It’s a Dog’s Life at the Allotments

This article was written before the sad news of the passing of Monty Don's Golden Retriever Nigel this week but i hope reflects the true bond between man and dog.

Clap!

I turn and see Lottie trying to catch a bee in her mouth.

Clap! She misses again as her jaws snap empty and the bee goes off grinning, bored and in search of his forage.

‘I’ll get one, one day,’ mutters Lottie to herself as she flops down onto her pillows on the allotment bench.

Lottie is my seven-year-old whippet and like Monty Don’s two faithful Golden Retrievers Nigel and Nellie, she comes with me every time I go to the allotment. But unlike Monty’s two, Lottie does not wish to follow me aimlessly around the plot and is satisfied snoozing on her bench and quietly keeping watch over me and occasionally waking up to snap at the odd low-flying bee, out stare Freddie fox and his friends or bark to clear off that farm cat.

Unlike Golden Retrievers, whippets and other sight hounds require a good fast run out once a day then sleep, eat, demand love and generally nap. They are like cats in many ways except they don’t have attitude and don’t go out in the dark.

‘If you ever catch a bee it will be painful,’ I suggest.

She ignores my advice, stretches as if practicing some new yoga position which usually involves exposing herself in an un-lady like pose and then starts another nap.

My red breasted friend Robin perches himself on the back of the bench and looks down on Lottie. ‘I bet she isn’t aware that Sidney Squirrel is on the plot,’ he says cocking his tiny head to one side.

‘Leave her be,’ I reply turning to look at the pair of them taking over the bench. ‘She’s already had a lot of excitement to day chasing squirrels on her way here.’

I look over the back of the plot to see Sidney poking around under the climbing rose.

‘Now where did I hide that stash of sunflower seeds?’ he asks himself as he continues to search. He took enough sunflower heads to seed half the Island and already self-seeding sunflowers are coming up all over my plot, next door’s plot and half the plots on the site.

‘I bet she didn’t catch any squirrels,’ offers Robin looking at Lottie.

‘No. I am glad to say she didn’t, but she did come close. There was a Mexican standoff with one and they were some six feet apart and they both froze. They tried to out stared each other. It was if they had never been here before and wondered what to actually do. The squirrel blinked first and scurried left and up a tree before Lottie could get her running shoes back on.’

‘Was she wearing her red coat?’ asked Robin.

‘Of course, that’s why she has it on so they can see her coming,’ I respond, trying to whisper so Lottie can’t hear.

‘I can hear every word you are saying,’ pipes up Lottie hardly stirring and wondering if there is something in what I have said.

‘I could have caught her, but I only chase those that run away,’ Lottie says with a somewhat proud expression now across her face.

‘It’s just a game to you, but what about the squirrel?’ asks Robin.

‘Did you say Sidney is here?’ Lottie asks raising her head off her pillow, quickly changing the subject and looking straight at Robin and then attentively around the plot.

‘Was here,’ responds Robin and with a broad grin and with a wave of his wings flies off.

At this Lottie looks at me, then at her pillows and decides its time for a nap.

‘Tell me when its time to go home. I am hungry,’ she says Lottie shifting both the subject. 

A short while later Lottie adopts a new pose which mimics the ‘downward dog’ yoga pose. She then looks over to me and has a wake up shake. This is like a wake up call to her body and I know I am being to told allotment time is up. I dutifully obey Lottie's request and start to put away my tools and finish my daily allotment chores.

‘Pillows,’ she reminds me as she promptly jumps off her bench.

I pick up the two pillows which are warm to the touch where she has been sleeping and deposit them back in the shed.

On leaving the plot Lottie has a little ritual. First, she nibbles some goose grass as I lock the gate then 20 yards or so later in the same spot as yesterday and the day before, she relieves herself. A further short distance and it’s time for a poo and that means a poo bag collection. It’s as if she knows the dog litter bin is only five yards away and wants to save me having to carry a bag to the next bin or all the way home.

