7 Benefits of growing your own food

You know I got a lot of stick from my peers when I took an allotment on.  In fact the name for the blog came from one of my mates who called out across the pub “Look Out! Here comes allotment guy” But I have been working the allotment for about 6 weeks now and planning it for a little longer.  And in that time the same people who gave me stick have started saying things like “Wow, you’ve lost some weight!” or “Allotment Guy you’re looking really well”.  Allotment Chick has also made some complementing remarks – but I reckon I’ll keep them to myself.  As well as the obvious physical benefits I have tried to list a few other benefits that I have noticed over the last few weeks.

Save the planet

You know when I see protesters on TV outside airports proclaiming that the end of the world is upon us because we use aircraft to fly all over the world – I usually find myself shouting at the telly.  Sure, air travel is a polluting industry, but the amount of pollution and contribution to global warming it brings compared to the industry that puts food on your plate is tiny!  Look at the figures and don’t be misled by what you see on telly; aircraft belching fumes = bad, cows in alpine meadow with blue skies and green grass = good, no no no, NO.  Believe me If you grow all your own food and holiday twice a year in Spain you are more likely to have a smaller carbon footprint than someone who never steps out of their house but has their shopping delivered to their front door from a supermarket.

Eat healthily

Look, supermarkets are great.  They offer choice, value and are damn convenient.  I’d be lost without my local one.  But they are in business for their share holders, that means suppliers get hammered on price and suppliers cut corners and compromise quality.  When you grow your own you know what has gone into the soil, you know what has gone onto the plant and you know how long it took from being a living vegetable to going on your plate.  You have the responsibility and control over the entire process. 

I can make a safe bet that once you have that control you will be eating the freshest, best tasting food you will ever see.  And that has got to be a step in the right direction for healthy eating.

Improve your fitness

Gardening is hard work.  OK it generally doesn’t get you out of breath and sweaty like you would be after a run.  But a session doing even gentle gardening tasks can bring surprising benefits.  Think about it, you are likely to be active and therefore have an elevated heart rate and metabolism all day, leading to weight loss.  But also the kinds of things you do in a garden like digging, potting pruning, putting up a shed or polly tunnel, etc, all improve mobility and therefore flexibility, whilst gently toning your muscles.  And even though you aren’t puffing and panting whilst doing gardening, believe me you will know you have done a good days exercise by the end of it.

Learn new skills

Strategic planning, production planning, patience, waste management, water management, environmental science, biology, basic carpentry, engineering, agriculture, horticulture, people management, time management...  These are just some of the skills I have increased my knowledge in over the few weeks I have had an allotment.  I’m not saying I HAD to have these skills in order to start, I’m just saying you kind of learn more about them by osmosis.

Make new friends

You have your work friends, your pub friends, your facebook friends now with an allotment you have your allotment friends too!  And I have found my new allotment fiends to be kind, considerate, friendly, willing to help and full of advice. It’s always good to have an extra friend nearby when things might not be going your way.

Relaxation

No doubt about it, we live in a fast paced world these days.  Wake up, fast food breakfasts, commute to work, meetings, more meetings, lunch meetings, rush to finish work, commute home, TV, bed.  On an Allotment it is TIME TO SLOW DOWN a little.  You have weeks before you have seedlings, months before harvest.  Things don’t happen all that quickly on an allotment, and that gives you time to relax, time to think, time to meditate even.  Pretty soon you will find that even work such as digging over a plot or weeding is actually quite therapeutic.

Become more interesting

Its lunchtime, guys are going on about last night’s match, chicks are going on about Eastenders or Emmerdale.  Suddenly you pullout your freshly prepared ‘allotment salad’.  Maybe it has a variety of purple carrot grated into it, or it is orange beetroot or a variety of tomato you can’t get in the shops, but I guarantee you – your new hobby will provoke some great questions.  Because secretly everyone wants to be an allotment guy or an allotment chick.  But everyone has their excuses, oooh I aint got the time, I have to look after my kids, I kill every plant I touch, etc, etc. I have heard it all before, but really they envy you and your ‘allotment salad’ and they want to know more...

