The wait is over!

For a while now I’ve been on the waiting list for some of my local allotments, unfortunately those lists are rather long (some of the lists are so full they have been closed) and with turnover as it is the expected wait on the biggest site was between 6 and 8 years! One site has a waiting list so long that if it manages to expand as it is trying to, they will have double the number of plots and still won’t clear it.

After deciding I’d need to wait a lot longer than I wanted to for my ideal sites, I went to see another one; slightly further from home but not a million miles away. A website I saw listed them as having plots available, so on a sunny day a few weeks ago my girlfriend and I went for a visit.
The site was beautiful. While it is in the middle of the North Manchester urban sprawl, it is an incredibly quiet place. Surrounded by trees, with no real traffic noise to speak of, and some very friendly tenants it seemed like the perfect place. My girlfriend and I agreed that it was “like an oasis” (well sometimes you just can’t avoid a bit of cliché) and we both hoped we’d get a plot soon.

Apparently the website was mistaken. Not only were no plots available, but I was told there were about 12 people in front of me on the waiting list. Even with a few plots about to become available I expected to have to wait for a year or so, maybe less if I was lucky.

I hadn’t expected to be quite this lucky. This morning, just a few weeks after joining the waiting list, the telephone rang. To cut a short story shorter, a plot has become available and the allotment manager can’t get hold of 4 or 5 people ahead of me on the list so it is mine.

In the morning I’ll be going down to pick up my key, get a rundown of the rules and see where everything is. I might even get my hands a bit grubby while I’m there. Other than dirt, some weeds and maybe some plants I have no idea what to expect on the plot so I am quite excited.

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Introduction

For this introduction I was going to write about how organic food is so much better for you (your food hasn’t been grown in chemical riddled soil and sprayed with poison) or for the environment (those poisons and chemicals really do a lot of damage); about how GM foods are truly evil and a move to profit off, control and basically enslave the world’s poorest and neediest people; and about how the organic food you see in supermarkets, wrapped in a plastic wrapped plastic tray, misses the point of organic food…

That’s been pretty much done to death though. I assume anyone reading this has already read the arguments against GM foods, non-organic farming, monoculture and all that other bad stuff and skip on to the real reasons behind this blog and what I’m doing. (If you don’t already know the arguments against those things, I suggest you do a bit of homework and see just what all the fuss is about – the “cheap” food you buy in a supermarket does a lot more harm than you might imagine.)

So, what’s this blog about? Why am I starting to work an organic allotment?

Really it comes down to three things.

Firstly, it is fantastic to see plants you have looked after start to produce food. So far I’ve experienced this with my strawberry planter and the pepper plant that’s currently producing its first crop of sweet peppers in the kitchen. I’m looking forwards to it on a grander scale on an allotment.

Secondly, food that’s been picked right before you eat it just blows anything else out of the water. Freshly picked food could well be the key to world peace! It really is that much better.

Finally, and this could be the most important one of the lot…
I absolutely LOVE getting my hands dirty and doing/making/building things. The allotment is going to give me ample opportunity to do all three.

Not only do I get to play with knives, spades, forks, trowels, build a shed, a greenhouse, a potting table, cold frames, lay paths, dig dirty great big holes in the ground while saving the planet and sticking it to the man…

I get to eat some good food and have a great time in the process!

What better reason for wanting an allotment could there possibly be?

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