In September 2011, Brighton & Hove City Council became the first local authority in the UK to publish guidance notes encouraging developers to include food-growing space in new building schemes.

Horticulture Week
13 January 2012

Excerpt:

Included as a case study in the guidance notes is BioRegional Quintain and Crest Nicholson’s sustainable living development One Brighton. Completed in 2010, the pioneering One Planet Communities project was the first development in the city to incorporate on-site allotments in its plans.

Among a host of other sustainable-living features, the apartment roofs house 28 box gardens for residents to grow produce. With 172 apartments in the development, a waiting list has inevitably formed. But on-site green facilities manager Peter Commane says planning permission for further growing space has been secured on a neighbouring former brownfield site to help meet demand.

One of the first such schemes in the country, Commane says national and international developers are seeing real value in the idea of incorporating growing space in their plans. “The rooftop allotments have worked very well as a shop window for other developers. They see that it works, it creates a community and there is value behind it. I’ve no doubt we will start seeing the idea springing up across the country,” he maintains.

Read the complete article here. Or see below.

See the municipal documents here.

Complete article from the Horticulture Week site.

Amenity – Enabling communities to grow their own

Friday, 13 January 2012

Planning guidance in Brighton and Hove is encouraging developers to create areas for communities to grow their own food, Hannah Jordan reports.
In September 2011, Brighton & Hove City Council became the first local authority in the UK to publish guidance notes encouraging developers to include food-growing space in new building schemes. The Food Growing & Development Planning Advisory Note (PAN) calls for rooftops, balconies, walls and surrounding land to be incorporated as landscaped areas for residents and local communities to grow their own food.

Approved in September, the guidance was developed for the Green Party-administered council by Food Matters and Harvest Brighton & Hove, part of the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership (BHFP), which is seeking to create a city-wide multi-organisation approach to developing more sustainable solutions to food production.

The PAN does not introduce any new requirements for planning applications but provides technical advice on how to deliver food-growing opportunities in development schemes and includes case studies and examples of potential approaches for use by developers.

Enclosed by the South Downs to the north and the English Channel to the south, Brighton is a compact city with little space for food-growing, which makes the PAN all the more vital, says BHFP director Vic Borrill. “We want to give people the right information about what grows well in our environment and in the context of confined spaces such as roofs and balconies,” she explains.

Borrill points out that as part of the city’s push towards a more sustainable food system, interest in food-growing from community groups and schools has increased dramatically over the past few years and she sees the PAN as a way of raising the bar by highlighting developers’ responsibilities towards sustainable living.

“We don’t know what is going to happen as a result of the new national planning regulations yet, but down here the Green administration sees the planning guidance as a way of helping to embed principles and mindsets of what they want to take place in the city,” she says.

Included as a case study in the guidance notes is BioRegional Quintain and Crest Nicholson’s sustainable living development One Brighton. Completed in 2010, the pioneering One Planet Communities project was the first development in the city to incorporate on-site allotments in its plans.

Among a host of other sustainable-living features, the apartment roofs house 28 box gardens for residents to grow produce. With 172 apartments in the development, a waiting list has inevitably formed. But on-site green facilities manager Peter Commane says planning permission for further growing space has been secured on a neighbouring former brownfield site to help meet demand.

One of the first such schemes in the country, Commane says national and international developers are seeing real value in the idea of incorporating growing space in their plans. “The rooftop allotments have worked very well as a shop window for other developers. They see that it works, it creates a community and there is value behind it. I’ve no doubt we will start seeing the idea springing up across the country,” he maintains.

Brighton & Hove City Council sustainability manager Francesca Iliffe says the One Brighton development chimes well with other food-growing initiatives being pioneered in the city and is an excellent example of what the new guidance is seeking to achieve.

“We have done a lot of work encouraging developers to green their sites with green walls and roofs and planting around the buildings – the guidance is part of trying to improve our overall green infrastructure,” she explains.

The council hopes that the guidance will be used as a template by other local authorities around the country to encourage developers to create edible landscapes and provide growing space for residents. A number of councils, including Bristol, are already looking at the document, says Iliffe.

