We have a thriving community garden movement in most of the major cities in Canada, and have had for quite a while. In Montreal, they have both individual plots available, and also communal gardens, where groups of people plant and tend to a large plot and divide the harvest. We also have waiting lists in some areas, but so far, in my area, people have been lucky and have managed to secure a plot without much trouble. I have put my name in for a second plot (6 x 3 metres)and have been assured that I should have no problem getting it. Our garden community is comprised mainly of retired people and we have lost several of our members this year. The few young people we get usually last a year and then give up because it's too time-consuming. They figure they can just plant, and then return in the fall to bountiful harvests! I hope people really latch on to this trend...they may have to, considering that food prices are supposed to skyrocket in the near future.
Judith

Ha, time-consuming! Along with the entire Grow Your Own mania, we have also seen a plethora of publishing along the lines of 'the half hour allotment'and the 'No Work No Dig' weekend plot. Unsurprisingly, veg-growing is a bit of a fashion statement and there are loads of people who have not the faintest idea of what they are taking on and really imagine themselves sowing a few seeds, probably wearing designer gardening gear, returning some weeks later to harvest their booty (probably in a trug).....oh, don't get me going again! The point is, it is hard work and requires at least some effort to actually learn how to do it......a concept which is not as fashionable as boasting about ones newly awakened relationship with 'the land' (no, I am being mean and cynical again). Even so, the most steadfast allotmenteers tend to be either retired or crazily obsessed.

In our part of New England, many towns have land available for community garden use. The people who sign up for this (and yes, there are waiting lists here too) tend to be the ones who don't have back yards to grow their own plants in: apartment-dwellers, condominium owners. Some urban cohousing groups have made space for their own co-gardens.

But outside of the densest urban areas there is usually enough space, and larger house garden spaces, to not need community gardens. Except when the idea emphasizes COMMUNITY more than GARDEN. If a group of people simply want to get together to informally farm a small piece of land, that can work. As in any cooperative endeavor they learn to agree, manage, meet together (biggest waste of gardening time) and at the end of the season, celebrate the harvest. We even have official holidays marking these ancient community events: May Day, Arbor Day, Sukkoth, Thanksgiving Day.

Yes Campanula, that's me - retired AND crazily obsessed! I don't want to read about the 'no work' way because I actually love digging in the dirt (no designer duds here! And definitely no fluorescent green trug, just old empty paint buckets). Some of these people show up every two weeks or so, all discouraged because they've been overtaken with weeds...no wonder they give up. Besides having at least a basic knowledge of gardening, you really do have to love it to have much success. For me, not only is it a place to grow lots and lots of veggies, but now I have somewhere to plant the roses I have no room for at home...and the catmint that's popping up everywhere, and the extra perennials I've dug up to make room for roses and so on. It never ends...
Judith

yep Jude, me too - crazily obsessed but unfortunately, not exactly retired. I have already recalimed the pavement, front and back, trespassing into municiple gardens too so the allotment was brilliant for garden overspill. Then, it started to morph into a garden instead of just a veg plot. There is a rough balance between ornamentals and edibles, so far, but the scales are swinging away from veg, towards roses and experiments.

We have this kind of supervisor at our community garden who strolls around, puffing on his pipe, checking out the percentage for each type of planting - max 25% tomatoes, 25% ornamentals, etc. I have to be careful not to break the rules (which he takes, along with himself, VERY seriously!)According to the handout I received when I joined, I can be turfed out for all sorts of minor (to me anyway) infractions. I've maxed out my allowed percentage of roses and perennials plus my 25% for berries, and now I have to watch myself. Hence the request for the second plot...
Judith

omg- it's anarchy on our site. There are a few baffling rules in the tenancy agreements but there is no-one around to enforce any of them. On larger sites, there are usually site supervisors or elected society members who run the site, sometimes according to their own idiosyncratic rules - people do get turfed off quite frequently. Ours is too small(17 plots) to cause any ripples in allotment circles and,to my mind, I definately prefer to put up with overgrown or abandonned pitches on a tatty site (mine isn't....much) than have an immaculate site with a load of rules and enforcers. How long have you had a plot, Judith? This is the start of my 9th year (8th full growing season).

