Grow Your Own
Some 30 odd years ago one of us had an argument with a lawyer on whether allotments were part of the urban or rural landscape. We agreed to differ (she said they were rural features, but then she would as she was on the opposing team to us at a public enquiry!). What’s your view? What is the visual impact of growing your own vegetables? Are they urban or rural? Are they a thing of beauty, a functional necessity, an eccentricity, or downright unattractive?
Let’s start by looking at the domestic garden. Whether urban or rural, people with gardens seldom grow vegetables in the space at the front of the house. For some reason we typically relegate the vegetable patch to the very end of the back garden. Are we ashamed of publicly exposing our meagre bean crop? Do we consider vegetables to be too ugly or too workaday to adorn the front of our houses?
Or perhaps more practically, are we concerned that our crops will be ‘scrumped’ by a passer-by or polluted by car fumes? A typical streetscape, whether in town or country, tends to be an entirely vegetable-free zone (image above).
Allotments, on the other hand, are quite a public way to grow your own vegetables and, in Terroir’s view, allotment sites are an integral part of the residential scene. Many of us want to be able to walk to our allotments, although car access is handy when there are builders’ bags of well-rotted horse manure or spent mushroom compost to be imported. So, yes, surely allotments are basically an urban or at least a residential phenomenon.
But what do allotments bring to the urban landscape? We suspect the concept of beauty in the eye of the beholder is relevant here. Take energy generation for example: many of us like the majestic size and graceful form of a wind turbine. For Terroir, this engineering-based design is further improved by the knowledge that it is helping to keep the lights on without using fossil fuel. But others regard these structures as the work of the devil, destroying our fabulous land and seascapes. [NB - remember that the appearance of our rural landscapes has been fashioned by centuries of growing food – meat, grain and, yes, vegetables]. There is, however, considerable opposition to wind farms, with considerable support, one suspects, from local Nimfy (Not In My Front Yard) groups.
Yet, the humble allotment - low key, higgledy-piggledy, messy, apparently disorganised, hippy and alternative - goes uncriticised in the tidiest of suburban loctions. Protests are more likely to be aimed at the length of the allotment waiting list, than what they look like. Scale (small) helps of course but let’s be honest, few would compliment allotment sites on their visual or architectural merit. What we love is what they represent - a low cost, local amenity which enables all (flat dweller and garden owner alike) to get outside and ‘grow their own’.
The benefits are wide ranging: healthy physical exercise, stress/anxiety busting activity, healthy food – spuds, raspberries, greens, whatever you like - straight from plot to pot or bowl; maybe a few chickens, maybe a few eggs, maybe a few chats with the neighbours, maybe a few swops – that gooseberry glut for a box of strawberries - or simply the delight of getting your hands in the soil and watching plants grow (or getting eaten by the wildlife).
Ay – there’s the rub. To achieve all of the above, we need to protect our crops from the competition - deer, slugs, caterpillars, pigeons. How to do this without wrecking the wildlife which we also enjoy (such as butterflies and wild flowers) but all of which, directly or indirectly, are also our competitors, just dressed in pretty clothing for at least part of the year?
Some allotment holders have dedicated wild flower areas but all have to indulge in physical crop protection. As this blog is about visual amenity, however, we won’t mention the few allotment holders who just might be using invisible chemical weapons.
No two allotments are alike. Some allotmenteers spend a lot of time, design and dosh on their plots. Raised beds, stout but attractive fencing, proper compost bins, substantial poly tunnels, enviable fruit cages and mown paths can all be seen somewhere on most allotment sites. Some holders, concerned with productivity, will use expanses of shiny black or blue sheet mulches. Many of us come at it from a somewhat hippie angle, using recycled material (some would say ‘junk’), making the plot look more like an adventure playground than a serious horticultural enterprise. It is this variety which is both the charm of the allotment site and it’s downfall in terms of visual appeal. But it’s small scale and if it’s not your thing, you don’t have to visit. It won’t wreck you local environment.
Here follows Terroir’s take on the visual amenity value of four allotment sites in two locations. Three are located in the same Surrey Victorian railway town and one is in Sheffield. All sites were still fields into the early part of the 20th century but had been becoming increasingly ‘urban fringe’ from the 1890s onwards. All were converted to allotments in the 1920s or very early 1930s.
Site 1 Quirky
There’s some productive growing happening here but also signs of a definite sense of humour.
Site 2 Serious
Some heavyweight gardening going on at this site - and its not all about growing veg.
Site 3 Old Playing Field
Who knew we were here?
4 The Cutler
The views are so much better in Yorkshire. Well, mostly.
We suggest that few would call these landsapes ‘sublime’ in the sense usually applied to gardens, or national and heritage landscapes. Their beauty and value lies in what they represent: a productive, social, inclusive, and health-giving community landscape.
Allotments are also significant due to their origins, and their fascinating, important, and political social history. You could write a book about them. Indeed some people already have. My current favourite (entitled simply ‘Allotments’ is a slim and well-illustrated volume by the aptly named Twigs Way, a garden historian, writer and lecturer. The allotment as social engineering? Yes, it’s a very chequered history indeed!