4th September 2009

Growing for produce and pleasure - why the Sid Vale needs more allotments

By Huw Hennessy

LES White has had an allotment in Sidmouth for twelve years, a well-packed and tidy rectangle at the top of the site between Peaslands Road and the cemetery.

If he respectfully turns his back on the neighbouring rows of headstones, Les has an enviable hilltop view from his plot over the town and down to the sea.

He grows an impressive range of crops for himself and his wife, Linda, including runner beans, French beans, courgettes, butternut squash, carrots, potatoes, parsnip, swede, peas, spinach, herbs, and soft fruit such as raspberries, loganberries and gooseberries.

Les spends about a couple of hours a day working at the allotment during the busiest times of year, but he’s not complaining.

He said: “I like gardening. It is hard work but I enjoy it. I don’t think it saves me any money but everything tastes better. And we know what’s in our food, as

"I don’t use any chemicals. I grow plenty for the two of us. We’re a good team as my wife comes up here to help pick the crop. And she’s the cook, and she freezes whatever we can’t eat.

"She even puts portions of herbs into ice blocks, which we read about somewhere. It’s been an excellent year for us this year, for the strawberries particularly”.

"As for the more philosophical appeal of getting away from it all and communing with nature, Les agrees, though he didn’t put it quite like that.

“I bring a flask with me most mornings, and everyone knows each other here, so there’s often someone to chat too. It keeps me fit and healthy and it’s somewhere different to go.”

Unlike Sidmouth’s other allotments, Les says tenants here have no rights, their lease is temporary, leaving them open to eviction. But so long as Les keeps active he says he doesn’t expect to stop gardening any time soon.

When he took on the allotment there was only a two-month waiting list, so he wants to keep going as long as he can.

Jean and John Twibell moved to Sidmouth from Cambridge two years ago. They had an allotment in the university city, but now they have a two-and-a-half acre garden adjoining their house on the outskirts of Sidmouth and they are living their dream of self-sufficiency.

“It’s a way of life to us,” John told View from Sid Vale one sunny morning in mid-August.

“We’ve run some kind of smallholding most of our lives, and my family background is in farming. We like growing our own vegetables because they’re healthy and good produce. We grow enough here to give some away to family and friends too.

"It feels different from having an allotment because we’re always here at home. We had to make a special effort to go to our Cambridge allotment, which was sometimes a disincentive. But it was relaxing when we got there because all you could do was gardening.

"This was a stress-buster for us then because we had quite demanding jobs. Now we’re semi-retired gardening has become a great pleasure for us, it’s just a great thing to do.

“We grow potatoes, winter roots: parsnip and celeriac, onions, leeks, shallots and garlic. Lots of my cooking begins by grinding garlic in a pestle and mortar with sea salt, adding lemon juice and using to flavour almost anything!

"Pumpkins and squashes are easy to grow and very useful because you can store them on a shelf somewhere cool and make soups all winter long. Summer veg includes several sorts of peas and beans, sweetcorn, cucumber, peppers, aubergines, tomatoes. The main problem is trying to eat it all!

"Having grown the food I think one is more aware of its value and reluctant to waste anything. The chickens eat outside leaves from lettuces and cabbage and other leftovers.

"Our fruit, which we planted 18 months ago, is beginning to produce: apples, pears, plums; soft fruit such as raspberries, blueberries, currants, strawberries and gooseberries. We are also experimenting with lesser known berries and grapes, and we intend to plant apricots, peaches and cherries this autumn.

"I have no idea of the cost saving but am pretty sure our supermarket bills are much lower than non-growers. Supermarkets often place the fruit and veg near the entrance to guide you through and tempt you to buy. We just shoot on to the next area.

"We do buy citrus fruits, bananas and avocados are a weakness. Otherwise we eat in season or use our own stored or frozen produce.

"We also have a solar powered pump, which moves water from the spring-fed pond to the growing area. This is not an economy move (set up costs far in excess of the mains electricity, which would be consumed), but it is too distant for mains power. Solar energy also powers the electric fence around the chickens’ run.

