Terry Walton is heartened that allotments across the country are full again
It’s heartening to see our plots full again as more people are bi en by the gardening bug
Last year saw many people take up gardening as a way to spend all those hours during lockdowns. It gave many people an escape from reality and a chance to get out in the open air and combine exercise with a stress buster! I do hope many of them will remain gardeners for life.
For someone like myself, who has been gardening on an
allotment for decades, I’ve seen this ripple effect over the long years. In the 1950s, just after the war, everyone wanted an allotment; many of them had sprung up during the war years as a means of feeding the population. These places were full and everyone still had the urge to grow their own and put food on the table.
However, during the 1960s the love affair with allotments
gradually declined. Many allotments disappeared from our landscape through neglect and abandonment. Technological advancements brought many distractions away from the need to grow and provide your own food. Supermarkets sold it cheaply, prepacked and almost ready to eat.
As the 20th century ran out, the fun of those technological years declined, food became tasteless and the urge to reunite with all things nature surfaced in many souls. People’s latent feeling for the soil and growing things themselves was reawakened, and droves have returned to fulfil that urge and grow again. The wheel has started to turn full circle yet again and all is ge ing back as it should be, satisfying the need in all of us to become the provider of our own food. Allotments are filling up again with people eager to grow their own, free of pesticides and full of flavour. Now names are appearing on the waiting list to join our happy growing community.
My life has remained unchanged during these decades and I’ve always had a need to be as one with the soil, nature and the open fresh air. Back in the here and now, my plot, which has been looking green and lush, has started to take on a drab appearance. Yes, the green manure is being turned back in to improve the nutrients in the soil. This job needs to be done about six weeks before planting to let the lush material break
down. It’s a relaxing hour each day, turning this manure in, and the repetitive push, turn and
pat allows my mind to wander and my muscles to tone up.