“Incorporating growing space needn’t be a considerable additional expense because they are already putting in some kind of landscaping so it is just a question of their specifications. Of course there will be management issues, but there will be management issues with any landscaping,” she asserts.

Sustainability checklist

Complementing the PAN is the council’s revised online Sustainability Checklist for Planning, which asks applicants for details of any food-growing elements that they intend to include in their developments. A completed checklist must now accompany all planning applications for new-build developments and conversions in the city.

Since the PAN was published, around 50 per cent of completed checklists show planning applications that incorporate food-growing space, says Iliffe. “Developers are responding well to this, which is exciting because historically it’s not an area that planning has covered. But by pushing for food-growing areas you encourage community cohesion, sustainable land use, improved biodiversity – the list of benefits goes on,” she adds.

The guidance has also been well received by representatives from the city’s local housing partnership as well as local housing associations, she adds, many of which, in response to increased demand, already work with residents to provide food-growing space.

Federation of City Farms & Community Gardens chief executive Jeremy Iles says with waiting lists for allotments spiralling across the country since 2008, many local authorities are unable to meet demand. But the innovative approach being taken in Brighton and Hove should serve as an example to others, he adds.

“They have a great partnership between community and local authority, which I think has helped lead to the planning guidance. But there are only a few isolated examples of this kind of innovative thinking,” he says.

“Community gardening has been around for a long time and it’s one of the most exciting things happening in the UK right now. We need more people to start thinking laterally about what has been done traditionally.”

Brighton & Hove City Council’s Food Growing & Development Planning Advisory Note can be found at www.foodmatters.org.

Food strategy updated in Brighton and Hove

In 2006, Brighton and Hove became the first city in the UK to produce a food strategy – Spade to Spoon. Written by the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership (BHFP) and supported by the city council, a revised version – Spade to Spoon: Digging Deeper – will launch in the coming weeks.

It will set out how the city intends to address issue such as food poverty and the environmental impact of food imports while supporting local food businesses and creating a more sustainable food system.

As part of the strategy, the BHFP works with local organisations to encourage food-growing on vacant land, gardens, parks, housing estates and schools throughout the city.

In 2009, St Luke’s Primary School applied to convert part of its playground into an edible forest to teach its pupils about food-growing techniques in an urban environment, food uses, environmental issues and sustainability in the community.

Made possible through a £10,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund and backed by local charity Harvest Brighton & Hove, the project allows the school’s 600 pupils, as well as parents and local residents, to use the forest during term time for practical training in food-growing and gardening techniques.

A 12x20m area of tarmac was replaced with a landscaped space using permaculture principles and irrigated through a rainwater-harvesting system.

The garden incorporates fruit trees, soft fruit, edible perennials with ground layers of low-growing fruits and salads along with hardier root vegetables.

It is planted in three layers to mimic natural woodland with trees at the top, shrubs and perennials in the middle and ground-cover plants at the bottom.

Regular harvesting allows the school to provide food for pupils and local residents, highlighting the success of the project.

Children and young people cabinet member for Brighton & Hove City Council Vanessa Brown says the project is an example of sustainability in action and will enable future generations to make the connection between “spade and spoon”. The project will hopefully inspire pupils and residents to grow their own food, she adds.

The most expensive place in the country to rent an allotment is Runnymede, in Berkshire, which has increased rents from 34p a square metre in 2008 to 55p in 2011.

Royal Horticultural Society
19 December 2011

Excerpt:

Allotment rents fluctuate wildly across the country, with plot holders in Surrey paying more than 50 times as much for their plot as those in Derbyshire, according to a survey of allotment provision carried out by the University of Leicester.

Researchers found rents have gone up by an average of 21% in the last three years, and confirmed that allotment waiting lists remain high, at 86,787, although this is a drop from the previous figure of 94,124 in 2010.

‘We see this as the first step in opening up allotment data and making it freely available,’ said researcher Dr Farida Vis. ‘As allotments are such a highly valued resource we feel that accurate and open data has the potential to deliver far-reaching societal benefits.’

The team asked 216 councils across England to answer questions about rents, water charges, changes to tenancy agreements and discounts offered.

Read the complete article here.