Garden Share Scheme

Jean Twibell has also become involved in a new local garden share scheme, which is planning to match up keen gardeners with nowhere to garden with home garden owners who have spare space available.

The scheme, which will follow a similar one being run in Totnes, is only at the stage of collating lists of potential participants. But according to Jean they have had a good response so far, and she would be glad to hear from anyone interested in joining in (contact Jean on 01395 578689, or email: [email protected]).

Alan and Margaret Maddock have had an allotment at Lawn Vista, by the River Sid for ten years. And their fellow gardener Henry Bending has also worked a plot here for many years.

What they share is a love of gardening, as well as the community camaraderie that comes from many hours spent together out in the open and away from the house.

“We just love gardening”, Mr Maddock explained. “I don’t care about watching TV or that sort of thing. We enjoy growing the crops, and eating them. And it helps knowing what’s in them – no chemicals.”
Likewise, Mr Bending added that he gardens purely for the enjoyment, but applauds the government’s initiative to encourage more of us to produce more of our own food.

“Food tastes better when you’ve grown it. And we’ve got our own little community here, we share things and always have a good chat. We don’t go into the competitions or anything. We try out different varieties of seed from time to time, and use crop rotation to keep the soil rich. But mostly we just grow what we know”.

The Maddocks leave plant shows to the more competitive types of gardeners, “We’ve got to let the others have a chance!” Alan quipped.

Ruth Hancock and Mole Cole of the Fresh and Green co-operative have been making a living since 2003, from producing pesticide-free vegetables on their farm near Southerton.

But Ruth says she also supports the latest home-produce campaign. “I think the more people there are growing veg the better. For a start it makes people value food more and realise just how much work goes into producing it.

“Not many people have the time space energy or expertise to keep themselves in veg’ all year round so I think there will always be a need for professional growers, all the more so if food culture really does become re-localized.

"The national landshare database set up by Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall has many more people wishing to grow than offers of land - so this all shows there is a definite need!”

When View from the Sid Vale’s reporter visited Ruth in their 12-acre fields recently, and asked what they grow there, she said: “It would be easier to tell you what we don’t produce, which is celery!”

Among the various crops coming to fruition at this time of year, Ruth pointed out some colourful highlights, including salad tomatoes, melons (“a first-time experiment, not sure how they’ll turn out, but looking OK so far”), artichokes and sunflowers.

They also have an apple orchard, with some 90 trees, mostly of eating apples.

Fresh and Green sell mixed boxes of herbs, salads and vegetables, which customers can order weekly, to pick up from local points, including Sidmouth Marketplace, Tipton St John, West Hill and Ottery St Mary.

For more information, telephone: 01404 814122, or email: [email protected].

Bungalow beds

Fluff (Cunning Plots 7) and Steph Preston have squeezed three raised beds into their small front garden. “Sidmothian born and bred”, Fluff moved into the bungalow Primley three years ago, took out the lawn in the front and replaced it with the frames built out of old scaffolding planks.

In the small space, he manages to grow cabbages, onions, peas, carrots, parsnips, runner beans, kale. There is even a small apple tree growing between two of the beds, producing Woolbrook Pippin, a local variety created by a Mr Usher.

Fluff says passers-by are always stopping to check out their front garden, even upstaging neighours exhibiting their flowerbeds for the National Gardens Scheme.

“A coachload turned up there recently, but they all flocked around our front garden instead!”

“I just like gardening, and these beds are much easier to look after. We eat our own produce, and give the rest away. The grandchildren like to get involved a bit too, and they enter flower shows”.

Saving our Waste

Hand in gardening glove with the home-grown produce initiative, consumers are also having to learn more and new ways of cutting down on our household waste

A recent government study on food production and waste has stated that the average household in the UK throws away £8 worth of food a week.

In his book, Waste, ‘freegan’ author Tristam Stuart, claims that, in Europe and the US as a whole, we throw away about half of our food each year.