Sacramento had a well-loved community garden downtown which was slated to be demolished for "redevelopment." The furor led to the city proposing its "relocation," an interesting idea for a garden with soil and plants that people had lovingly improved for a quarter of a century. People fought hard, and then the city did soil tests and publicized the info that the soil was contaminated, anyway, and shouldn't be used for growing crops. Where were these bureaucrats in all of the years people were eating produce from that garden? The final solution was to replace the soil in a greatly reduced area in that location, and to set up a new community garden some blocks south - right by the intersection of several major freeways, with the din and exhaust of the traffic overhead. Supposedly, that soil is clean, but what about the air?

One of my Master Gardener friends is a local hero, even winning a national hero award from Volvo a few years back, for all of his work for community and school gardens. When he started his efforts a dozen or more years back, there weren't many in our area. There are more, now, but it's very hard in our private-enterprise, real-estate focused world to get people to back a socialistic notion like community gardens. Plus that, our local governments are flat-out broke and are closing essential services, which make "frills" like gardens hard to support. They've been planning some new gardens, mostly for low-income areas. The existing city gardens have less than 150 plots total, and waiting lists of 30 or more people for most of them. Sacramento's population is 450,000 people, to put that into perspective, with a great metropolitan area of nearly 1.5 million.

One other thing that he and others have worked hard to do is to make it easier for people to grow edibles at home. Our city's ordinance against growing anything but turf in the front yard has been revised, and now people can grow anything so long as it is tended and doesn't block visibility.

I agree, Suzy, that growing food is much harder than it's made out to be, and I think that the craze will end as people face crop failure and all of the work involved.

However, in Sacramento, otherwise known as Sackatomatoes, everybody grows a tomato plant or two, even if it's just in a container. That's not trendiness; that's tradition.
Anita

So, Campanula, I've always wondered about "allotments": are they all the same size? Does each town or city have their own? Can you give me/us some idea of how they actually work?

I'm a fan of English procedural mysteries; "allotments" are often mentioned, and I have a hard time visualizing them. Now I finally have someone I can ask about them.

:-)))))
Susan

I think it is safe to say that in the US it varies wildly from place to place.

Here in coastal No Cal in my town, the city gave up on what we call "community gardens" (sounds like what you call allotments - a space where individuals can get rights to grow things in one designated area) 20-30 years ago, because they said they caused too much strife between gardeners, and the city admin folks (and sometimes the police!) didn't want to use resources to constantly have to play referee.

However, the good news is that in the last 12 months they have had a change of heart. That is mostly because we have had an influx of immigrants (legal & illegal) from Mexico in the last 15 years, many of whom (like, 15,000+) live in very crowded apartment buildings in one overly dense area. The city has spent a lot of money putting in a really nice large park with a library, gym, swimming pool, soccer field, etc in that area. Then the local community advocates started calling for a community garden. Low and behold, the city has now decided that that is a brilliant idea (which I think it is - the local population really does want, and need, in many cases, to be able to grow food).

So, a community garden is being organized there, and now the city can't tell the rest of us that the same thing can't happen in other areas of the city - Yay!

Jackie

The allotments movement in Sweden is not as old as in Britain. The first area was created on public land in 1895. Up to recently only fruit and veg were allowed. Now a "koloni" as the allotment is called in Swedish, looks almost like a holiday village but rules about upkeep are still very strict. They are part of the city landscape and people are free to walk around the areas but the plots are private.

There are 300 allotment societies in Sweden with a board and chairman, all volunteers. There is also a simpler kind of allotments without cottages and not as secure tenancy as in the old societies. My two grown children have both tended allotments of this simpler kind with only a toolbox and some chairs allowed. My daughter used to have barbecue parties on her allotment and so did everyone else,

I visit my gardening friend Allan's allotment every summer in one of the nicest Stockholm parks. His plot is not in the picture gallery but his cottage is the oldest of all, from 1905. He has an apple tree with eight varieties of apples he grafted himself, a vegetable plot, 60 roses and 20 clematis on 300 sq metres on three levels.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tanto allotments in Stockholm