Using Social Practice Theory To Assess How Transition Norwich Can Upscale Household Food Gardening In The City Of Norwich

By Dionysios Touliatos
Thesis – Master of Science
School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia University Plain Norwich
© 2011 Dionysios Touliatos
August 2011

Excerpt:

The choice of household gardens

According to Jeffcote (1993) urban household gardens in the UK represent a significant percentage of the total surface of a city, occupying more than ten times the area of protected nature reserves (Loram et al., 2005). The UK is the country with the highest number in private gardens per capita of any nation in Europe (Alfrey et al., 2004: 9) but only 20% of garden owners grew food in 1996 compared to 35% ten years earlier, with lawn and flowers being the dominant theme (MINTEL, 1999). Thus, it can be argued that a significant potential of food production in terms of quantity lies in household gardens.

Considering that the area occupied by gardens could be utilised for growing food instead of lawn and flowers. Household garden food production has the potential to shift both perceptions and practices about food, home and the urban environment (Kortright & Wakefield, 2010) as it provides direct access to fresh and nutritious food, within the household environment, that can be harvested, prepared and fed to family members, often on a daily basis (Marsh, 1998).

The distinct infrastructural advantages of household gardens

Household gardens as the medium for upscaling self provisioned local food production in Norwich present various advantages in comparison to the aforementioned urban agriculture infrastructure types. For example, 100,000 people in the UK are estimated to be on waiting lists for allotments (Hope & Ellis, 2009). In Norwich the waiting list for a plot at the allotments numbers around 700 people (Evening news 24, 2011) indicating the increasing demand for growing food as well as the inability of current allotment arrangements to satisfy it. Additionally, the allotments face the risk of being sold for development purposes (Independent, 2011). While challenges associated with the ownership of the land appear as a barrier for scaling-up urban agriculture through allotments and community gardens (Borrelli, 2008) with private household gardens this is not an issue. Being the ultimate controller of their land; private landowners (Lepczyk, 2004) view their garden as a personal space where they can alter the environment according to their will (Cammack et al., 2011). Garden share schemes offer the potential to overcome barriers arising around rented property (Public engagement, 2010), land scarcity (Blake & Cloutier-Fisher, 2009) and underutilized gardens (Peters et al., 2010: 201).

Read the complete paper here.

BBC News

A goat which blows raspberries has become a hit with visitors at a farm in Nottingham.

Lucy, who arrived at Stonebridge City Farm, in St Ann’s, six months ago, took staff by surprise with her unique talent.

Stephen Gee, education officer at the farm, said he has never seen a goat behave in this way.

Staff said that the other goats at the farm have started to develop the quirk too.

Link here.

Urban Agriculture – Part One – Down South

By Helen Eva Babbs
Helen Babbs blog
Jan 3, 2012
Over the next year, I’ll be exploring the UK’s burgeoning urban food growing scene for Kitchen Garden magazine. Every month I’ll report from a different town or city, as I seek out urban agriculturists and profile projects ranging from the small-scale and personal to the unusual, ambitious and commercial.

Excerpt:

“The architecture, the people, the seafront, the history – all make Plymouth fascinating” enthuses Darran Mclane, who’s fallen hard and fast for the city since moving here last spring. Plymouth is also the only city with a Food Charter, set-up and run by the Soil Association, which makes it as good a place as any to begin a quest to document, in part, the food growing projects that are changing the urban landscape across the UK.

“It’s very diverse and affluent, but there are pockets of deprivation” continues Darran, who runs a project called Diggin’ It. It was crowned the ‘Best Producer of 2011’ at Plymouth’s recent Food Charter awards.

“Certain people have a very poor grasp of nutrition. Local and organic food often comes with an expensive sting – or people assume it does. Diggin’ It is about exciting and educating people about food, mainly school children. It’s about finding the right language.”

Read the complete article here.

Already, eco-designers have been invited to look round the Olympic site in east London to see if there is potential for a farm after the Games.

The Independent
Jan 8, 2012

Excerpt:

Think of farming, and the rolling fields of the countryside spring to mind. But across Britain’s towns and cities, veggie growers, cheese-makers and honey producers are becoming established. Not since the Second World War, when people were urged to Dig for Victory, has urban farming been so popular.

