Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Coming up roses? Not any more as UK gardeners turn to vegetables
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/22/food.gardens

Price rises, food miles and Jamie Oliver spur seed sales and demand for 
allotments

    * John Vidal, environment editor
    * The Guardian,
    * Saturday March 22 2008

Call it the new dig for victory. Rising food prices and television lifestyle 
shows are turning Britons into some of Europe's leading home vegetable 
growers, with increasing numbers of gardeners digging up their flowering 
borders to replace them with veggie patches.

Leading seed companies yesterday said that UK buyers were shunning their 
traditional summer orders for flowers such as sweet peas and cosmos in favour 
of tomatoes, lettuce and other crops to grow at home.

"Five years ago the split between vegetables and flower seeds was 60:40," 
said Tom Sharples, the technical manager of Suttons, which distributes nearly 
a third of seeds in the UK. "This had switched by last year to 60:40 in 
favour of vegetables and now in some places it is at 70:30 vegetables.

"There has been a pattern building for a few years now. The growth in 
vegetable seeds used to be related to health concerns, especially about 
chemicals. It's shifting. Now it's care for the environment generally, and 
people wanting to take control back of what they eat and [reduce] food miles."

Thompson & Morgan, another major seed merchant in the UK, said there was "a 
definite shift" towards vegetables. "We are selling more vegetables than 
flowers now and there is a real boom in the grow-your-own effect. Sales of 
seed potatoes are already up 10% on the year and sales of other vegetable 
seeds continue to grow year on year," said Clare Dixey.

The burgeoning slow-food movement and growing interest in local, seasonal 
produce are factors in the rise of the vegetable patch. But the seed supply 
firms also say that food and fuel price inflation is helping to drive the 
shift to vegetable growing. Following last year's poor summer crops and a 
doubling of many commodity prices, food prices have risen 10%-20%.

"You can plant your garden with veggies for the price of filling your car up 
with petrol," said Sharples. "£50 of seed is a lot of vegetables. People tell 
us they are planning to spend more time in the garden now because they cannot 
afford to go out so much."

This, according to the Horticultural Trades Association, is partly a result 
of the influence of food gurus including Jamie Oliver and Hugh 
Fearnley-Whittingstall. Sales of vegetable seeds rose 7% last year and 
Britain, with a population of more than 60.5 million people, may now be 
growing as much at home as it did during the second world war, when lawns 
were dug up. Vegetable growing declined steeply during the 1980s and 1990s as 
supermarket food became more popular.

This week the national lottery has been overwhelmed by applications for 
grants to develop local food groups wanting to grow their own produce. Around 
£50m is to be to spent over the next five years promoting community gardens, 
school farms, box-and-compost schemes and the reclamation of derelict land, 
with grants of £2,000-£500,000. More than 1,300 groups applied for grants in 
the first four days.

"The idea is to make local food more affordable and accessible to 
communities", said Kelvin DeSena, of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, 
which is administering the scheme on behalf of 13 groups.

The Easter weekend is traditionally the start of the gardening year, although 
conditions may not be ideal this year.

"We are just waiting for some decent weather. I haven't been able to get out 
into the garden all year. Now it looks like it's sleeting and the temperature 
in my greenhouse is down to -5C [overnight]. I've hardly planted anything. 
I'm keeping my fingers crossed it gets better," said Geoff Stokes, the 
secretary of the National Society for Allotments, adding that although most 
vegetable growing is still done in back gardens, demand for allotments has 
rocketed.

Stokes sees this as a backlash against supermarket food in favour of fresh 
produce and seasonal fruit and local vegetables.

"There are roughly 330,000 allotment holders in the UK but waiting lists are 
growing fast," he said. "Demand has increased considerably in the last few 
months alone. It seems there is a complete lifestyle change taking place. We 
had the 'good life' factor in the 1970s, but the phenomenon seems more 
sustainable now."

As many as 100,000 people are on allotment waiting lists, said Neil Dixon, 
the chairman of the National Allotments Trust. "In Scotland and some towns in 
northern England, the waiting list is nearly as long as the number of people 
holding allotments," he said. "Almost every council is now under pressure to 
provide more. Many are now trying to cuts plots in half or less."

Demand outstrips supply most in Yorkshire, where six towns have a combined 
waiting list of more than 3,500 people. Sheffield has 1,400 on its list. 
Elsewhere, Manchester has 850 people on the waiting list for allotments, 
Edinburgh has 1,150, Plymouth 1,000 and Blyth Valley, in Northumberland, has 
more than 1,200. In Swindon, there is now a five-year waiting list.

Councils are obliged to provide 15 allotments for every 1,000 households and 
no more than six people are meant to be waiting for a plot at any one time. 
"They are failing to provide them because they sold off land when demand was 
not so high," said Stokes. "This will go on because developers are now 
building houses with much smaller gardens."

Interest in local food is soaring, say groups promoting home growing as a 
community activity. In Middlesbrough, a pilot scheme last year offered 
vegetable seeds and containers to more than 2,000 individuals, as well as 
more than 80 community groups, voluntary organisations, schools, housing 
associations and health organisations. This year the project is expected to 
get bigger after the council dug up part of a park, turning it over to 
growing vegetables.
Top 10 grow-your-own vegetables and fruit, 2008

Potatoes
Tomatoes
Lettuce and salads
Runner beans
Peas
Carrots
Onions
Garlic
Herbs
Fruit bushes

Source: UK seed companies, garden centres, Horticultural Trades Association