Celebrate and Share the Harvest

The pandemic has raised the profile for a healthier lifestyle and wellbeing, be it physical and mental exercise or better nutrition, diet and good ‘fresh’ food. Even the fast food outlets have realised that we need more fresh food and that we can’t live on carbs, processed food and heavily sweetened and salted food alone. Consumers have been increasingly wary of sugar and salt levels and supermarkets that have all but destroyed seasonality and wonky food and are now realising that ‘shrinkwrapped and perfect’ 365 x 24 may not be the solution sought by all.

I can still remember my childhood and those bountiful and colourful harvest festivals. Each autumn school halls and church halls were decorated, and everyone brought in their own grown produce of all shapes and sizes to celebrate and share the harvest. We still have Harvest festivals, but we now have less space, and many people have lost or never learnt the skills or had the confidence to grow their own.

Our waiting list, like many others, has exploded over the lockdown period and continues to grow with people wanting to grow, enjoy fresh food and improve their health and wellbeing. There are no quick fixes to meeting this demand, and understanding the true latent demand is an interesting challenge especially in the urban and inner cities.

Allotments today can often produce more than the plot holder’s families can consume. Allotments are not allowed to sell produce to the public and when all the pickling, jam, chutney, freezing and wine opportunities have been exhausted, we often find there are still excesses.

Last week there was a wonderful picture on Social Media of a fantastic harvest of food a plot holder had donated to their local food bank. This is to be commended and it was not for commercial gain. Also last week I discussed opportunities to donate on a site, or even borough basis, with a local church whose parish together with other dominations run a food bank and who this year have been supplying food boxes to those needing direct assistance. Throughout the country, allotments and plot holders have programmes to donate their excess produce to many worthy initiatives and long may this continue and be encouraged.

The question is, can we do it better?

Last year we contributed our site excess plus produce grown at our Canary Wharf allotment to a local kitchen. It’s was not always easy to collect, very unpredictable and obviously has to be delivered ‘fresh’ at the right time. We also had talks about linking the kitchen to another charity that could train youngsters how to prepare and cook the produce.

One challenge we have is that we have such an ethnic mix of cultures that there is often more exotic food than traditional and donating non-traditional food to the wrong audience can be a wasted exercise and visa versa. We spoke to some charities who ran kitchens and they declined food on the basis we could not guarantee supply and more importantly they really wanted was tinned, dry goods more than fresh. This was what both the cooks and clients expected. It is no good presenting someone who desperately needs food with a plate of patti pans, yellow courgettes, mangetout and black potatoes.

So the answers are not simple: there are no one size fits all, and often its also down to the logistics of getting the right produce to the right place, right people and at the right time. Real ‘fresh’ and organic produce often doesn’t have that supermarket extended shelf life.

Perhaps it’s the perfect time for council allotment sites to actively involve local charities and health bodies in their allotments and extend their appreciation of health and wellbeing. After all, allotment benefits are far greater than Parks and Open Space.

The balance of benefits from keeping any initiative local, against extending it to cover a borough or even larger community is an interesting one. Dealing with different ethnic and cultural tastes is another. However we should be cognisant that our allotments are community land and we are privileged to have it and work it, and finding ways to share the harvest with those less fortunate should always be on the agenda.

The Great Plot Divide

Its great to read every day about folk getting their first plot. The enthusiasm and raw desire to get started is clearly conveyed in their postings and brings back memories of when we all got that starter plot. Often overgrown and neglected, full of weeds and with a shed which often was a living tribute to the adhesive properties of gaffer tape and DIY skills, it still a plot. That first plot was for all of us our first step on the ladder to so much.

The time it takes to get a plot varies according to where you live, in some cases plots are waiting to be taken, in others you may have to wait twenty years and still may never get one. Demand varies significantly with metropolitan and inner city plots being the hardest to get. Some say that's life, others something needs to be done, but the disparity between plot rich and plot poor is growing and plot poverty exists even today in our enlightened, environmentally and community world.

Some will say 'so what' and we don't have a problem and ignore the high waiting lists and latent demand that exists in some areas. It's no longer acceptable to view allotments in isolation and growing food is becoming a need that allotments alone can't solve.

Allotments were created and enshrined in law because the social economic and community benefits were seen and the need to give a better life, nutrition and escape for many caught in the squalor on the poor industrial areas of the late 19th century or working in rural areas with little or no space within the land hierarchy of the day.

So what about today?

At least four application every week are added to our already long waiting list. They ask, 'How long do I have to wait?'

You have to respond that you can't say and that the current top of the list has waited four years, but its impossible to predict because there are so many factors and virtually all are outside your control. The one certainty is that many will never see that starter plot and those that do will have had to wait a very long time.

Still they want to be in the list.

The only other waiting list that springs to mind that is similar in length is for social housing and again there is huge variance between different locations and again metropolitan and inner cities have the longest lists.

Interestingly and not to be overlooked, allotments are often the only place where diverse cultures and ethnic backgrounds, together with a wide range of ages and social backgrounds, all mix together with a common interest and love of growing. This in itself demonstrates what a great social leveller and integrator allotment growing is today.

