a problem.  If anything, the dog digging up the molehill was more of a nuisance! But I can empathise with those, like Jasper Carrot the comedian who had to take extreme measures. (Check out an animated video of his tale of moles on our YouTube channel)

As for me, I’ll be looking out for mole hills in the Paralympics. Why? Because the topically named Mole Valley in Surrey has hosted not only the Olympics cycling, but Sophia Warner, a Mole Valley girl, is competing in the Paralympics sprinting.

If you have a problem with moles, athletes using your garden as a training ground or any other garden queries, why not ask us to organise a ‘Garden Advisory visit’?