"The Slow Allotment" in Organic Way (Spring 2008)

[SJA]

Is anyone else a member of HDRA and gets the Organic Way?

This edition has an article on The Slow Allotment - and how frustrating it is too! The author claims you cannot run an allotment on less than 30minutes a day - or 2 1/2 hours a week, and a dashed visit on the way home from work is no good.

Unless I'm misunderstanding his article he also seems to say that running an allotment cannot be fitted in around kids or work - is he really suggesting that only the retired can have an allotment!?!

As a proud dad to a 6 month old, and holding a very busy full-time job I love popping in to the allotment on the way home from work (weather/sunlight permitting). I can perhaps manage a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday.

I get great delight and joy from these few hours - and the rest of the time Mother Nature is doing her bit to keep everything ticking over for me.

Sorry if I'm ranting but am sure there are many other Grapeviners who are not full-time allotmenteers - but do juggle home-life, work and shopping but get equal enjoyment from the time they spend on the lottie! I agree it is a commitment - but seems the author wants to dissuade the reader!

[Two_Sheds]

I'd say ... weekends aren't enough. It's only Jamie Oliver that does his garden for a hour a week and has glorious crops ...
Every day visits are just unmanageable for most people. I'll take a punt and say 30 mins four times a week is just about enough, once your plot is up and working.
In the summer, you are sowing, planting, watering, feeding, weeding, harvesting and of course chatting. An hour every day is not unthinkable.

[daleclarke]

I'd say ... weekends aren't enough. It's only Jamie Oliver that does his garden for a hour a week and has glorious crops ...

Even he does not do it as he has a Head Gardener...

[carlseawolf]

i expect when the plot is fully cleared and working properly then you may be able to get away with 2 1/2 hrs a week but in the first 2 years your looking at as much time as you have avalible to get the plot up to scratch.

[Seahorse]

SJA - I read that yesterday and it got my back up too!

I think the overall point that it won't just happen magically was fair enough but the implication that if you can't be there practically all the time, you have no buisness even trying I found offensive, really.

He mentions 'the old days' of allotmenteering, where their primary purpose was to keep economically disadvantged families fed, as some sort of 'golden age' yet fails to think it through that if you had a family and full time job 50 or 60 years ago, you probably had less time to spend on a lottie than anyone in a similar situation now.

Perhaps it was deliberately intended to spark thought and debate but I thought it was a mean spirited and poorly argued piece.

[zazen999]

We have a thing in our house called 'OFF '- which is Old Fart Frenzy...we say at every opportunity instead of just rolling our eyes at people.
Perfect opportunity.

[crichmond]

Hi SJA

I also love to pop to the allotment at lunch time or after work, and I do so nearly everyday.
I am also married but with 8 kids and I have no problem keeping up with the work on the plot, I find that as long as you keep on top of things you dont need to spend that much time at all.

Cheers Chris

[bluemoon]

I admit that when it comes to the lottie I'm a plodder, but that's just me, I'd never dream of telling anyone that they couldn't manage if they couldn't or wouldn't spend as much time at it as I do. I my opinion I'd rather our site was in full use and thus under less threat from developers than to only encourage those who want to make a career of it and have it three quarters empty.

[Headfry]

I am lucky my plot is a short steps from home. I go after work most nights. In the summer we sail quiet a lot so time is difficult then.
30 mins 4 times a week for a plot that has been up and running a fair time, and with no nasty nasty weeds seems good if weather is being kind. I say more like 1 hour 3 time a week with weekend work too, if you have grass paths that need cutting, hedges to trim etc.
At the end of the day as long as your plot is not to untidy do what you can, but most of all enjoy the time you do spend however long or short. Don't become a slave to it or you may loose pleasure in growing your own.

[SJA]

SJA - I read that yesterday and it got my back up too!

So glad it wasn't just me!

Had a sudden thought that I was becoming even more Victor Meldrew before my time! Another case of OFF myself - although beloved already believes I am!

[jackie j]

I don't go to my allotment everyday its only 2 miles or there abouts and I'm at home all day, mind you when the weather is warmer i tend to be there all the time my family wont know whats happened to them it will be my bit of sanity if that's possible. I am struggling with it at the moment due to my frozen shoulder so got eldest son involved yesterday and he quite enjoyed it.

[SarzWix]

In some ways I can see the point they're making, although I don't think it's necessarily about time, it's about committment. On our site there are far too many working people take on a plot, then only spend an hour or 2 at the weekend trying to get the plot sorted out and don't come back til the next weekend, by which time their couple of hours work is indistinguishable!
I think if people take on a plot prepared to put in every spare hour & minute they can find in the first few months until the thing is under some semblance of control, then time can be cut down a bit. But I still think that once a week is not enough, unless you have no grass anywhere, no perennial weeds, and all your beds are heavily mulched. It really isn't fair on your neighbours to leave weeds & grass going to seed for a week, and it doesn't help you either!
Of course I'm lucky that I can get to mine more or less every day, and unlucky that I have rubbish neighbours on several sides who have taken on plots with no idea of the amount of work needed, most of whom I've only seen there when they've had The Letter...

[Winged one]

I think a proper working plot (and we only have what is a quarter of the original plot size) would take more than that amount of time. But we do have a small plot, and can only devote a small time to it. Last year, we just tried to keep the back half under control, without actually cultivating it. But we did get a fiar bit out of the front half and cleared it fairly well of the couch grass.

This year, we are also working on getting the back half cultivated (weedkillered last autumn after strimming, covered with plastic all winter, and doing as much diggin as we can now). But we are time pressured just at the mo - come May I will be more free at weekends. We both work but we have managed to get a reasonable amount last year, and have almost all of the currently available space with growing things in it at the mo - have 1st early spuds area dug and 1 other small patch for red onion sets, but the rest has other things growing. So if I want tomatoes, or peas, or beans this summer, I need to dig more.

When you are careful about what you do and how you do it, it can be done in small bursts of time. We only have weekends (and usually only once a fortnight rather than weekly), but we are still keeping on top of it. Whereas the lady who took the half plot next to us (at the same time we got ours) "got a man in" to rotovate it for her, planted 3 rows of seeds (without having cleared roots in the meantime) and it has been a wilderness ever since. Admittedly, the ones where the whole family is involved and there is more time devoted to it look much better and have had greater yields than us, but ours is far from the worst looking plot (even of those IN production, leaving out those who abandoned efforts rather quickly).

[bluemoon]

There's nothing I hate to see more than a dozen people turn up to help someone clear a plot in a weekend, you just know that the owner is never going to be able to keep on top of all that recently cleared land and will be gone forever within two months.

[Flummery]

I see what he meant. Just read mine today as I didn't have time to open it when it came yesterday. I do think TV garden evangelists and jamie-come-lately types can give the impression you just shove a few seeds in and then out pop the veg. This can give total newcomers the impression that there's nothing to it and we've all seen the results - how easy it is to be discouraged. However, I don't think you need to give the impression that unless you are there 2 hours a day your plot is going to be a disaster. Maybe he was just playing devil's advocate?

PS sorry for saying impression so many times. Guess I'm still at an impressionable age!