Disaster: hardening off

I thought I would make best use of the loveley spring sunshine today and try to harden off some corgettes I have been growing in my porch.

Unfortunatly the wind picked up and damaged every plant I had!

Moral of the story: ALWAYS check the weather forcast before hardening off!

Mad about allotting!

Making a compost heap

Composting is dead easy – despite what the old bloke two allotments down says, he’s still trading on the status he gained from winning 2^nd prize for his marrows in 1989.  The hardest part if you have chickens or pigs is trying to decide what goes in the compost heap and what goes into their food.  The trade off with the chickens of course is that you get great manure from them.  After that it’s mainly about waiting.  Here are some easy steps to get you up and running with your compost in no time: -

Site

The best for your compost bin is a sunny site on a patch of bare soil. If you have to put your compost bin on concrete, tarmac or patio slabs ensure there’s a layer of paper and twigs or existing compost on the bottom. Choose a place where you can easily add ingredients to the bin and get the compost out.

Ingredients

Posh department stores will try and flog you a ‘Compost Caddy’,  I use an old bucket I leave in the porch.  The difference?  About a tenner. Fill your ‘kitchen caddy’ with everything from vegetable and fruit peelings to teabags, toilet roll tubes, cereal boxes and eggshells. GOLDEN RULE: No meat or fish.

Fill

Put your ‘kitchen caddy’ and any garden waste such as veg thinnings and green waste into your compost bin.

Wait

When you build a compost heap you are really investing in next year’s soil improvement.  It will be anything up to 12 months before its ready to be dug in.  Keep topping it up though as you will be amazed at how much you use.

Ready

Once your compost has turned into a crumbly, dark material, resembling thick, moist soil and gives off an earthy, fresh aroma, you know it’s ready to use.

Remove

I know this might sound awkward but try to use the compost from the bottom of the heap first as this will be the stuff that has rotted down the most and give the best results on your garden.

Use

Your compost will look a bit like lumpy soil and will probably have bits of eggshell and other identifiable stuff in it – don’t worry, that’s normal. Dig it into your soil in the autumn or spring when you freshly dig over your beds. 

And there you have it.  Great compost in a few simple steps.

Recipe: Peasant Chicken

Delicious, takes about 10 minutes to knock up, whether as meal for two or a large family – simply add more chickens and veg.  The first time I tried this recipe I used one on my Bantams.  To be honest there isn’t much meat on a bantam so I’m glad I was just feeding me, but it was delicious all the same!

This recipe is classed as a ‘peasant food’; throw all negative connotations about ‘peasants’ right now.  They knew how to cook, and they knew how to keep it simple so they could crack on doing other stuff.  They were also expert at making use of whatever was to hand, so you’ll find this recipe is infinitely adaptable.  No carrots?  Go ahead and chuck some parsnips in.  You will see that the recipe is a little light on exact instruction – its meant to be, use what you have to hand.

Enjoy.

Serves: 4
Prep time: 10mins
Cook Time: 2 and half hours

Ingredients: -

2.5kg Chicken
Onions, carrots, leeks and potatoes and/or seasonal veg to suit
Knob of butter
A couple of bay leaves
A sprig of rosemary
Salt and pepper
Wine

Method

Preheat your oven to 190C (Gas 5).  Cut your veg into chunks and put into a casserole dish.  Mix your salt and pepper in with the butter to give you what I like to call: salt and pepper butter (Genius), then smear the butter all over the breast of the bird.  Now, place the chicken on top of the veg and shuffle it around so you have some of the veg around the sides of the chicken - this will allow better airflow round the chicken when its in the oven, allowing it to cook more evenly. Put your herbs in on top of the chicken; add about a glass of wine and the same again of water.

