Welcome to our Community Allotment
So this is us, well some of us. Nine households in total - 29 members - a real mixture - young and old, most of us novices when it comes to growing veg.
We all live in this small cul de sac in one of Europe's biggest private housing estates, north of Bristol, which for what ever reason doesn't have any allotment sites. 9,000 houses, over 20,000 residents and no plots. Built in the 80's and 90's when was gardening was all about decking and brass band music on the tv.
Whether we've reached that certain age in life or whether we're riding the big green wave with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver. I don't know but we all got talking and thought hey wouldn't it be great if we could all grow some food together. Now we ain't going to be able to feed all our families with just five pods measuring 6ft x 4ft, but everyone will at least get a chance to get connected to what we're eating. Because whatever you say we have lost that connection between plough to plate, fork to fork or whatever you'd like to call it.
I think I connected again with the food we grow when I went to dig out some carrots for our christmas dinner. The soil was frozen solid and the carrots we so carefully sowed in neat rows, far too close together because we were afraid to thin them out, because it seemed such a waste, weren't going to come out without a hairdryer on them for a few hours! Wow I thought, what the heck are all those farmers doing out there in the fields with frozen veg they couldn't harvest.
We all live in this small cul de sac in one of Europe's biggest private housing estates, north of Bristol, which for what ever reason doesn't have any allotment sites. 9,000 houses, over 20,000 residents and no plots. Built in the 80's and 90's when was gardening was all about decking and brass band music on the tv.
Whether we've reached that certain age in life or whether we're riding the big green wave with Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver. I don't know but we all got talking and thought hey wouldn't it be great if we could all grow some food together. Now we ain't going to be able to feed all our families with just five pods measuring 6ft x 4ft, but everyone will at least get a chance to get connected to what we're eating. Because whatever you say we have lost that connection between plough to plate, fork to fork or whatever you'd like to call it.
I think I connected again with the food we grow when I went to dig out some carrots for our christmas dinner. The soil was frozen solid and the carrots we so carefully sowed in neat rows, far too close together because we were afraid to thin them out, because it seemed such a waste, weren't going to come out without a hairdryer on them for a few hours! Wow I thought, what the heck are all those farmers doing out there in the fields with frozen veg they couldn't harvest.
We think we have something special that could be duplicated elsewhere in our town - or even your town, city or village. Let us know what you think - fill in the comments box on the contact us page.