The Allotment

Around about last November, I read the following books:

Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains are Wired to Ignore Climate Change

Plastic Ocean

Storms of my Grandchildren: the Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe     

I read them in much the same way that people watch the rolling news in the wake of a disaster or a terrorist attack: with absolute horror, but compelled to keep on.

Admittedly, it was a bit of an environment binge. I think I read the three books in a week (they're pretty short) and after that I had some kind of crisis which resulted in vomit, compulsive writing, anger, dread and a spot of depression. This had never happened to me before and it felt odd, to be reduced to being a bit of a nutter over the state of the planet. It is probably more normal to suffer like that over issues that are personal, rather than planetary. Possibly, it is a sign that I don't have enough to worry about in my mostly tidy life. More likely, it is a sign of the seriousness of what is going on out there, and a reason why most people don't like to think about it. I used to fall into that camp - I was just sort of hoping someone would invent something to remove CO2 from the air (oh, wait - that's a tree and in the last 50 years, 30% of the world's trees have been cut down), or that a volcano would erupt and reverse everything.

But those things haven't happened and they're probably not going to.

Our main hope is that there will be a surge of change and the world will eventually operate differently. One of the predictions for the future - somewhere around 2050 - is that as rural areas become less and less habitable (Cumbria, for instance, is already well on it way to that state), the vast majority of the world's population will live in super cities and any green spaces, such as on roundabouts or rooftops, will be given over to vegetable growing, so cities become self-sufficient. This is already happening in some places.

After my environmental crisis, the first thing I did was put my name down on the list for an allotment. I was mainly thinking of food miles, but I am now finding that all the issues of the environment are beautifully connected. Save on food miles by growing your own, and you reduce your plastic consumption. You also reduce the use of bee-killing pesticides. You can even do things to encourage bees, such as plant a patch of wildflowers.

I was given my allotment at the end of July. It needs a lot of work. This is it:

                         
It is mostly weeds that are covered with black plastic (which I will use again and again and pass on when I'm finished with it) to kill them. I dug a bed and on that bed I have successfully grown lettuces. I am amazed at how easy this is, because I am not lying when I say that before I got this allotment, I had never, ever done a single moment's gardening in my life. Not one minute. None. But I quite like it and it is less work than I thought it would be. At the moment, I spend about an hour a week on it, slightly more if I decide to dig a new bed. Yesterday, I planted onions and garlic. I also picked enough lettuce for a salad, another holder gave me three bramley apples and on the way home, we discovered blackberry bushes and picked a whole load. Early in the morning, I'd thrown some flour, yeast and water in the bread maker and so the product of a very, very small amount of labour was all this:-

The crumble isn't looking its best because we ate it for breakfast. But it was lovely and litter-free.

I suppose I just think that if the future is all about sustainability, we might as well make it happen sooner rather than later. There is loads of space on my allotment. If you want a bed or two of your own, get in touch. You can have one.