About a year and a half ago I applied to my local council for an allotment. I thought this would be a great way to eat fresh vegetables for cheap without the need for any chemicals, transportation, etc. I subsequently forgot all about my application until some time in March this year when I received a letter asking me if I still wanted an allotment and that I could have one on Perth Street West if I so desired.
Lou and I went down for a gander, it was a big patch of weeds and grasses but we thought we’d be able to handle it. I sent off the form, signed the tenancy agreement and within a week or so it became the Funky allotment.
It all started out really well, we got digging, built a compost bin and got really enthusiastic about the whole thing. My work donated some pallets and water drums and various other oddments that were lying about the yard. Before long we had a makeshift shelter too.
After digging quite alot, turfing up no end of buried carpet and broken glass from the earth we had something that resembled a functioning allotment and we were proud. Then came the breif English summer, people went away and we found ourselves less and less motivated to be allotmenteering.
We haven’t visited the allotment for a while. We’re so lame. We intend to go back soon and try and get the ground ready for next season. I will blog more about this when it actually happens. Digging is hard. It’s okay when you have people to help you but as a hobby for a girly who works full-time it’s hard. I need to retire, get a shed and sit on my allotment all day. Then it would be brill.
We have some amazing plans for the allotment and hope to get lots of people involved and introduced to growing their own food, it’s supposed to be part of the Common Ground collective which is a new social enterprise project set up by my friend Matt, it was also named after Funky, an awesome night out in Hull also run by Matt.
We really need a shed. Somewhere secure to store the tools, a place to sit down and make tea, somewhere to shelter from the rain. Anyone got a shed? I’ve spent hours trawling Freecycle, the Hull Daily Mail and GumTree and nothing has come of that yet. I will keep looking though, I will have my shed.
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- The Funky Allotment
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- A Funky Allotmenteer
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- A Funky Compost Bin
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- The Funky Allotment
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- The Funky Allotment
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- The Funky Allotment
You may be wondering why we decided to take on such a project, being the busy, young people we are, the answer is pretty simple; Good, healthy, fresh food that is cheap and is a product of your own hand. How much better can you get? It also brings people together socially in a way, that in my opinion, is slowly disappearing in today’s society.
With the rising prices of everything surely the obvious answer is to return to growing our own? With the threat of global warfare always in the media we should take some lessons from the days of yore when Victory Gardens were a must for the common man to live a better life.
I know our allotment story to date isn’t pretty inspiring at present, but all aspects of life have their down times. It will get better and I will show to you all the joys of growing your own. A guy I know got an allotment the same time as us, dug it single handedly as has been enjoying lots and lots of tasty veg he’s grown himself. We will get there eventually.
If you have any allotment stores to share, please let me know by leaving a comment!
Links about Allotmenteering;
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dig_for_Victory
I always fail when it comes to gardening, hahaha. But this is a great idea though! I mean, you can have 100% fresh vegetables for a low price!
Your entry reminds me of the recent veggie problem in China, where they’ve been using some chemicals in their vegies and having it transported to different countries! Apparently, it’s made like 50,000 Chinese babies ill!
I’m just curious.. what exactly is an allotment? I live in Alabama, USA, and I’ve NEVER heard of anything like what you described!
Yeah, I’m not good at growing things. I just got my first garden and I killed everything in it, my roses and lilies are all dead… Hey man, I grew up in the city where there’s zero green, I haven’t the slightest clue when it comes to caring for plants and such. You should see my yard, it looks like ass…
I had a very similar issue this spring, the need and want for a garden yet no motivation or experience to follow through. We bought seeds for gorgeous flowers and fresh veggies but never bothered with them :’(
I was almost scared to even try though for fear that if I did I’d just kill everything!
Wauw that is very cool! I finally have my garden at my disposal (again), but since we have much snails around I never got into raising my own veggies. I do like to care for my orchid flower – it needs a bit more special attention though. I have been treating it on minimal care, but hufff sometimes they are strange flowers *gulp* Goodluck with the allotment! I’ll be checking back to read more about it ~
I give you guys a lot of credit for even trying to do something like this!
Yeah, I wouldn’t trust our good ol’ British weather to help grow anything! There is a shortage of canned tomatoes because of such a poor harvest! Then again, why have canned tomatoes?!
I guess this is where greenhouses come into play, but expensive much? All that fuss about heat/humidity/goobers etc. Far too poopy compared to growing things straight out ‘er the ground!
I admire your belief and enthusiasm towards your project though! I know a guy who has a veggie patch in his garden and the vegetables that came out of there were huge and very tasty! (With nothing dodgy about them of course).
Ohh that is great! I dream about having a little house with my own garden some day. Until then I settle with helping my parents out in their garden.
And growing tomatoes on my balcony of course!
That is so incredible! How exciting for you that you get to do that! Someday I hope I can grow my own vegetables… it seems like such a cool (and environmentally friendly) thing to do!
have you heard of Square foot gardening? We don’t have much space but we have set up 20 squares by the side of the house. Read up on it, it will make you look at gardening in a completely different way!
We used to have a garden, but we turned it into a garage space. Anyway, allotment does seem to be too much work. All the digging involved and maintenance, of course. It also offers a pretty cool perk: good, healthy, fresh food
I think it’s really cool that you’re doing that. My family does that, too, actually, but we own an acre of land so part of it is used to grow our own fruits and veggies.
I’d gotta say that I trust these better than store bought and I do believe I’ve even noticed a difference in taste. And yes, it is cheaper!
We sometimes have tons of extra, so we end up giving some away to friends or freezing some of it for future use. It’s great and I’m really glad that others are interested in doing something similar.
That’s an amazing idea! The advantages really do help society in a big way.