East Devon District Council has recently introduced a new refuse collection programme, however, which provides more facilities for householders to separate our waste for recycling instead of adding to the growing landfill.

Instead a weekly general waste bin collection, householders now have a fortnightly general waste collection, but have new food waste bins, which are collected weekly.

Although the new service is putting more responsibility on householders to separate our food waste from general rubbish, the intention is that this food waste can then be processed and converted into electricity fed into the National Grid.

Paul Deakin, EDDC’s waste and recycling manager, outlined some of the statistics of how the new system is progressing so far.

In May, for instance, before food waste was processed in the Sid Vale area, just under 90 tonnes was collected (from the Axminster & Seaton area). In June, once Sidmouth, Ottery St Mary and Newton Poppleford had joined in, more than 233 tonnes were collected in total.

To give these figures a practical application, EDDC’s waste department has calculated that 1,000 tonnes of food waste

And to reassure those who might question the council’s incentives behind this new campaign, EDDC will be charged a £150 fine for every ton of landfill rubbish thrown away over a limit of 25% by 2010. As for householders’ benefits from recycling more food waste, it is purely in the knowledge that this will result in less use of fossil materials to generate electricity.

Councillor David Cox, Portfolio Holder StreetScene, which is responsible for waste collections in East Devon, recently gave an update report on how well things are going so far: “The new EDDC service was carefully designed to be as efficient as possible whilst giving residents the confidence that any rotting waste would be collected weekly.

“We are extremely grateful to residents for the fantastic way the majority have responded to the opportunity for giving a huge boost to recycling rates in East Devon.

"We are just asking a few to pay a bit more attention to wrapping their waste and putting it out weekly.

“We would appeal to residents to: Wrap their food waste, put it out on a weekly basis and put the food bin next to the recycling box.

“This will ensure that our residents and the teams who go out in all weathers to collect household waste have the best possible environment”.

Private recyclers

For those with larger gardens and not enough of their own composting bins, Otter Rotters is a local recycling company, which collects bags of gardening and other household ‘green waste’.

Bags are collected once a fortnight, and cost £3.50 each, plus £1 for the collection service. For more details, contact Otter Rotters, telephone: 07837 477050, email: [email protected].

Useful contacts:

Council Allotments

For more information or if you would like to add your name to the waiting list, call EDDC Customer Services on 01395 517528 during office hours.

You can add your name to an individual list or to all three lists. Outside of Sidmouth, there are also allotments in Newton Poppleford and other nearby villages.

Visit EDDC’s website: www.eastdevon.gov.uk, or call the above number for details of town and parish councils, which manage these allotments.

Wind Turbines

If you’re thinking of installing a wind turbine on your land, you might be eligible for a grant. Evance, a small wind-turbine manufacturer (formerly Iskra), and Segen (Evance’s UK distributor) have launched a new database to support landowners in tracking down grants available for the installation of small wind turbines.

In particular, the database will signpost grants available from Europe’s €345million Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, which is administered by the regional development agencies.

The fund can offer grants of up to 40 per cent of the installation costs. Anyone wishing to access the grants database is should contact Segen 0845 094 2445 or email [email protected].

Tree Planting

We are also being encouraged to grow more trees, and grants for this may be available to help schools and community groups too.

The Tree Council, the lead tree campaigning charity working to promote the importance of trees within the changing environment has announced that its Trees for Communities and Trees for Schools grant-making programmes are now open for applications.

Funds are available for schools and community groups within the UK who are able to show that children under the age of 16 will be actively engaged in the planting projects.

The Tree Council are able to fund projects between £100 and £700 and successful applicants will receive up to 75% towards their planting costs.

If you are interested in applying for next year, the 2010 application forms for schools and community groups will be available to download after National Tree Week (November 25th to December 6th, 2009) with a closing date of May 31st, 2010.

For more details, visit: http://www.treecouncil.org.uk/?q=grants; telephone: 020 7407 9992; Fax: 020 7407 9908; email: [email protected]