Can anything be done or is it just a sign of the times and down to the multiple demands for and availability of land?

Some are against cutting plot sizes down, which is a nice luxury to support and easily in plot rich low waiting list areas, but is it supportable in plot poor high waiting list areas? Like many urban and metropolitan sites our full plots are not 250 square metres but 100 square metres maximum and 10% of our plots are half that and our waiting list is over 200% oversubscribed today.

There is little hope of any new open space, the competition for civic open space is acute and we have to do things differently and work differently and not ignore those waiting but embrace them and find ways of involving them or getting them gardening. Perhaps we have to look at different forms of membership, working with other groups and unlocking this great demand and not ignore it. A helping the local authorities and planners to think holistically at the issue.

Some have said community gardens are not allotments and nothing to do with allotments. The spaces used are often temporary and open to all. I say this is both naive and disingenuous to those who just want to grow. Perhaps we need to help embrace community gardening and work with others to create a new community model.

Some say that they wish they could organise transport and bring the long waiting lists for some areas to areas with little or no waiting lists. This fails to recognise that allotments and communities are joined at the hip and the close proximity of allotments to housing is key and 'busing' folk to land breaks that important connection.

The solutions, the initiatives, the awareness and changing or starting to address plot poverty will be different for different areas. If we try to find ways to engage with and involve the waiting list the rewards could be significant for all. Can we afford to turn our back on the issue in some resignation  that we

are ok and its someone else's problem. We must end this inward looking perspective otherwise we are in danger of loosing the very essence of why allotments were enshrine and protected in statute.

Let's work at at least reducing plot poverty and closing the divide between plot rich and plot poor. 

Do All Allotments Have the Same Opportunities and Challenges?

The current pandemic has given so many allotment holders up and down the country, exercise, sanctuary, social friendship and interaction and some fresh produce if lucky within a lockdown void and also demonstrated the value of allotments within the community.

As we all grapple with the social and economic impact and the route back to some sort of normality outside the allotments, we all know things will be different tomorrow. It is therefore vital that allotments are fully supported, and their role within the growing, health and welfare and educational infrastructure is acknowledged further and strengthened.

The public purse and resources will be under increasing pressure and it is hard to predict the implications this will have on allotments tomorrow. Many allotments are managed by local authorities but will the resources to do this as before still be available?

Many civic allotments have ‘temporary’ status whilst others have separated themselves from the local authority and are now self-managed, and land leased to them. Is this the future model for others to now follow? The remaining allotments are classed as ‘private allotments’ and outside local authorities and the allotment statute and the future security of these will always be a risk.

Allotments, whether they are statutory, temporary or private should be registered as Asset of Community Value (ACV) under the 2011 statute. This doesn’t secure the future in perpetuity. It doesn’t provide 100% protection in the five years of its terms, but it does grant certain rights to be consulted, bid and more importantly fires a significant shot across development bow. It also forces the allotment body to think hard about what it does, what it gives to the community and its environmental, health and well-being credentials and makes the local authority evaluate and respect these formally.

Today we all use the term allotments and probably have a different picture in our mind what they look like and who uses them. The rural allotment is very different to the urban one which may vary significantly to the metropolitan inner city one. They are all allotments but it’s like we are all looking into the same house through different windows. Some will see a kitchen, others a bedroom and if asked to describe it can only describe what they have seen. However, it’s the same house but viewed from different perspectives.

If we look at our allotment here in the middle of Docklands and Canary Wharf in London, we see allotments sitting in the middle of an urban farm smack next door to the densest residential housing in Western Europe and in Tower Hamlets itself which has the densest housing per square kilometer in all the UK. There are literally thousands of flats all sitting on top of each other reaching up to the sky.

Many of these new boxes have a very small private balcony and communal small manicured grassed area below. No gardens, none or little opportunity to grow anything unless in many cases the plants like wind and high altitudes as some tower blocks are over 50 storeys high.

So how do these tens of thousands of families in this mini Manhattan experience growing, cultivation, the physical and mental health and well-being and fresh natural produce from plot to pot?

The plots we have in many metropolitan sites are called full plots but are often less than half the size enjoyed in many other areas and our half plots …. but they produce sufficient food and are fully utilized.

So, in areas of the country we have relatively short waiting lists, large 250 square metre plots and even folk allowed to have more than one plot. In our area we have often less than 100 square metres, huge waiting lists and no one is allowed a second plot. It’s the same house but from a different perspective.

The question we return to is describing that house in same way and understanding that we are all at different starting points with different opportunities and priorities. We may be diverging in the routes we may each have to take and speed we must travel, but we all share the same aims, enjoyment, community spirit, health and welfare benefits and much more.

This is why a national organization is important and can support local organisations and their initiatives as well as national ones with equal weight and understanding. No site is an island, and almost everything we may wish to do has been done before and if not, some else wishes to do. It is this strength that the National Allotment Society have the potential to bring to all our tables.