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Planet earth: How the world went crazy for allotments
From Washington power-brokers to Kenyan chefs – it’s not only Brits who dig the gentle pleasures of the allotment. Our foreign correspondents meet some of the greenest fingers from around the globe
Monday, 24 March 2008
United States by Leonard Doyle
Coming home late on a cold winter’s night in Washington, DC, I noticed something moving in a neighbour’s front garden. Initially, I mistook it for a deer, but peering over the hedge, I saw my neighbour, Mary O’Hara, secateurs in hand, in search of sprigs of rosemary for a stew.
All day, she told me, she had been preparing to plant lettuce, runner beans and carrots. She’d had some help from her small son Benjamin, who managed to dig some of last year’s carrots out of the friable earth. The carrots had survived the harsh frosts, as had some rocket, a bunch of which was thrust into my hands. And now that winter has released its icy grip on the soil, there is plenty of work to be done in Mary’s front garden.
Vegetable patches don’t come to mind when thinking of Washington. But there are plenty of them. High achievers need to relax, and a good way is to get the fingers dirty in the rich alluvial earth. Today, the city is enjoying a renaissance in community gardening as interest grows in fresh organic food.
There is huge demand for “community plots”, and in the leafy north-west of the city, it can take years for one to become available. And when the desirable plots do become free, they’re usually a tangled mess of bindweed. That does not stop the weekly inspections by a dreaded garden “committee”, usually followed by a fusillade of emails insisting that obscure weeds be removed – under pain of eviction. Only an American bureaucrat with too much time on his/her hands knows how to write these missives. When an English acquaintance, Louise, finally got hold of a plot in Rock Creek Park, it did not take long for the cranky emails to arrive. “The weeds they were complaining about were so obscure that I had to look them up,” she told me.
Arthur Allen, a friend of Mary’s and a noted DC-based writer, is far advanced on his new book about the humble tomato. He now has a basement full of exotic tomato plants. Naturally, I volunteered to adopt some. Elsewhere, gardeners help to keep inner-city spaces safe by building community. They gently push crime out and help residents to get to know one another. Which brings me back to Mary – someone I might never have got to know but for her late-night dash outside for some rosemary.
Australia by Kathy Marks
The Australian dream is to own a house on a quarter-acre block, complete with a sizeable back garden. In reality, many people live in flats, or just have a concrete courtyard. But most urban neighbourhoods have one or two “community gardens”. In Sydney and its surrounding area, there are nearly 50 of them.
Some are one large expanse, worked on by all the gardeners together. Others take the British model – individual plots for each set of green fingers to tend. The garden at the Addison Road Centre in Marrickville is a hybrid. On a site with an array of community buildings, it has existed since 2000. Volunteers grow bananas, sweet potatoes, coffee, herbs and vegetables such as aubergines, chillies, lettuces and beans. There are also almond, lemon, peach and cherry trees. The garden is run on the principles of permaculture and organics. “Everything is recycled,” says Natalie McCarthy, a volunteer. “All the weeds we put in compost bins. Vegetable scraps go into worm farms. We get mulch from a local stables.”
Rather than use insecticides, these city gardeners plant marigolds and nasturtiums, which help to keep away insects. There are also plans to procure chickens, which eat snails and keep the weeds down. Companion plants, such as tomato and basil, are grown together. Rainwater tanks and solar pumps provide irrigation.
And the benefits of all this back-straining labour? Volunteers get to take their delicious produce home, and those who commit for three months can create their own plot. “There’s a social aspect to it, and we share information,” says McCarthy. “I’ve learnt a lot.”
Russia by Shaun Walker
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Kenya by Steve Bloomfield
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Germany by Tony Paterson
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Japan by David McNeill
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Northern Ireland by David McKittrick
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Hong Kong by Clifford Coonan
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France by Emily Murphy
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Allotment facts
* The average number of people on a waiting list for an allotment in the UK is 59. Half of local authorities in the country report lists of more than 200 names. About 4,300 people are waiting for an allotment in London alone.
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