Across the country, more than 2,000 new spaces for growing food have been created over the past three years. And this is just the start of the upsurge of inner-city farming. Already, eco-designers have been invited to look round the Olympic site in east London to see if there is potential for a farm after the Games.

Read the complete article here.

During River Cottage spring (2008) Hugh helped a group of Bristol families start a smallholding on derelict council land.

A talented writer, broadcaster and campaigner, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is widely known for his uncompromising commitment to seasonal, ethically produced food and has earned a huge following through his River Cottage TV series and books.

His early smallholding experiences were shown in the Channel 4 River Cottage series and led to the publication of The River Cottage Cookbook (2001), which won the Glenfiddich Trophy and the André Simon Food Book of the Year awards.

The success of the show and the books allowed Hugh to establish River Cottage HQ near Bridport in 2004.

In the same year, Hugh published The River Cottage Meat Book to wide acclaim and won a second André Simon Food Book of the Year Award.

He has just finished filming his most recent series, which accompanies his most recent book, River Cottage Every Day.

He continues to write as a journalist, including a weekly column in The Guardian and is Patron of the National Farmers’ Retail and Markets Association (FARMA).

River Cottage HQ moved in 2006, to a farm near the Dorset/Devon border, where visitors can take a variety of courses. http://www.rivercottage.net

During River Cottage Spring (2008) Hugh helped a group of Bristol families start a smallholding on derelict council land.

The experience was so inspiring he decided to see if it would work nationwide, and Landshare was created to bring keen growers and landowners together. The movement now includes more than 50,000 people.

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (2 of 5) “Pigs”

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (3 of 5) “Chickens”

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (4 of 5) “First Harvest”

River Cottage Urban Smallholding (5 of 5) “Pig Show – Blossom goes to a show”

See River Cottage website here.

‘There’s a nobility to growing food and allowing people to share it. There’s a feeling we’re doing something significant rather than just moaning that the state can’t take care of us.

By Vincent Graff
The Daily Mail
10th December 2011

Excerpt:

Today, hundreds of townspeople who began by helping themselves to the communal veg are now well on the way to self-sufficiency.

But out on the street, what gets planted where? There’s kindness even in that.

‘The ticket man at the railway station, who was very much loved, was unwell. Before he died, we asked him: “What’s your favourite vegetable, Reg?” It was broccoli. So we planted memorial beds with broccoli at the station. One stop up the line, at Hebden Bridge, they loved Reg, too — and they’ve also planted broccoli in his memory.’

Not that all the plots are — how does one put this delicately? — ‘official’.

Take the herb bushes by the canal. Owners British Waterways had no idea locals had been sowing plants there until an official inspected the area ahead of a visit by the Prince of Wales last year (Charles is a huge Incredible Edible fan).

Read the complete article here.

By Helen Babbs
Timber Press
2011, 144 pages

Helen Babbs is a self-proclaimed city girl who lives on the second floor of a flat in a chaotic corner of London. An urge to find more green in the city and a stronger connection to the natural world leads her to create her first garden, an organic edible garden on her rooftop. This year-long adventure is the story behind My Garden, the City and Me.

The journey begins in the dark of winter, where Babbs finds herself at a seed swap on a February morning, seduced more by packaging than by any true understanding of the plants. As the year progresses, Babbs revels in failures, like waking up bleary eyed and stomping on her seed starts, and triumphs like her summer-ending dinner party made with homegrown produce. Along the way she discovers “that I like gardening in my pajamas and that growing something from seed, watching it develop and then eating its fruits is truly joyful. I’ve daydreamed out there and entertained out there. It’s the force behind new friendships that I’ve forged. The garden has opened my eyes to a whole new side of London and urban living.”

My Garden, the City and Me is a lyrical narrative about a twenty-something in search for a bit of wild in her city. The journey is charming, honest, and steeped in the lore of London, a city equally known for its gardens and its grit. In the end Babbs has achieved a new perspective on what it means to live green in the city she loves.

See the book here.

See her blog here.

Urban farming: the inside track

by Helen Babbs
The City Planter
December 22nd, 2011

Excerpt:

I’m welcomed in by the owner – the ever-enthusiastic Charlie Paton. He gives me a guided tour of the building where he runs his family business and also grows an impressive array of fruit and veg. It’s an old bakery that he bought in the 1970s and has recently transformed into an incredible workshop and office by extending upwards.

