the undercover workout: allotments - the lowdown

Many people get themselves an allotment to reinstate the relationship between effort and yield, to enjoy growing things, and to get a healthier attitude to food production. They are just hippies! What’s important is that 15 minutes of digging burns off 150 calories and, provided you only grow lettuces (21 calories in a lettuce), and tomatoes (16 in a tomato), you’ll never gain more than you expend. There are a hefty 118 calories in a boiled potato, but then you have to dig much harder, so that’s ok.

Allotments can be any size but most common is 10 rods, a measurement equivalent to 302 square yards or 253 square metres. One rod, by the way, is the standardised length of a stick for whacking your ox with, if you’re a medieval ploughman. History, eh?

The land itself is usually either owned by local government, private companies, the allotment holders themselves through an association, or by the church.

The Allotments Act of 1950, which is still binding, states that the owners must give at least a year’s notice if they want to boot the tenant off, with the notice ending between April the 6th and September the 29th – presumably to make sure you get to, well, reap what you sow.

September the 29th is Michelmas, the day that allotment rent is traditionally collected.

Most allotments cost in the region of £20 to £40 per year. The most expensive allotments are in Edinburgh, where the landowners, Network Rail, are insisting on an annual rent of £250 each. The average city council rent is £27 for the same sized plot.

Allotments were first mentioned in the late 1500s. Common land that had long been used by the poor began to be enclosed, shutting out the poor and leaving them without the means to grow food. Allotments were created as compensation.

The reason so many allotments are by railway lines? During the First World War allotments were created to help deal with food shortages, and the strips of land owned by the railways tended to be too small for large scale farming, but just right for keen individuals.

During the Second World War even public parks became necessary food plots. The Dig for Victory campaign encouraged people to feed themselves, through another great sheaf of brilliant wartime posters.

There was another peak in allotment popularity in the 70s, when everyone realised they’d rather be Tom and Barbara than Margo and Jerry. Dungaree sales shot through the roof too.

Allotments are actually very productive, so no good for keeping the calories down at all, unless you are a rubbish gardener. During the war allotments contributed 1.3 million tons of veg from 1.4 million plots. Large-scale farming is more efficient in terms of effort put in, but less efficient in terms of yield per rod.

These days there are around 300,000 allotments in the UK, yielding about 215,000 tons of fresh produce every year.

Increasing numbers of small allotments are being offered, and are very popular with people who might find a whole 253 square metres of bramble and slugs a bit too daunting.

If you want to find an allotment, contact your local council in the first instance. The National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners ([email protected]) can also help you find a plot. But be warned, waiting lists in most places are long.

Around 100,000 people in England are waiting for an allotment, according to a survey by the National Society.

The national statute for allotments decrees that there should be 15 allotments per 1,000 households. At the moment there aren’t quite this many, and existing ones are in constant threat as green space is sold off for development. Luckily allotmenteers are not the kind of people to take anything lying down, and with the current vogue for self-sufficiency, concerns about food – from genetic modification to pesticides to air miles – plus the credit crunch ushering in economic reasons for taking up a hoe, perhaps the era of the allotment is upon us.

A productive allotment can save a family up to £1,500 a year, just in produce. That’s without even taking into account savings on gym membership or Saturday outings!

If you can’t find an allotment, or are mouldering on a waiting list, how about a garden share? Schemes are on the up, in which someone with a garden but no time, and someone else with green fingers but no garden, swap resources. No money ordinarily changes hands, but the gardener gives the garden-owner some veg, a nice view and some muddy footprints through the house.
Many towns, including Aberystwyth, Totnes, Wedmore and Brighton have schemes already going, check out www.transitionbrightonandhove.org.uk totnes.transitionnetwork.org www.wedmoregreengroup.co.uk westwalestransition.org for more.

There are also plenty of people just getting on and sharing, without a scheme as such. See www.yours2share.com for offers of gardens all over the country, and they crop up (heh heh) on craigslist.co.uk and local forums from time to time too.

A lot of allotments will let you keep chickens, rabbits or bees on your plot, so if you fancy yourself as more of a livestock farmer than an agriculturalist, this could be your opening!

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