Community Gardens

2011/02/07

It’s all well and good talking about gardening, when you have a nice backyard. Throw a few veggies in the corner, build a compost bin, maybe build a chook run (that’s chicken for the non-Australians).

It’s easy to forget that a good 80%, or more, or the population live in cities, many of which are densely packed. Maybe, you could grow a couple of herbs on the window-sill, or a couple of ornamentals on the balcony (if you have one).

What do you do if you don’t have space for a garden?

In England, there’s a wonderful concept about gardening. There are council allotments for those who wish to have a plot of land to grow pretty much anything they want (as long as it’s legal). the down-side to this is that the queue is so long, and the allotments so sought after, than you really do have to wait until someone dies before one becomes available.

The British have a real sense of community, in that everyone has the right to access (public walkways can be found all over the country, through private property), the right to open space (the number of public parks is astounding. In fact London is considered England’s largest forest!) and the right to grow their own food, even if they don’t have the space for it.

I have not heard of anything like their allotments anywhere else in the world. However, all is not lost for the rest of us.