There has never been more help available for people who dig up their colourful borders in favour of producing food. Jo Ind reports.
Lawns are being dug up to create vegetable patches. Climbers are being replaced by espaliered fruit trees. The latest garden accessory is not a swing seat, but a chicken house.
The credit crunch combined with the awareness of the importance of reducing our carbon footprint has created a rationale for growing your own produce which is hard to refute.
Even the Queen is at it. For the first time since the Second World War, there is an allotment in the Buckingham Palace gardens. Beans, lettuce and tomatoes from seeds donated by Garden Organic in Ryton, Coventry will be grown there.
Latest figures indicate that fruit and vegetable seed and plant sales have doubled in the past year. There has been more than 100,000 tomato plants bought in the last three months alone.
Sales of chicken houses designed for domestic use are up by 30 per cent and interest in allotments is at an all time high with 100,000 people on a waiting list.
But while the rationale for growing your own might be obvious, the prospect can seem a little daunting for those whose horticultural experience does not extend beyond having a pot of basil on the kitchen windowsill.
Fortunately, there has never been more help available for people who are setting out.
Tom Thompson, is a 45-year-old gardener from Kings Heath, Birmingham, who has set up a business, Vegetropolis, which takes all the backache out of digging your own plot.
“I’ve seen a shift away from the traditional garden,” says Tom.
“People are giving over parts of their garden that were just ornamental to growing fruit and vegetables. There’s a different understanding of what a garden is for.”
For the price of £120 per day, Tom will do anything from offering advice, to putting in raised beds, to planting and watering and putting a box of freshly gathered produce from your own garden by your back door.
“We’ll do a few hours a week or I can help people set up and leave them to it,” says Tom.
“It can feel daunting at first. The thing is to limit yourself to growing a certain number of simple things that will grow very well. Don’t try to do too much in the first place and it won’t become over complicated.”
“I would encourage people to go to Birmingham City Council, buy compost bins, buy water butts, and start to make their own compost, which will reduce the cost as well.
“My concern is for the environment, for sustainability, the effect on honey bees. I’m viewing gardens more as land and places in the city where we can do a lot for the environment.”
Meanwhile, BBC Gardeners’ World presenter Alys Fowler, also of Kings Heath, has set up a scheme in Birmingham where people trade their skills in exchange for receiving help in getting their garden ready to grow their own vegetables.
Grofun (Growing Real Organic Food in Urban Neighbourhoods) started as a small community project in Bristol, and Alys is the first to try it out in Birmingham.
The scheme involves horticultural-hopefuls donating 10 hours of their time to a community chest and in return a bunch of volunteers come round and prepare their garden for cultivation.
There are about 12 households involved in Alys’ scheme and each weekend the team moves around from one garden to the next.
They have cut back a very overgrown back garden and created a square, raised bed; made over a sunny front garden to house a small, rectangular bed for potatoes and salads and created some containers for a patio.
The benefits of this kind of community gardening are a huge. As well as all the usual benefits of people growing their own produce, it means people learn from each other as they go along.
Alys says: “There’s one other element to the scheme, which is that everyone has to share some of their produce with the rest of the gang. In our case we’re going to throw at least one big barbeque and have a right proper shindig.
“This also means the people who had their garden done first have grown produce that those who had it done at the end of May couldn’t grow, such as potatoes, which is neat.
“The thing that’s got everyone so excited is that gardening in a gang is a lot of fun. I have scant knowledge of what the gardens look like before we get there.
“You just have to get on with it and there’s always a funny collective moment when everyone’s debating a design or where the compost bin should go and so far some stellar pot-luck lunches.
“I get a great thrill walking around my bit of the world thinking, ‘I know behind that house someone’s growing something good to eat’.”
For those who are not lucky enough to have Alys herself coming round to their house and digging up their garden, there is plenty of advice available from other sources.
The BBC has a Dig In campaign which offers a free leaflet on growing your own and free packs of seeds.
At the Royal Show in Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, from Tuesday, July 7, to Friday, July 10, there will be a special smallholder section in which visitors can get advice on growing vegetables and keeping chickens as well as milking goats and beekeeping.
Garden Organic, at Ryton in Coventry, has been helping people grow their own vegetables for more than 50 years.
It offers free education programmes to schools and classes for adults who want to learn the art of picking their own fruit and digging up spuds.
It has also compiled a top ten easiest to grow veg for the Eat Seasonably campaign it founded along with B&Q and the National Trust.
The Eat Seasonably campaign has a veg doctors scheme, where novice gardeners can get advice from the inexperienced.
It is also part of a landshare initiative, which matches up those who have land they can spare with those who are in need of a little more growing space.
And though it might seem a little optimistic to those who are just setting out with growing their own, help is at hand for gardeners who at the end of the growing season have produce to spare.
Notcutts Garden Centres have introduced a scheme this summer, encouraging people to bring in the surplus fruit and veg they’ve grown and swap it for something somebody else has brought in.
Everyone is invited to take their surplus fruit and vegetables to a garden centre and either swap it with something of a similar value or share it by adding their bounty to the table. Any surplus is donated to local good causes.
TV gardener Joe Swift, who’s been growing his own fruit and veg for years, will be providing support in the form of growing tips and advice.
“This is a great scheme,” says Joe. “I’ve been growing my own fruit and vegetables for a couple of years, and always find myself with far too many tomatoes and apples for a family of four.
“Every year I try and find someone to swap with, to see if I can exchange my ‘glut’ with someone else’s.”
It is hard to think of a more delicious problem to have.
TOP TEN EASIEST TO GROW
According to Garden Organic, these foods sprout more-or-less like magic out of the ground: salad; tomatoes; peas; courgettes; strawberries; beetroot; mint; onion; dwarf French beans; pumpkin
Weblinks
* Swap and share your surplus fruit and vegetables: notcutts.co.uk/swapandshare
* Find out what to eat and plant when: eatseasonably.co.uk
* Find a veg doctor or find someone with land you could plant up: landshare.channel4.com
* Go on a training course at Coventry’s Garden Organic: gardenorganic.org.uk
* Get free seeds from the BBC’s Dig In campaign: bbc.co.uk/digin/apply_for_seeds
* Get a free growing booklet from Dig In campaign: bbc.co.uk/digin/booklet
* Find out about the Growing Real Organic Food in Urban Neighbourhoods: grofun.org.uk
* Watch a video by Louis Hazan on how GROFUN transformed her Birmingham garden: vimeo.com/4631091
* Find out how to visit The Royal Show: royalshow.org.uk
* To see the sites listed together in one easy list: delicious.com/joind/growyaown
* To contact Tom Thompson of Vegetropolis, call 07790 257 168