Strange, Lottie can be on the plot all day and never relives herself once, but as soon as she is outside the gate it's time to go. I think I have Lottie ‘Lottie Trained’, or is it she that has me trained? 

Slugging it out on the Plot

We lift the lid on the compost bin to shed light on a diverse army of creatures munching away at yesterday’s input. In among the crowd are slugs and snails who compete with the woodlice, millipedes, worms and others to see who can munch the most.

We all know that a slug is essentially a snail without a house on its back and a mortgage to pay, but what else do we know about these creatures? Many of us focus on their removal and a ‘slug free plot’ but is that possible and what is the size of the slug and snail army we face?

What we must recognise is that slugs are clearly the ‘unseen’ enemy. Some 95% of the population are in fact underground, nibbling away on seeds, roots and laying eggs and unfortunately not taking on the bindweed! An average garden contains around a staggering 20,000 slugs, and cubic metre can contain around 200 alone, or an acre some 392,040 slugs. One individual field slug has the potential to produce about 90,000 grandchildren. These gastropods form the second largest class in the animal kingdom and there are some 30 different varieties in the UK. So they are a formidable army!

Slugs can live live up to 5 years and can lay 20 to 100 eggs a time and 400 to 500 a year. It is easy to see why therefore they continue to attack in waves and a few casualties hardly affects their potential to consume everything before them.  

We know who won the fabled race between the hare and the tortoise but how would the slug fare? We see those slimy trails but how long do they take to cross the average plot? They usually move at a steady pace but can cover 50 yards per hour or 1.3cm per second. So Usain Bolt covers 100 metres in under 10 seconds whilst the slug would take 2 hours, making it one of the slowest creatures on the planet.

We all know their diet which may leave the odd vegetable but is not too discerning and an individual slug can consume around forty times their weight in the space of a day. Now that’s what I call greedy and you never see a catwalk stick model among them.

When not destroying healthy plants, most slugs eat decomposing vegetation, but trying to train them to stick to this diet and leave plants alone is impossible. Some argue that their love of decomposing material makes them a vital part of the ecosystem, others that if they can’t be trained, they remain gardener’s enemy number 1.

They love the dark and dampness so after heavy rainfall and at night you are likely to find more slugs in your garden. So why do some advocate watering the plot last thing at night? They drink water and that in turn gives them that slimy coat and avoids them drying out. They can also stretch to approximately twenty times their length in order to squeeze through gaps.

British gardeners use over 400 billion slug pellets every year and although many alternative solutions exist, an army of slugs still keep coming over the trenches at night. My father in law used to keep a spoon in the garden for hurling slugs catapult style out of the garden but he didn’t realise that you have to hurl them at least 20 metres to ensure that they lose its bearings and are less likely to return. Snails’ homing instincts only cover short distances. However, we forget that slugs are like cave explorers and instead of a rope, they can return via that unique slimy scent trail. I wonder how the ones my father in law ejected found their way home without their trail?

Deterrents include vinegar which removes slug slime and can help if included in slug sprays, copper tape which generates a shock to their system, wood chip, gravel or crushed eggshells, which presents a rough surface they dislike. We all know what salt can do to slugs, so what about a sea salt spray across open ground? Coffee grounds also are said to produce both a hostile surface and pungent smell to the slugs, but I think mine quite like hanging out in the new café culture I have created.

Not only the French like their snails. Non-French predators such as hedgehogs, rodents, some bird species, slow worms, foxes, badgers, violet ground beetles and Devil’s coach horses and other ground beetles also do. But do we really want to encourage rodents onto the plot? I must make a note to speak to Freddie Fox to ask him to increase his pack’s night patrols on my plot. Mind you, I would have to deal with the increased poo deposits.

It’s strange that foxes can eat them but that slugs can cause severe problems for dogs as some slugs carry lungworm, a parasite which affects dogs’ heart-rates and breathing and can even be fatal.

