Introduction
The allotment garden is a fundamental part of the UK and European gardening culture with a history spanning 200 years. Allotments are an important feature in urban and rural landscapes possessing multi-dimensional functions and benefits.
We can for the object of clear discussion analyse the functions of allotments into separate categories, but of course they are not at all separate functional categories, rather their functions are fully integrated and quite dynamic. Four primary functions of allotments can be identified…
The principle objective of this webpage however, is to provide some guidance to allotment tenants on sustainable and organic vegetable and fruit production. To show not only how allotments can bolster the environment, but also to focus on how embracing ecology in allotment management benefits the allotment tenants.
Ecological and Sustainable Productive Culture – a Brief Historical Illustration
Sustainable, organic, environmental, and ecological are all popular buzzwords these days in landscape and horticulture, so much so that one could be forgiven for assuming or thinking that they are relatively new cultural concepts. Nothing could be further from the truth! The words may well be relatively new, but the ecological based cultural concepts are ages old, though not known by the same names. Read more about sustainability in historical agriculture…
Ecological and Sustainable Productive Culture – a Brief Historical Illustration
Sustainable, Organic Vegetable Gardens and Allotments and Ecology
What do we really mean by organic culture? Organic culture can be defined as…
- To produce food of optimum quality and quantity;
- To work with rather than attempting to dominate the natural ecological systems;
- To sustain and progressively build soil: fertility, stability, texture, structure and drainage;
- To minimise damage to the environment;
- To minimise the use of non-renewable resources.
Thus all fancy and popular terminology aside we are simply working in an ecologically friendly way.
The dictionary definition of ecology goes something like this: a branch of biology that deals with the relationships of organisms to one another and to their physical environment. If we read that correctly it is not just that an ecologically orientated allotment benefits the larger environment, but also that the ecology in an allotment benefits the allotment tenants since we are also part of the ecosystem.
The hundreds of allotments in the UK and Europe are all part of the bigger environment. Managed sensitively with ecological principles allotments and vegetable gardens can contribute much needed habitats for native wildlife. The added benefit of this management directive if embraced is that the requirement for pest and disease control in the allotments and vegetable gardens will be reduced because of natural predators, while cropping could even be intensified in a sustainable way. Apart from this, being cost effective it can also be a labour-saving move with great health benefits.
Let me pull out those potential benefits…
- Aids the bigger environment;
- More cost effective’
- Potential labour saving;
- Healthier produce;
- Cropping could be intensified.
NB: Depending on how many allotments were present in the same location the benefits would increase for all with every tenant who choose to embrace a sustainable management regime.
There are 300,000 council owned allotments in the UK alone. For example, in Bristol there are thousands of allotments spread around 112 sites. So, imagine the beneficial impact on the entire UK if all allotments in the UK were managed ecologically. Imagine the beneficial impact if just the allotments in Bristol alone were managed ecologically. Now imagine the beneficial impact on the environment if just one allotment site was managed ecologically by all its tenants, and now imagine the benefits to those tenants if that were to happen. The more allotments on the same site which are managed ecologically – the more the benefits to all are exponential. I’ll start with vegetable garden and allotment management.
The Nature of a Traditional Allotment or Vegetable Garden
There is a landscape management principle which states that the further the landscape is from the natural landscape type of that particular climate and region, the more expensive, harder and more problematic that landscape becomes to manage. Traditionally allotments and private vegetable gardens are a long way from the natural environment as illustrated below…
On the spectrum of landscape garden types, the productive vegetable garden (including allotments) is by far the most difficult and labour intensive of all the landscape types to maintain. The reasons for this are as follows….
- The tradition or necessity to grow blocks or rows of plants in monocultures;
- The requirement to grow the same species every year;
- The need to grow species that at not native;
- The need to grow tender crop plants in less than perfect climates;
- The believed need or tradition to eliminate competition for plant resources;
- The objective of growing for human consumption a maximum harvest;
- The problems of pests and diseases that have to be managed.
It can be seen from the above that vegetable gardens and allotments are the most unnatural and contrived of all the many garden types. In the graphic above I have located a series of dichotomies on the graph line to encapsulate the understanding, for example: natural verses alien plants, hardy verses tender plants etc.
Why go Organic?
One dichotomy I have deliberately omitted from the graphic above is the organic verses inorganic paradigms. The vegetable garden or allotment plot can be grown in either paradigm, but obviously since the objective is for humans to eat the produce the organic cultural paradigm is infinitely healthier and more desirable for the consuming humans concerned than any inorganic culture. I make a special point of this issue because organic culture is ecological culture and it will eventually win the war in the vegetable garden because it is sustainable culture.
How to Make an Allotment or Vegetable Garden Ecological
Below are the seven major management perspectives that have to be employed to make an allotment or vegetable garden ecological and sustainable…
The natural ecology of any given biome or habitat is a finely tuned delicate and dynamic system held in a susceptible balance. We understand them in board terms, but not in detailed terms, because they are too complicated, too dynamic! They respond in a way we have come to understand through what is called chaos theory. This is not to imply they are chaotic in operation per se, but that their tuning is so fine that miniscule changes can over time have immense and radical consequences. It is this dynamic relationship that is so fundamental in the organic ethos.