Hello Susan, yes, allotments are popular places for murder (of a literary type) although there certainly have been a few instances of real life (should that be death?) murder over supposed sabotage of giant vegetables (there are venomous rivalries over massive leeks - camping out to protect the particular pumpkin or long parsnip is not unheard of. They are measured in poles (or rods or perches), an ancient measure based on ploughing - a rod is the length between the back of the plough and the nose of the oxen doing the pulling. In reality, this equates to about 5 paces or 5.5metres. 10 poles - a standard allotment, is therefore, about 300 square metres (5.5mx55m)
The rent is paid yearly - I pay �66 - �31 each as I have 2 ($80 approx.) There are also private allotments which can vary hugely regarding rent and amenities - not all sites have running water for example. I have a shed and a long coldframe, various experimental gardens, a fruit area, a veg area, a herb area and cutting beds. There are no words to truly express my gratitude for my plots (my home garden is 5m x 9m). I probably spend an average of 20 hours a week working mine. One of the loveliest things is to have a barbecue or bonfire with all the food from the plot - when the sweetcorn ripens, this is usually when we really get into our stride (although the first potato harvest is a reason for celebration too). I wassail my apples on 12th night (6th Jan), with a libation of cider poured on the soil - another excuse for a bonfire and party too. We also try and have a summer solstice party as well as celebrating the first broad beans (which I jealously keep mostly for myself). We have a party when the strawberries are ripe(which coincides with the roses) and we have a party after spring potato planting.
Some sites have 300 or more plots but ours is the smallest in Cambridge with 17. There is generally a bit of plot envy but we are a mixed bunch. The best allotmenteers used to be retired old geezers but immigrants beat them into a cocked hat....and they grow some amazing stuff too.
We are allowed to keep rabbits or hens and we have several taps although there are no toilets (a bucket in the shed although Reuben, my sweetheart, pees on the compost heap)
Our site is right in the middle of town, surrounded by high density buildings (including a martial arts dojo - a source of endless entertainment for me). There are ancient laws regarding landuse - it would be hard for the council to try to sell the plot - but many people are reluctant to invest much money in their plots so there are many ancient fruit bushes and it certainly doesn't look as nice as the plots in Sweden (although some councils are creating what they call leisure gardens which have little chalets and quite strict rules but are not specifically for growing food).
Allotments were really associated with old working class men - indeed, they were created for the urban poor who had no access to gardens, but the demographic has changed during the last decade. After years of unpopularity, they really are the must have accessory (I fought an underhand and quite nasty council attempt to take one of my plots back because there was a such a long waiting list. They tried lots of guilt-tripping which almost worked. There was all sorts of other stuff going on (intangible but profound desires, a sense of history, of class struggle, social justice, fairness and a sneaky pleasure at seeing middle-class angst concerning council waiting lists) At the time,though, there were already half a dozen plots leased out which were practically abandonned so I suggested they (the council) deal with those plots first. Since my plots clearly are loved and worked, the council really had to accept that being greedy and having 2 cultivated plots is still not as bad being greedy and having one plot....which has been paid for but not used.

Good for Reuben.

The LA Times has an interesting series on community gardens throughout LA. Motives vary depending on location.

Here is a link that might be useful: one community garden in LA

Very interesting. Camp, one more question: is your allotment within walking distance of home or do you have to bicycle or drive to get there?

Susan

It is about a kilometre away from home - takes 10 minutes to walk but I generally bike. The distance from home is, I think, fairly crucial because a daily short visit is a LOT more productive than spending hours on site, once a week. I used to have one about 2 miles from home which never really got going that well and was a bit of a struggle. When I got a chance at a plot where I am now, I leapt at it.

Suzy, I've only had my plot since last summer - I've been trying to grow all my veggies in amongst my roses and perennials at home. It truly became a jungle, with collapsing tomato plants and pole beans wrapping around my cable and telephone wires (some are still there, all dead and dried up,but out of reach) and potted raspberries grabbing me at every turn. I can't believe I never took advantage of it before! Mine is about a 5 minute walk from my house, and only $10/yr, but it's a lot smaller - 6m x 3m. We have running water (a hose and water barrel for every 6 plots) and bathroom facilities (a cute little building that's now deemed an historical structure - used to be a changing house for skaters). This community garden has been there for 20 years, at least, and before that was part of the old reform school for boys just behind it (which is now just a regular trade school - not too much danger there:)
Don't worry, we also have our share of gardeners who never weed their plots, nor the paths between (which we are bound to do by our regulations) but I have the feeling they are good friends with our pipe-smokin' inspector!

Judith