Slugs are also a Dentist’s nightmare in having some 27,000 teeth but when their teeth wear out new rows move forward and replace them, conveyor-belt style. Now why can’t we do that? Their cousin, the sea-based cone snail, is one of the most deadly creatures in the world with a single sting even able to cause death.

So what else may we not know about Slugs?

Well, they avoid strong smelling plants with hairy stems and lavender, rosemary, cranebills or herbaceous plants aren’t on their a la carte menu. But nearly all the vegetables we grow are!

They are almost completely blind and can’t hear anything so navigate life through their sense of smell which they do through their body and they can detect from a few metres away.

They hibernate during winter and are only active when the temperature is above 5°C. After all what’s the point of going out on a forage when it’s cold and there is little to eat.

Finally, there is their slime trail which absorbs water and can be exceedingly difficult to wash off your hands. What is fascinating, well to me anyway, is that this slime contains fibres. I have often wondered how slugs can climb what must appear as daunting as climbing the North face of the Eiger and cannot fall off. It’s down to the fibres. This also enables them to glide over glass shards or even the edge of a razor blade.

The one thing I have learnt is that the invasion of the Slugs is a battle that almost certainly can’t be won, only contained.

Bees and their own Deadly Virus

Today we live in a world that has been paralysed by the Covid19 virus, but are we alone or are other species under equal pandemic attack?

It is estimated one third of the world’s crops depend on pollinators, so bees are a crucial part of the food chain. With loss of their habitat and climate change the Honey Bee is in decline, not just in the UK but globally and it now appears that this is being compounded by a virus attack which is killing their numbers and wiping out whole colonies.

A study published in the respected scientific journal ‘Nature’ has highlighted that Honey Bees are under a threat from a virus called Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus (CBPV). The worker bee first shows signs of hair loss and erratic behaviour becoming somewhat discombobulated, balding and then shunned by his fellow workers before he dies.

Like Covid 19 in humans, the infected bees can carry the virus for up to six days before showing symptoms, raising the chance that they interact with others at forage sites and spread the virus to other colonies. There is no social distancing, no face mask, no glove and sanitiser.  There is also no known treatment for CBPV and beekeepers who suspect they have signs are simply advised to increase the space around the colony to create some ‘social distancing’. The undertaker bees will of course try to remove dead bees from a hive but at some point, like with the Health Service and humans they can be overwhelmed by the quantity of corpses they need to evict and may also succumb to the virus themselves.

Bees are a global farming business with colonies and queens often crossing borders. In the US only 0.7 per cent had CBPV in 2009, but by 2014 it was 16%. Italy experienced a rise from 5 per cent in 2009 to 10 per cent only a year later. China has seen a jump from 9 per cent to 38 per cent. A third of the bee population has been lost over the past decade. The disease has spread across England and Wales in only a decade and is now being reported in Scotland.

Since 2000, one sixth of the England and Wales 230,000 colonies have imported queens and analysis by a team at Newcastle University of Honey Bee imports from 25 countries suggested that the virus was nearly twice as likely to occur in apiaries using imported bees. Data collected from 24,000 beekeepers show that the virus was first recorded in 2007 in Lincolnshire.

Honeybees and Bumble bees are ‘social bees’ and are the best known or recognised bee species today and are the bees that are farmed in apiaries. However, there are some 250 species of bee in the UK with some 90% of bees being ‘solitary’ not ‘social’. Importantly there is little known today on the impact of CBPV on the 250 odd species of Solitary Bees be they mining, mason, cavity, cuckoo or leaf eating bees.

It is sobering to realise what virus attack similarities exist today between man and the bee.  

Below: Pictures of some of the little pollinators at work on the plot this year.

   

     

The BIrds

The one thing that we have gained temporarily from the current lockdown is the sound of silence. Gone is the everyday background noise that constantly invades our lives. Here in the heart of London we can enjoy the birds singing in the late Spring sunshine.

