Dig for Victory

Continuing my blog series 'Proactive Society' I titled this one after the famous Second World War rallying cry for a very good reason - allotments used to form the greater part of the protected wild life land in Britain until modern times.  Then with so called 'convience shopping' the number of allotment holders went into decline and we are now something of an endangered species.  Now considering the growing number of food scandals of recent times (horse burger anyone?) and the fact that a lot of the pesticides used on our food crops have been shown to have carcinogenic qualities, I want to put forward an argument for more people to go out there and grow their own.

"But I don't have the time," you say.  Excuse me?  How many times are you down at the gym a week?

My allotment costs me fifty two pounds a year i.e. a pound a week.  I am fairly sure that no gym in England has an annual membership of that much and not only does it work just about every muscle the gym does, it produces food as a reward for all your hard work.

To start with, especial if like me, you are having to break the allotment in from fallow you have to cut down the grass.  The grass on my allotment is getting on for eight inches long now.  You could use a petrol strimmer but that takes money (you have to buy the petrol) and it pollutes the atmosphere.  Instead you can use a pair of garden shears.  Crouching to do this uses legs, butt, back (lower, middle, upper) and arm muscles.  You see? You have started your work out already.

You then need to rake all the clippings into a single heap.  Keep these weighed down under an old jute bag and you can use them in the autumn instead of buying straw to bed in the more delicate plants.  The act of raking again uses all of the above listed muscles.

Now comes the really hard part - breaking in the soil.  This is the bit that all allotment owners dread. Having cut a square piece of turf the size of your spade blade, you have to lift it up and turn the spade so the turf falls back into the hole you just made upside down.  This especially works the back and arm muscles and can result in some pretty serious back aches the next morning.  The best time to do this work is either in the winter, when the cold will kill the bugs you have just dug up, or in the spring during the morning so the birds will have all day to take the bugs back to their nests.

The next job is to spread a layer of non peat compost over the allotment.  You can make your own by - 1. buy a metal bin 2. drill small to medium sized holes in the bottom 3. filling it with all vegetable waste i.e. the potatoe peelings, the squishy tomatoe, the carrot that went mouldy in the bottom of the fridge.  Thus not only do you not have to spend money on compost, you also eliminate food waste.  It's not being wasted, it's going towards growing new food.

Once you have spread the compost over the allotment you have to dig it in.  That's right, you have to break the soil all over again.  Then, to add insult to injury you have to spread a second layer of compost over the allotment and dig that in.  Believe you me, you are not going to run out of allotment based work out any time soon.

And while you are doing all of that you are providing a bug based banquet for all the local birds.  Then comes the planting.  That's right - it's back to digging holes.