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As I watch the news and see and feel the changes that are happening in the slice of nature that surrounds me, I get a little bit anxious. The devastating floods in Gloucestershire were not far from where we live and I started to feel somewhat unnerved. Its ok though because I have got a contingency plan in place which basically involved saving my cat and then going up the allotment.
I also have a nagging worry that we will all be reduced to kinda cave people constructing make-shift shelters and scratching around in the earth desperate for food. Thankfully, I have learnt a few useful skills up the allotment.
I am doing my bit in trying to halt the progression toward this scenario. Take a look at Bean-sprouts blog for a more sensible disussion of issues relating to global warming and tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint.
Anyways, I stumbled across an article in the Online Ecologist which explains why allotmenteering is a logical and proactive step toward halting the crazy world that we live in or at the very least helps us to not feel so smothered by it. It is a rousing, humorous and comprehensive article about why everyone should have their own piece of land.
Paul Kingsnorth decribes his transition from an allotment ridiculer to an allotment junkie. He describes the allotment effect in terms that are not dissimilar to the rants and ponitifications that we have, as we proudly survey our ‘home’.
“This is when you know the allotment has really done its work on you. For at heart, this is not about growing vegetables at all. It’s not about mulching, or compost heaps, or longhandled hoes. It is a declaration of independence: here I stand, on my own plot of land. I grow what I want, when I want, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And no, I don’t have a loyalty card.”
So if you got the time and/or need to be stirred into action then read the whole thing at the Ecologist Online, entitled ‘Dig for Victory’.
The main thrust of this article really hit home for me, in these troubled and unpredictable times my allotment is my insurance policy and helps me sleep at night.
http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=556
Thanks for the link. I agree – it’s amazing how you change the way you think about your allotment over time. I think we’ve forgotten about the power of land ownership. We tend to think only in terms of the wealthy who own whole counties. But it means something to own an acre, half an acre, ten rods, or even just to rent it. To work your plot of land, get to know it, invest in it. That’s why I got so angry about the Manor Gardens Allotmenteers (who had their plots comandeered by the London Olympics). It’s just not good enough to say “We’ll give you another bit of land”, not when they’ve already dug and tilled one bit, added manure and compost to it, eradicated perennial weeds, improved the drainage, built raised beds, and planted trees and bushes and asparagus and all those long-term things. It’s not good enough at all.