Bung your bird in the oven and let it cook at 190C (Gas 5) for about an hour.  After an hour stir the veg around a bit, baste the chicken with the juices and turn the oven down to 140C (Gas 1) for another 90mins.  For the last 40mins of the cooking turn the chicken onto its back and give the veg another stir, put back in the oven with the lid off.

Serve carved up on a big plate with the veg placed around the meat and enjoy.

Know your Plot: Soil

Improvement

Not all soil is created equal.  And good soil can make the difference between your crops failing, wasting a year’s hard work and a bumper crop that takes first prise at your local allotment show!  Knowledge is the first key to improvement; hard work is the second key.  Whatever your soil type, location or pH balance; you won’t go far wrong by digging in some well rotted manure and making sure your ground is well fertilised throughout the year!

Soil type

Identifying your soil type is easy. Grab a small handful of soil and try and mould it into a ball, if it crumbles in your hand and feels gritty when you work it, then it is most likely sand.  If you succeed in making it into a ball then it may be loam – unless you can work it further into a sausage shape and bend that shape around your finger – then you have clay.

It’s quite a messy job but I find my kids love doing this test!

Clay

Clay is hard work, but once it has been worked it is a very rewarding soil type.  It holds the nutrients vital to the growth of your plants and will stay moist even throughout a dry spell.  Drainage can be a problem with clay, particularly if the clay has been compacted by walking on it, poor drainage will exclude air from the roots of your plants and will effectively drown them.  Also, clay can be slow to warm up after the winter and this should be taken into consideration when planning your planting calendar.  You can generally improve the soil by digging in organic matter such as leaf litter and manure.  This will bring it closer to the soil type loam (see below). 

Sand

Soil that is sandy at first seems like a gardeners dream; it is easy to work and will drain well even after a heavy downpour.  But plants sown directly into sandy soil without first boosting the soils nutrients are unlikely to do well.  If you have sandy soil, plant your crops earlier and water often in the summer.

Loam

Something of a holy grail for gardeners.  It combines the best elements of sand and clay.  Unfortunately loam is a very rare sight in an unmanaged plot; but fear not, with a little work digging in organic matter such as farmyard manure, wood bark or leaf litter you can transform sand or clay into beautiful loamy soil – the perfect conditions for most vegetables.

Soil pH level

Not all soils are equal in terms of acidity and alkalinity or pH balance.  You will generally find that most soils are in a pH range of 5.5 and 7.5 and crops will grow best when your soil is close to pH 6.5 or slightly acidic soil.  This is because soil at a pH level of 6.5 allow the most nutrients to be taken in by the plants roots.

There are two ways of testing your soils pH balance.  The first is to send off a sample of your soil for analysis at a lab.  This is going to give you the most accurate answer – but its not an instant answer and is likely to be significantly more expensive than the second option, which is to get a DIY litmus test from your local garden centre.  The DIY kit is basically litmus paper which changes colour according to the pH level of something it comes in contact with.  Simply match the colour with the provided chart and hey presto – you have your pH level!

So, you know the pH level of your soil and you know that the ideal pH level for your plants to thrive.  But how do you alter the pH level of your soil to the optimum?  Read on...

Making your soil more alkaline is easily achieved with an application of lime to your soil.  You will need about 4.5kg of lime for every 9 square meters of soil (or for imperial the equation is simply 1lb of lime per square yard).  Dig this into your soil and it will increase your soils pH level by one point (ie from 5.5 to 6.5).

Making your soil more alkaline is more difficult however.  This is because usually the reason for alkaline soil is because of where the soil is derived from.  For instance, if it derived from chalk then it will have a constant supply of calcium to leach back into the soil restoring the alkalinity.  Using sulphur instead of lime in the above quantities will have a short term affect on the soil pH level.  But digging in plenty of organic matter will be the best solution.

Location/weather effects

Ok, so you have done the best you can to make the soil as loamy as possible with a pH level as near as 6.5 as possible.  Now for something you can’t change, the weather – so you must be mindful of it.  Firstly if you have sited your crops where they are likely to get less than 6 hours of summer sun than forget it, it’s unlikely anything will come of them.  Your crops will need as much sun as you can give them.