The top floor of the building has been designed and built specifically to grow food. There’s a glass roof and many windows, so it’s full of the sunlight needed to grow plants. It looks like a futuristic garden laboratory, with pipes running through it, various busy control panels and huge plants shooting up to the roof.

“2011 was our first growing season – we had cucumbers, peppers, strawberries and lettuces in the summer. We’re still getting red tomatoes and ripe chillies now,” says Charlie.

Read the complete article here.

“If everyone is responsible for the same communal space, it makes everyone feel safe and we can inspire and encourage each other to take steps towards more sustainable living.”

By Liam Sloan
The Oxford Times
30th November 2011

Excerpt:

Neighbours in East Oxford are being urged to tear down their fences and join their back gardens together to create a communal park.

Six people have been working with Green city councillor Matt Morton to draw up a masterplan for the block of 97 houses on the block surrounded by Hurst Street, Bullingdon Road, St Mary’s Road and Leopold Street.

They believe that if neighbours pool their land to create a single growing area, it could provide fruit, vegetables, eggs, and honey for every household.

Under their plans, householders would keep a small stretch of private garden behind their homes, but the majority of their garden would become part of a landscaped open area used for growing produce.

The group estimate that if the 18,000 sq m area behind the houses is tended collectively, it could produce 15kg of orchard fruit and 21kg of soft fruit per household, plus 40 per cent of seasonal vegetables for every home.

Read the complete article here.

Written by the public and gathered by the BBC

A selection of letters:

Edinburgh allotments
By Elizabeth Gray

At the beginning of the war I was registered as a botanist at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens.

I was enlisted as a gardens allotment volunteer and would go round advising people how to grow food. The same thing happened in the 1914-18 war. Ground was dug up and made into allotments at Blackford hill and Inverleith Park and round about the Meadows in the heart of Edinburgh.

Most folk in Edinburgh weren’t gardeners and we showed them what to do. There was a limited number of seeds and plants and I used to take some seed from my own garden to give to people.

To get a plot people had to apply to the headquarters at St Andrews House.
Supplies of grass seed dried up at that time completely. It was used up to sow runways all over the place.

In 1943 I went to Aberdeen and was a pioneer in working out how to store potatoes indoors because there was no wheat so there was no straw.

Link here.

Dig for Victory.
By Dr. Colin Pounder

One major ploy of the enemy was to starve the population and U boat attacks on the Merchant Fleet were horrendous. As elsewhere Cotmanhay had allotments on which we grew our own food. This was called the Dig for Victory Campaign. At the top of Wesley Street across to Ash Street were allotments. Just below where Truman Street joins Bridge Street was a shop and nearer the bridge an old Smithy (With all the Blacksmiths forge and bellows). Between the Smithy and the Laundry was a track leading to allotments which reached from behind the Bridge Inn to those reached from Richmond Avenue. These latter were bounded by Bennerley Rec. Most are now the schools playing field. Potatoes were a staple crop along with cabbage and peas, rhubarb, celery, lettuce, runner beans, black currants, leeks and one year my Dad grew something called sweet corn which everybody watched come to fruition – though it tasted nice it was eaten with some suspicion because we hadn’t a clue what it really was. Each year the mayor or some such character came to judge the efforts of men who worked, fire-watched, and Dug for Victory. Prizes I cannot recall but Dad had several red 1st prize cards and we got something to eat of course.

Various livestock had always been kept in the back gardens to provide eggs and a cockerel for Christmas – though the murder, feather plucking and disembowelment of one of my friends leaned me heavily towards vegetarianism at an early age! It is not that people were cruel necessity demanded it. We also had a pig but the end of her I leave to the imagination. Apart from some ancient fantail pigeons my favourites were Banties (Bantams). Each day I went to the top of the garden with my Mam to feed them in their wired run. On Wesley Street a telegraph post stood next to the first houses above Len James` garage. Wires from it crossed the end of our garden to a post in a garden of a house on Milton Street and from that post to one in Milton Street itself. I remember it was a bright sunny day and Mam was throwing feed to the black bantams strutting and clucking in their run. I cannot accurately describe the noise, a kind of scream combined with a monstrous roar and a German plane just cleared the top of the house, went overhead and out of sight over the houses in Wesley Street. Immediately afterwards was a high pitched screaming roar as a British fighter plane came after it.