The early morning walk across to the allotments is now filled with the sounds of the many songbirds that live on the Mudchute Park and Farm. We may not be able to distinguish all the various songs and their singers, but Britain certainly has got talent.

The bench on the plot is under a fir tree and today you can hear the pinecones cracking open in the sun. At first you wonder what the noise is as you will have never hear it normally. Then the Goldfinch who is sitting on top breaks into a song. He misses a few notes and does an excellent key change, but it’s a bit on the rock style for me. Robin sits in the middle of the bed with his wings over his ears complaining about the racket and as if he were on the panel of judges he proclaims in his black and red fronted tee shirt and LA tan, ’That’s not singing. Next!’

I never thought of the bird songs competing like some X Factor contest, but many are similar and distinguishing them and naming that artist and the song can be tricky.

We are blessed with Robin, a Song Thrush and Wren. I am sure I can detect the Nightingales distinctive and mixed notes and hammering percussive sounds but it is hard to pin them down when, like an orchestra warming up, they sing at the same time.

Not all birds are blessed with ‘The Voice’. The button is not always pressed, and chairs don’t always turn around. Some birds do not even make the auditions and their talents lay elsewhere. Take the Magpie; his plumage is both distinctive and attractive, but he cannot sing. Like his carrion brothers he rarely ventures onto the plots as they have more business on the farm since we do not service their dietary needs. So thankfully we are sparred their macho squawks.

There are of course the Pigeons. They just waddle around pecking and pretending not to be there but can’t stop cooing on and chattering to each other. A bit like Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough’s Cissy and Ada chattering clutching their handbags, they talk a lot and saying nothing and here there are no punch lines. Their eyes are for ever searching out the next meal and they love their veg and can strip a bed in no time at all. Fortunately, they don’t like performing in front of crowds so if the plots are being worked, they go and find another spot to have their natter.

The Farm has many working birds and occasionally you hear a cockerel making his morning cry. You look at your watch and realise it’s 11am and wonder if he has had a long lay in or missed the early morning alarm call. Hang on, he is the early morning alarm call! Some obviously work harder than others!

‘The Birdman of the Mudchute’ works on the upper plots and like Burt Lancaster in the film he is devoted to feeding the flying minstrels. He probably, unlike me, knows them all by their first names and like Gareth Malone has his own choir and practice times. Now, what will that TV show be called?

Among his choir are the latest new band to hit the streets with their new sounds. They are like the punks of the 70s, the new wave of the 80s or the hip hop rap stars and introduce their sound with aplomb. It’s not some much singing but a continual chorus of grating high-pitched caws. Enter left stage The Ring-Necked Parakeets. They even dress differently and have gone for a kind of glam rock bright green outfit. If you cannot hear them you can certainly see them. Apparently, they are making it big south of the river but still to have a big hit up here. Fortunately, they haven’t taken up residence on the Mudchute and are busy taking over nearby neighbourhood estates and residence in their large Plane trees.

Walking down some streets is quite an experience as you hear them cawing above you. You see their massive communal housing squat at the highest point of the tree, step over the rejected nest twigs and guano and try to avoid flying deposits. The roofs and bonnets of the cars on these streets resemble a paintball target. Now it may be fertilizer to some but we don’t want that on the veg at the allotment do we! 

So, after the auditions, the semi-finals and the final, can we promote the songbird choir and celebrate their songs and singing and look forward to their Christmas number one.  

VE Allotment Celebration Packet 5; Allotments Dominate the Docklands

The allotments across the Isle of Dogs helped feed the East End of London during World War 2. Dock workers and Island families used every piece of land available to grow much needed food. The allotments already had 365 plots on the Mudchute and this was extended with sites around the island and most notably a further 140 in Millwall Park. The extent of the plots can be seen from the pictures (above and below). 

 

The Island’s ‘ox bow’ river shape in the Thames made it and easily recognisable for German pilots aiming for their prime target, the docks.

