In today’s environmentally conscious world we have to ask how sustainable is the site? With over 40,000 plots and some 741 sites in London and some 300,000 plots across the UK the ability for allotments to raise the bar on environment is very real. This is one of a series of opportunities to be covered over the coming days and hope that in doing so we stimulate discussion and maybe even action.
6. Too much or too little?
What do you do with the excess produce?
The highlights of the paper, ‘Feeding a city – Leicester as a case study of the importance of
allotments for horticultural production in the UK’, published by Elsevier in
their Science Direct Journal in 2019, highlighted among other findings that:
- Urban agriculture provides important ecosystem services to people living in cities.
- Allotment gardening in 1.5% land within a city provides fresh produce for 3% of population.
- Crop yields achieved by own-growers were similar to commercial crop yields.
Today we have food banks and soup kitchens in many towns and cities and the pandemic has heightened the need for all of us to share with those in need and provide food and meals in the community.
Many allotments are giving their extra produce to these community initiatives, but it’s not easy. Fresh food does not come out of a tap you merely turn and out it pops. It often comes in waves and can be unpredictable, with one-week famine the next feast. Also, fresh food can quickly deteriorate if not use at the right time and Lacks that magic ingredient that extends supermarket shelf life. Finally, what is grown on allotments today is not always what those in need want or in some case know what to do with it.
Against this social need we all see pictures daily, rightly boasting of the size of the vegetables and amount of produce harvested on the allotments. Daily we hear requests asking what to do with too many plums, courgettes, squash, beans, tomatoes etc. Do you store, or do you share?
Is the size of some plots more than today's smaller sized families can consume?
When the allotment sizes were enshrined in statute families were larger, family groups lived in closer proximity and the distance commute and work relocation as we know it today was significantly smaller. Should the rural size be reduced as it has in many urban and inner cities and would this itself reduce the volumes of produce grown to feed a single family?
Is the glut merely the result of issues further up the chain?
This time of year, seed catalogues drop through the
letterbox at an alarming rate. All are brimming over with promotional offers
and stuffed with pages and pages of seeds. Comparing one catalogue to another
can be like comparing margarine to butter, you may spot the difference, but
does it really matter? This mass marketing of seeds and plug plants wets the appetite
and before you know it you are in receipt of a jiffy bag full of packets of
seeds. Hands up who only buy what they need and rarely have any hidden stashes
of unused seeds, which may get used, but are often replaced with new ones?
In essence we buy more than we sow, we sow more than we nurture
and develop, and we harvest in some cases more than we need. So can we change
this wasteful process or are we destined to grow too much in our own little bubbles?
Group purchasing of seeds makes sense both in the scale and economics
and can also in help share experiments of produce one may not normally grow. One
problem is that many have their favourite suppliers, and some may like Dobies,
whilst others like Kings, or Thompson and Morgan and the other plots likes
Browns etc. Seed swaps help and every site could hold a swap and encourage
excess seeds to be swapped. It is amazing to see just how many seeds surface at
a seed swap and we must remember, these were all bought with the intent to grow.
If planned, excess seeds can not only be shared with other plot holders but also
be donated to community projects, schools, care homes etc. This reduces their
costs to all and encourages all to grow.
Do you swap your seeds?
Do you buy as individuals or collectively?
Does your site have a collective seed swap?
Seedlings come next and we all have excess plants. We must often
sow two to ensure we have one plant that is the nature of growing. However,
what do we do with the excess, those seedlings, or young plants we don’t need?
Again, about a month after our seed swap we have a plant
swap and its amazing to watch plants get a second chance, get adopted and
literally walk out the door. This exercise is not just one weekend but continues
with plant boxes by the gates where excess plants can be donated and pick up by
others. Some of my best plants have
come from others this way and again it reduces waste and plants that would have
merely ended up in the compost bins.
This year our site grew some 400 plants to give away. Some
went to our community allotment at Canary Wharf Rooftop garden, some to plot
holders some to the community. Many folk who had sowings had failed or who were
unable to sow or due to the pandemic or to get compost to sow, found our plant swap
and giveaway a saviour.
Excess produce donations are a challenge. Collecting them,
getting it to the right group in time and ensuring it was what they wanted is
not easy. As individuals we can all do something, as allotments we can do a lot
more and as communities of allotments we can make a huge difference to ensure
the consistency of availability and quantity of excess produce.
So what advice do give someone who asks what they can do with their glut?