In my memory is the sound, the dark shapes, the panic stricken cackle of the bantams hurtling themselves upwards and my Mam clutching my shoulders. It was a moment of total and absolute terror in which we were powerless. Later Mam told Dad, Grandma and her brothers that both planes went beneath the telegraph wires and the bantams seemed to have reached as high as the planes. (I have gone cold and tearful writing this now — realisation as to what might have been I suppose.)

Link here.

Location of story: suburbs of London, England
By Joyce Gibson

During the first few months of World War II, known as the “Phoney War” we prepared for the worst. We lived in the suburbs of London and, in response to the admonishments to “dig for victory”, my mother grew more vegetables in our small garden, although she didn’t know how to control the maggots and they were often inedible. Amongst her successes was a twenty-two pound pumpkin, which, when displayed in the window of a small café in Central London, (incidentally next door to Sweeney Todd’s barber shop) raised over twenty pounds for the Red Cross. Customers, in return for a small donation, were asked to guess the weight. The prize? To become the proud owner of the huge pumpkin.

My mother was also a great fan of Dr. Charles Hill, the Radio Doctor. Every morning he would broadcast food tips to ensure the best possible use of the little food we had. One message got across very well. We ate raw white shredded cabbage every day for the rest of the war! I have only recently been able to look raw white cabbage in the eye, no doubt because I am lucky enough to be able to obtain the ingredients for a tasty dressing. I remember too, a terrible yearning for a big juicy orange! Sadly, they wouldn’t grow in our garden.

Link here.

Location of story: Denbigh
By Emrys Williams

In 1942 the Government brought out a theme ‘Dig for Victory’ which was intended to encourage everyone to grow their own vegetables.

In our back yard there was a piece of land with a large plum tree – but it never seemed to produce any plums. My brother and myself were encouraged by our parents to dig the land around the tree and to plant vegetables. Our biggest problem, as I recall, was the tree roots, which we had to cut out in order to achieve a good patch of soil. As children we were afraid that the tree would fall down, but that did not happen of course. To our surprise, not only did we have potatoes, beans and the like, from the new garden under the tree but for the first time the branches hung heavy with large ‘Denbigh plums’. A good crop resulted from our having pruned the roots of the tree!

In response to the government’s call to ‘Dig for Victory’, the mayor of Denbigh town arranged for prominent gardeners of the town to hold Flower and Vegetable show in the County Hall, Denbigh in summer 1942, with a view to encouraging local people to contribute and to nurture an interest in gardening. This was the launch of the Denbigh Flower show.

I was honoured to be the show day President when the show celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1992, in recognition of my having been secretary of the Flower Show for 40 years.

The show celebrated 63 years on 27th August 2005.

Link here.

By Twigs Way & Mike Brown
Sabrestorm
December 2010
240 pages

Beans as bullets’, ‘Vegetables for Victory’ and ‘Cloches against Hitler’: these slogans convey just how vital gardening and growing food were to the British war effort during the Second World War. Exhorted to ‘Grow More Food’, then to ‘Dig for Victory’, Britain’s ‘allotment army’ was soon out in force, growing as many vegetables as possible in suburban allotments, private gardens, even the grounds of stately homes.

Richly illustrated with contemporary photographs and ephemera relating to the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign, this expertly researched, highly engaging and informative account also includes archive images of home front gardening, garden produce and advertisements.

Twigs Way is a professional garden historian, author and freelance lecturer, whose credits include Channel Four’s ‘Lost Gardens’ and, for Sabrestorm Publishing, ‘Allotment & Garden Guide -A Monthly Guide to Better Wartime Gardening’. Mike Brown is an author, broadcaster and authority on the Home Front, whose books include ‘The 1940s Look’, ‘The 1950s Look’ and ‘Air Raids & Ration Books’ (Sabrestorm).

See the book here.

Also see Twigs Way website here.