In the middle of the allotments a new anti-aircraft battery which was established (left) to defend the docks. The anti-aircraft main hut was even hit by the bombers on the very first night raid on the 7^th September 1940 (below left). Houses and warehouses all over the Island were badly bombed and eventually demolished, but the vital work of the docks and the allotments continued.

Today, an Ack Ack gun placement stands proud in the middle of the Mudchute Farm where one of the guns once stood. It is not the original gun, but one found in a field in Shropshire and transported and resisted earlier this century on the Mudchute. It remembers those that were stationed there to protect the docks, night after night during the Blitz.

The allotments today also maintain a memorial area and gardens to remember past members which include war heroes James J. Gordon RN DSM and Nick Avery RAF. It is fitting that these memorials are sited along the bank where the batteries and huts were during the war.

We will remember them.

The author is indebted to the research and archive provided by Mick Lemmerman and the work and archive of the Island History Trust which enabled this untold story to be written.

VE Allotment Celebration Packet 4: Flowers to Pharmaceuticals

During the first half of the 20th century German pharmaceutical companies dominated the manufacture and supply of drugs. This exposed Britain during both World Wars and this was further compounded by the U-Boat action on shipping in the Second World War. The resultant shortage of drugs forced Britain to seek new and more natural alternatives.

An army of volunteers was galvanised to forage and grow huge quantities of plant material from which drugs, medicines and other valuable resources were extracted. The Scouts, Girl Guides, Women’s Institutes, allotments, gardens and even schoolchildren were mobilised into action. Significant lessons had been learnt from the poor collection, storage, transportation and drying of plants during the First World War.

At the beginning of the Second World War, botanists, pharmacist, doctors collectively formed the Vegetable Drugs Committee to co-ordinate the harvesting, drying and extraction of the drugs. More than 70 County Medicinal Herb Committees, drawing heavily on the Women’s Institute and the Scottish Women’s Rural Institutes, were set up under its leadership. 

A pamphlet that the Vegetable Drugs Committee published in 1941 stated that the most essential medicinal plants needed were belladonna, colchicum, digitalis, hyoscyamus, stramonium and valerian - and that the countries of origin for these plants had previously been Hungary, Italy, Germany and Yugoslavia. 

Below we look at some of the 80 species identified and sought:

Deadly Nightshade: This contains many toxic compounds including atropine and hyoscyamine. Atropine is well known to dilate the pupils and the drug was in high demand for eye operations following battlefield traumas. By the end of World War Two, 200 tons of Deadly Nightshade leaves and roots were needed.

Foxglove: This contains a powerful compound called digitalin that acts on the heart muscle. It can help to strengthen and regulate an arrhythmic heart, slowing it down and preventing atrial fibrillation. During World War Two Oxfordshire Women’s Institutes alone sent enough foxglove to produce 350,000 doses of digitalin. Foxglove is extremely poisonous, and the leaves are extremely bitter so eating large quantities usually causes vomiting, helping to prevent poisoning. But if just a few leaves are eaten they can lead to death from heart attack.

Rose-Hips: These provided a home-grown source of vitamin C, especially for young children at home. Rose-hips, are higher in vitamin C than even blackcurrants and Kew scientists identified several high producers and the best time to harvest. In 1943, 500 tons of rose-hips were collected, the equivalent to 25 million oranges, and this haul made 2.5 million bottles of syrup.

Horse Chestnuts: Conkers were used to make glucose and saponin and produce soap.

Nettles: These were collected for their chlorophyll which was extracted and used in the synthesis of anti-asthma drugs. They also yielded a green dye that was used for camouflage, and in Germany nettle fibre was used to manufacture army shirts and uniforms.

Black horehound: This contains diterpenoid chemicals including marrubiin and ballonigrin. It was collected and used as a treatment for spasms and intestinal worm infections.

Meadow Saffron: The bulbs were collected to provide the drug colchicine, used to reduce inflammation. Some 12 tones of bulbs were harvested in World War Two.