Cold air and frost pockets can be damaging to plants by stunting growth in the outset and damaging crops later in the year.  You can alleviate some of these problems with the use of gardening fleece and cloches. But try planting your crops away from low lying hills or where walls and hedges meet, as cold air is likely to collect here and reduce the temperature by a degree or two.

Flora/fauna

Most wild life believe it or not is good for the garden. From worms that break up and enrich the soil to hedgehogs and foxes that will control your pest population.  Remember: in garden you are tweaking an ecosystem that has worked - and will continue to work - for millennia without your help.  Tread lightly and reap the rewards.

Getting started with your veg plot

Some people are lucky; when they take over their new plot the handover is seamless, the previous owner gives it up as a going concern. It’s been dug over within the last year and there may even be a few crops still growing on the plot.  I however wasn’t so lucky. 25 years unlucky in fact, my ‘plot’ looked more like an extension of the woodland that it borders.  Complete with 25 years of brambles, self set trees and nettles.

There are two ways of dealing with a plot like this: the first is napalm, the second is strim and dig.  Unfortunately whilst the first option would by far be the easiest access to weapons grade munitions has been severely restricted in the last few years - besides I got the feeling that collateral damage to the neighbouring plots may result in eviction.  That left me with strim and dig...

Some people are lucky; their allotment association may have heavy duty tools like petrol powered strimmers and rotavators to deal with such tasks.  In my case, this time I got half lucky.  Our allotment association had been given a grant and they used it to buy a strimmer.  Using this made relatively short work of the 25 years of woodland encroachment – and I got to feel very manly by using power tools to boot!

That left the digging – by hand.  Strimming will get rid of most of the stuff down to about an inch off ground level. For the rest you have to get your hands dirty with a bit of shovel work.  Digging is hard work, in fact its bloody hard work.  I’m no softy but days of digging, pulling out roots and lugging away rubbish takes its toll.  It takes its toll in the form of aches and pains, takes its toll in the form of calluses and takes its toll in the form of ingrained dirt in your cracked hands (Tip: buy some gardening gloves and then use them).

But the site of a freshly dug over plot is a beautiful one, full of possibilities and potential.  I was certainly filled with a great sense of achievement, my mind raced at the thought of planting options and whilst I stood there surveying my work I could virtually taste the veg that I was looking forward to planting.

I was promptly shaken from my self veneration by allotment chick who conveniently arrived on the scene after the hard work was done.  She turned up with her own ideas on what to plant, when to plant and what tasted good.  “it’s about team work allotment guy” allotment chick explained, “you dig, I design!”

Question Time: Best veg to grow

Yesterday I received this question from Kelly on facebook: -

hi,we have a veggie plot at school which is usually looked after by the teacher who will soon be off due to being on maternity...i personnally kill most plants i come in contact with ,apart from basil and mint which are my favourite herbs,anyway any tips you have will be very much appreciated as i don't want the patch going to ruin while shes away...obviously the patch is pots with plants in and no animals due to health and safety but i really have no clue as to how to spot what plants need other than sun and water...oh and i tried to comment on your peasent chicken but for some reason i can't,was going to add a healthier version and tips on variation..x

Great question Kelly! Looking after veg is not as scary as it may first seem. If they get a bit of sun and you make sure they don't dry out (this is the biggest danger with pots), you will be surprised at how resilient most plants are.

As to whether some plants need shade or full sun etc then your first port of call should be the seed packet your plants came from. Read this and you will already be an expert on your chosen fauna! Alternatively you could try googling the plant to see what turns up. But remember its a bit of fun - you're not attempting to win 1st prize at an allotment show!

When growing things and trying to get kids interested I would recommend a sunflower growing contest, my kids love this and they run all the way down to 'daddies farm' to see who is winning today. Another favorite for kids is potatoes. Grown in buckets or pots, when it comes to harvest time kids love digging out the potatoes - its like digging for buried treasure!