Allotments listed on Landshare

Landshare
2nd September 2011

Excerpt:

Over 20 National Trust properties are now running allotments or community gardens or orchards on their sites, many of which are stunning historic properties with incredible views as well as great growing soil. At Kingston Lacy in Dorset a set of 118 new allotments have been established. There are 40 allotments for members of the local community; 26 for school and community groups and a further 52 subsidised plots for individuals referred through local housing associations.

The plots lie between the formal gardens and Home Farm in an area formerly used as the kitchen garden and never before open to the public. There is also an area of raised beds for special needs groups and wheelchair-users, and the team hope to recreate an orchard and pond at one side of the garden.

Read the complete article here.

The National Trust allotments here.

A salad may cost £1.50 in the shops but a packet of 100 seeds less than £1.

By Toby Walne
This is Money – UK
Oct 24, 2011

Excerpt:

Autumn is the ideal time for gardeners to prepare for the following year – and possibly knock £1,300 off the annual grocery bill.

Research from the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners has found that allotment holders spend an average £202 growing vegetables and fruit every year that would sell for £1,564 in shops.

With the cost of the weekly grocery shop rising by an average of 6.1 per cent in the past year, interest in growing your own vegetables is expected to soar – and allotments are the ideal place for most people to do it.

Susi Dunn, 43, of Clapham, south London, got an allotment plot in nearby Wandsworth after waiting five years. She and stockbroker husband James, 42, spend at least a couple of hours a week tending the £16.50-a-year plot with children Elizabeth, ten, Charlotte, eight, and Henry, one.

Read the complete article here.

“He’s an inspiration, but even though he is 75 he can still out-dig us any day.”

By Debbie Waite
Oxford Times
20th October 2011

Excerpt:

The former Pressed Steel worker, from Brambling Way, Blackbird Leys, said: “I’ve had an allotment for more than 40 years. It’s lovely to know my grandchildren who live locally are all enjoying fresh veg.

“Keeping an allotment is hard work and commitment is key, but without this patch of ground and my vegetables I would just be sitting indoors, watching TV. This keeps me fit and in the fresh air and I can deliver fresh fruit and veg to the family every week.”

Widower Mr Curnock has three sons and three daughters and 14 grandchildren, eight in Oxford, six living nearby in Blackbird Leys.

He said: “You name it, I grow it, everything from potatoes, peas and beans to apples, blackberries and chilli peppers. At this time of year my family are also waiting for the pumpkins I’ve been growing for their Halloween parties.”

Read the complete article here.

“By growing and sharing their own food, people are building independence from global supply chains and a degree of resilience, cushioning the impact of shortages or price rises.”

By Julian Dobson
Urban Pollinators
October 2011

Excerpt:

‘You have to act to hope.’ Todmorden shows how such action can become viral.

The town’s schools are just one example. Every local primary school was given a disused pleasure boat to use as a planter. One school got permission to grow vegetables in a graveyard. All of them have now clubbed together to plant their own orchard.

At Todmorden High School, where head of catering Tony Mulgrew has been a champion of home-grown food for several years, there is now a commercial-scale polytunnel that supplies the kitchen with fresh produce. A £750,000 aquaponics unit is also on the way, secured with a £500,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund and a donation of land from Calderdale Council. It will produce fish, fruit and vegetables to be served in the canteen and used in food technology lessons. Any surplus will be sold to the town.

Watch Pam Warhurst from Incredible Edible Todmorden describe the program.

Compendium for the Civic Economy – Pam Warhurst from NESTA UK on Vimeo.

Read the complete article here.

See Incredible Edible Todmorden here.

The hope that the Patronage of His Royal Highness will help to create greater awareness of the allotment movement

16th September 2011

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has kindly agreed to assume the Patronage of the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners, which is based in Corby, Northamptonshire. The Prince of Wales has a long standing interest in horticulture and sustainable growing and has always championed the benefits of partaking in such activities.

The National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners was launched as a members’ co-operative in 1901 and even today the Society is owned, managed and funded by its members in order to protect, promote and preserve allotments for future generations to enjoy. Additionally, the Society aim to provide advice and information to both allotment holders and home gardeners.