Collectors also gathered autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale, a treatment for gout), and valerian (Valeriana officinalis, a sedative). Other useful plants included wild thyme (Thymus polytrichus, an antiseptic), burdock (Arctium spp., a diuretic), colt’s-foot (Tussilago farfara, a demulcent).

Virtually all medicinal and culinary herbs and spices can stop the growth of at least some bacteria. Various mints and tansy are antibiotic to pathogenic strains including Streptococcus and Staphylococcus.

It is somewhat of a pity we have once again lurched towards and in favour of synthetic drugs at the expense of what we have growing all around us.


Tomorrow we focus again on the East End of London, The Docklands and its Allotments during the war.

VE Allotment Celebration Packet 3: RIP the Rescue Dog

Today when a disaster such as an earthquake occurs, we take search and rescue dogs, sonar and infra-red detectors for granted. But that wasn’t the case in World War Two.

On September 7, 1940, Germany mounted 57 consecutive days of bombing and they also targeted other cities until May of 1941. German planes dropped over 300 tons of bombs on London on the first day alone.

In among a bombed out streets in Poplar in the East End of London, a stray dog was wandering scared, hungry and searching for scraps to survive. His home had been bombed and the whereabouts of his family was unknown. He was lost and alone.

Air Raid Warden Mr.E. King noticed the lost pup and tossed him some food. When he had eaten the food, the dog tagged along after Mr. King. By the time they reached the station, they had become friends and Mr. King’s fellow wardens quickly took to the stray. They named it ‘Rip’ and it had now found a new home and was adopted by the men as the first official mascot of Southill Street Air Raid Patrol.

Almost immediately and with no training, Rip proved he had a talent for finding people buried in rubble. King said at the time “It wasn’t a question of training him. They simply couldn’t stop him.” Rip had become the service’s first unofficial search and rescue dog and an unexpected hero.  

His determination and success in searching for people buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings convinced authorities of the benefit in training dogs in search and rescue and created an official training program.

Rip was undaunted by buildings falling, or by fires and smoke around him. With the dogged determination of a terrier, Rip frantically dug at the pile of bricks, stones, masonry and dirt, wagging his tail and yelping as his way of assuring a victim that help was on the way while human rescuers worked to clear debris. Between 1940 and 1941, Rip located and saved over 100 human lives, and countless animals buried in rubble.

When he wasn’t looking for survivors, Rip followed King on his patrols at night and watched him work his allotment during the day.

The PDSA Dickin Medal for wartime animal heroes was created in 1943. To honour Rip’s bravery and devotion to duty, he was awarded this prestigious medal the animals' Victoria Cross after the war in July of 1945. It was proudly worn on his collar until his death from old age in 1946. He became the first of 12 Dickin Medal recipients to be buried in the PDSA Cemetery in Ilford, Essex. The words on his tombstone express the thanks and love of a grateful nation and read ‘Rip, D.M., “We also serve” – for the dog whose body lies here played his part in the Battle of Britain.’


The author is indebted to the research and archive provided by Mick Lemmerman and the work and archive of the Island History Trust which enabled this untold story to be written.

VE Allotment Celebration Packet 2: Seeds From America

All this week we will be publishing articles associated with allotments during the War and that extraordinary time when everyone ‘Dug for Victory.’

In World War I ‘Victory Gardens’ were established across US, UK, Canada and Australia to grow food. US President Woodrow Wilson said then, ‘Food will win the war.’ 

Today we hear much about the World War II campaign and Michael Foot's creative slogan, ‘Dig for Victory’. But we hear less about the seeds that helped fuel and maintain the campaign's success and similar campaigns in other Allied countries.

Before the United States declared war on Japan in December 1941, it had remained neutral with regards to the war in Europe and elsewhere but had financially aided Britain via the Lend-Lease program. Various charitable organisations in the US recognised and separately donated to the UK but as the need for aid grew these were consolidated and the The British War Relief Society (BWRS) was established to provide US humanitarian aid in the supply of non-military help and assistance to the UK.  

