Click here to read Part 1 – Allotment Gardening – the Best Food; Part 2 – Clear a New Allotment Easily and Part 3 –Designing a New Allotment.
So now you’re ready with your new allotment and are raring to get allotment gardening in earnest.
OK, here’s the thing. The hardest part moving forward is to maintain your enthusiasm and motivation in the months ahead. Allotments require quite a lot of work and commitment.
It’s one thing potting a plant in the comfort of your own home listening to Beethoven, it’s an altogether different proposition planting a row of potatoes on a cold, wet, dark winter’s Saturday morning on muddy ground.
You’ve to put in a lot of hours, back-breaking work in the sun & rain, pay the ground rent, prepare the ground, sow, plant, weed (and weed some more), with pests and disease sometimes putting all your hard work to naught.
I don’t mean to discourage you. Being an ‘allotmenteer’ can be very enjoyable too, but you need to keep your eye on the big picture so taking you through the tough days.
To make things easier, many allotmenteers would recommend the following:
- A flask of hot tea & coffee
- A portable/fold-down seat so you can take a break and rest your legs (if you don’t have a shed)
- An MP3 or radio to help make the time spent gardening more enjoyable. Of course purists would argue that listening to the chirping of the birds and the crunch of spade on soil is a far superior gardening experience. Active You’s response would be it depends on what type of personality you are. Believe us, if it’s pouring down, the sounds of nature can get tiresome.
- Warm clothes. There’s nothing worse than being cold whilst bent down over damp soil. Keep warm.
Another good idea is to remind yourself why you wanted to manage an allotment in the first place:
Great Destresser
Communing with nature is good for your mind and soul. Meditation, aromatherapy and acupressure sessions work well...but just staying immersed in a natural environment will calm you and reduce the pressure of a stressful busy life.
Make Friends
When you have an allotment, new friends come with the territory, so to speak. You become a part of a community with a shared goal and you share ideas, swap stories and even some crops once in a while.
Keep Fit
Your local gym pales into insignificance when you tally the benefits of working on your allotment. There are just so many muscles that you have to put in use, you’ll discover quite a few you never knew existed. Jokes aside, after the initial pain, your body will get into keep fit mode and the allotment will become your new gym. And here you’ll be working with a purpose, and so you’ll enjoy it more... compared to the fixed exercise routines followed in a gym.
Organic Food
You’ll be getting good quality organic food free of chemical fertilisers, at low cost too. This would alone justify working on an allotment. Your body will thank you…once the aches and pains have subsided.
Save the Environment
Here’s your chance to do your bit for the environment. Your efforts on your plot help reduce the use of harmful pesticides and other chemicals, reduce your carbon footprint as you’re growing a lot of the stuff you otherwise had to buy (and which would’ve been transported from someplace else).
And that’s not the end of it... you can take your children for a visit to your little farm, and can enjoy your afternoons sunning yourself with your partner. An allotment also brings a family together and ensures you spend quality time with each other.
Just remember, with allotments you get out what you put in.