The NSALG is part of the official consultation process relating to the disposal of Statutory Allotment land resulting in several saved sites. The Society is proactive in providing the media with considerable information on the allotment movement past; present and future. The focus for its work is liaising with government to ensure that the voice of allotment holders is heard and to express that allotments remain an important part of today’s society.

The Society is a founder member of the International Office which represents over 3.5 million allotment gardeners in Northern Europe and Scandinavia.

Today, the Chairman of the NSALG Mr Allan Rees MBE and Mrs Donna McDaid, National Secretary of the NSALG warmly welcomed the Prince’s decision. They expressed the hope that the Patronage of His Royal Highness will help to create greater awareness of the allotment movement and attract more support for its valuable work.

Link here.

Hazardous substances, including lead, were found by investigators.

By thehortchannel.tv
September 28, 2011

An allotments Newport (Wales) where lead was found in the soil could be closed for good from December.

Shaftesbury Park Allotment holders were told by Newport council last month it would close the site after hazardous substances, including lead, were found by investigators.

After tenants protested that they were given little notice of the closure, officers allowed them to remain at the site while a further probe was completed. But yesterday Newport council confirmed that the site has now been classified as contaminated land and officers have three months to find a solution or prevent further public access.

Officers have advised nothing else is grown there and existing crops should not be eaten.

The council is now exploring ways of cleaning the site, such as replacing the old soil, and officers have to report back by December 13. It is also investigating whether other areas of public space in Shaftesbury could be used as a suitable allotment site.

A council spokesman said: “Site holders have also been offered other alternative allotment sites around Newport, either collectively or as individuals should they wish to relocate.”.

Cliff Couch, a tenant who has used the allotments for four decades, said the news which was given to tenants at a meeting with the council, was devastating. “It’s been a long time I’ve been over there. I thought I would see my days out on the allotments, but it’s not to be.”

Link here.

You Local Guradian
26th September 2011

Excerpt:

A farm in Colliers Wood has scooped the title of best in London for the second year running at a festival of city farming and community gardening.

Volunteers from Deen City Farm beat their nearest rivals Surrey Docks and attributed their victory to great teamwork and animal handling skills.

City Harvest Festival, London. See more photos from the event here.

The annual event was held at Capel Manor in Kent on September 17. Deen City’s 14 representatives, one just 10-years-old, were awarded seven 1st places, four 2nd places and two 3rd places giving them 32 points overall – four points more than their own winning total last year.

Read the complete article here.

London’s Harvest Festival

Excerpt from The Smallholder, Sept 1, 2011

A unique UK festival, with all the fun and atmosphere of a traditional rural county show, but featuring animals and producer from inner city London takes place on September 17.

Now in its 13th year, the City Harvest Festival is the one time in the year when the hard work and dedication of talented farmers and gardeners from across London are celebrated.

City Harvest Festival, London. See more photos from the event here.

This year, animals and produce from a wide range of London’s 16 city farms and more than 100 community gardens will be showcased at the event. Visitors to the festival can see Golden Guernsey goats from Newham, honey from Walworth, pumpkins from Kentish Town, Indian runner ducks from Vauxhall, Bengali kerala from Shoreditch, and blackcurrants from White City. The festival takes place in 30 acres of gorgeous grounds at Capel Manor in Enfield and is a great family day out. Ducks, geese, rabbits, ponies and livestock compete for the Best in Show, while there is a dazzling array of both familiar and exotic fruit and vegetables in a variety of produce competitions, all sourced from London farms and gardens.

Read the complete article here.

A Farm in the Heart of Camden initiated in 1972

Kentish Town City Farm is an educational and recreational project that developed out of the needs of local people.

Initiated in 1972, through the medium of an existing community group, it has provided animals, gardening space, horse riding and a focus for youth education and community work for thousands of users per year.

Originally called the Fun Art Farm and the City Farm 1, Kentish Town City Farm was the first of its kind to be established. As such it played an important historical role and acted as a model in the development of the City Farm movement as a whole.

With the establishment of a National Federation of City Farms in 1980, the movement has since grown, from those first tentative steps in the early seventies, into a national movement, with Farms and Community Gardens being established throughout the British Isles.

See their website here.

And the video here.