In 1941, 9 tons of seeds came to the UK from America. These were to help establish RAF allotments and other various military plots around the UK. It was such a success that the following year ten times that, 90 tons of seeds in some 150,000 cartons were shipped to help the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign. These cartons were distributed across the country by The National Allotments Society.

Allotments without seeds can’t grow much so these cartons were vital not only in increasing the amount grown but also the quality and variety of food produced.

 
We can read from The Observer, September 13^th, 1942 under the sub heading, ‘Minneapolis to Millwall’ about a shipment of seeds and ceremonial handover to our own East End Dockland plot holders and families here at Mudchute on the Isle of Dogs, or as it was often referred to then, Millwall. The ceremony was performed by Mr Robert Hudson and was at a site of new allotments on the island. These 140 plots had been dug out of what had been four cricket pitches in Millwall Park and heavily bombed housing surrounding it. The area occupied by the allotments had suffered extensive bomb damage during the first night of the Blitz in September 1940. The cartons of seeds had a huge impact on morale in the East End of London and in what was a routinely blitzed Docklands. 

The seeds help produce onions, potatoes, beans, marrows, cabbage, beetroot, lettuces, carrots, turnips and the much needed food to help feed the East End and families that continued to work in the docks through the Blitz and the entire war and land the cargo that was vital to the UK.

Below are some photos of the ceremony and of the seeds being sown.

The author is indebted to the research and archive provided by Mick Lemmerman and the work and archive of the Island History Trust which enabled this untold story to be written.

Tomorrow read about RIP the dog.

VE Allotment Celebration Packet 1: The Scale of the Effort

Friday 8 May is VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day. It marks the day towards the end of World War Two when fighting against Germany came to an end in Europe. All this week we will be publishing articles associated with allotments during the War and that extraordinary time when everyone ‘Dug for Victory.’

Above: Plots being worked on Clapham Common during WW2

Today we recognise the significant effort made to feed the nation whose supply lines were being challenged by the U Boats in the Atlantic. Some 70,000 tons of British shipping alone was sunk in the first week of the war.

At the beginning of the war, 70% of Britain’s food was imported so the impact was significant. Pastureland was dug up to grow the wheat we were now not getting from Canada which in turn lead to dairy shortages. Rickets became a danger as vitamin-rich products could no longer be imported and onions, which had come from Europe, became prized objects. At the beginning of the war there were only 3.5 million private gardens and 819,000 allotments in Britain. By 1943 the House of Commons was told the number of allotments had risen to 1,675,000 and the number of private gardens used for growing vegetables had risen to 5 million.

The land girls, farms, allotments and growing vegetables made a huge contribution to the war effort with over 80,000 women being members of the Women’s Land Army. Without such an effort harvests could not have been picked and food would have been even scarcer.

The government organised ‘Dig for Victory’ exhibitions up and down the country and released a blizzard of information pamphlets and bulletins on how to rotate crops, improve the soil and make a compost heap. Gardening became part of the curriculum in virtually all schools.

Britain and London rose to the challenge: in North London, Tottenham had almost 3,000 allotments in 150 areas and a successful pig club run by the council dustmen. In Bethnal Green, bombed-out buildings were turned into plots. 

Vegetables were also planted in the dry moat around the Tower of London and demonstration plots dug in Kensington Gardens and at London Zoo. Soil often had to be sieved through pierced dustbin lids to remove glass shards and bomb debris.

Fire Wardens working a plot in Cribblegate, St Giles Church, with St Paul's in the background 

 A bomb crater in Westminster turned into a plot

View over Greenwich Park and Museum with much of the park turned into plots 

Kensington plots and demonstration area 

Above and left: the moat plots at the Tower of London 

Tomorrow we feature ‘Seeds from America’


The author is indebted to the research and archive provided by Mick Lemmerman and the work and archive of the Island History Trust which enabled this untold story to be written.