The Foundation of Sustainability in Productive Horticulture
Sustainable productive horticulture is founded on sound long-term cultural practice. This point cannot be overemphasised. Generally speaking, in all forms of management in the current era today there is a proliferation of short-sighted, quick gain, quick solution, reactive style management! Everything is done with the notion of short-term rapid gain in a regime of firefighting problems as they occur. This style of management is most fallacious and this problem is at the very core of our bigger environmental and economic issues.
Sustainable horticulture and agriculture are founded on pro-active management, with long term objectives and long-term solutions. Whether we are talking about a small private vegetable garden, an allotment, or a commercial horticultural field there has to be a paradigm shift from the status quo of reactive short-term fire-fighting management to sustainable long-term management policy, and the shift is not always easy, it reqires a determined management policy. Read more about proactive versus reactive vegetable garden management…
Proactive Versus Reactive Management
Employing the Sustainable Methodologies: 7 Point Plan
The sustainable plan for management of allotments and vegetable gardens is FUNDAMENTALLY CULTURAL. The aim is to have a healthy vegetable or allotment garden environment. In order to elucidate this I am going to draw an illustration form human life. If we live healthy lives by getting enough sleep, eating healthy natural foods, getting enough exercise then our susceptibility to illness and disease is limited. Obviously by living like this we have not eliminated the causes of the illness or disease, for example the flu bugs are still there, it is that we are more resilient to them. We are less likely to get ill. Plants and for that matter animals are no different. Everything we do in this 7 point plan is designed to make the plants and the associated beneficial animals more healthy. That is why the foundation is cultural!
1 Soil Management
Soil management aims to make the soil healthy and optimal for plant growth. Soils are exceedingly complicated entities and they are diverse in type. You will see articles telling you that there are 3 or 5 types of soil and broadly speaking there is a truth to this, but it is not the whole truth. These are over simplifications akin to saying that there are 3 different body types in humans, and there are, (ectomorth, mesomorth and endomorth,) but nobody is one type, they are a unique combination of all 3 types! Soils are just the same, they are combinations of the basic types. The classification of the soil is based primarily on SOIL TEXTURE.
Soil texture refers to the relative proportions of: SAND, SILT and CLAY that constitute the soil. Knowledge of your soil texture tells you how you need to manage that particular soil, and some soils are more difficult to manage than others. Click the link below to read about soil texture and subsequent management according to that texture…
Soil Texture, pH, Cultivation and Drainage
Soil is very dynamic and the texture of a soil leads to its STRUCTURE which in turn leads to its natural DRAINAGE CAPACITY. To read more about soil structure and drainage click the link below…
Soil Profiles and Drainage
Soils have a pH (the measure of free Hydrogen ions in the soil) and soil pH is an extremely important influence on plant health. To read more about soil pH click the link below…
The Role of Soil pH
We also talk about soil FERTILITY or NUTRIENT STATUS and this too is fundamental in plant health. Click the link below to read more about soil nutrients…
Plant Nutrition and Fertilisers
Now that we have established how complex a soil is we can talk about how to manage it and make it optimum for plant growth. Obviously we want our soil management to be sustainable. The starting point for good sustainable soil management is knowing what you have at the beginning. That means that without question you require a soil analysis.
It always astonishes me how many gardeners, and unbelievably even professional horticulturists who are trained in soil science actually start planting plants without first having done a soil analysis! In addition to this they start throwing fertiliser on to the soil with no idea of its current nutrient status. That is as stupid as buying a piece of cake in a cafe and before you have tasted it sprinkling 2 tablespoons of sugar over it! Then after the event they start asking questions like why is my plant dying, or why are its leaves yellow and growth is poor? To learn how to do a soil analysis click the link below…
Taking Soil Samples in the Field for Laboratory Analysis
2 Water Management
Good water management and conservation is a fundamental part of the sustainable vegetable and allotment garden – click the link below to learn more…
Water Management and Conservation
3 Waste Management
Waste management is all about composting. The recycling of vegetative wastes into the valuable resource of humus or compost, which is then returned to the growing system Click the link below to learn more about composting and its benefits…
Waste Management in the Allotment and Vegetable Garden
4 Crop Management
Above healthy vigorous tomatoes in an organic vegetable garden.
In this section we look at…
- Permaculture and Biointensive Cultural Practice;
- Companion Plants and Animals;
- Vegetable Garden Border Crop Planning;
- Vegetable Garden Crop Rotation;
- Harvesting.
Click the link below to read more about CROP MANAGEMENT…
Crop Management in the Sustainable Allotment and Vegetable Garden
5 Weed Management
Weed management in the sustainable organic vegetable garden and allotment has a different ethos to the traditional paradigm. We do not use chemical weed control in the organic garden because it destroys soil life and that has a compound detrimental effect. Click the link below to learn more…
Weed Management in the Sustainable Allotment and Vegetable Garden
6 Pest and Disease Management
If we cut to the chase what makes a garden inorganic more than anything else is chemical pest and disease control. The central concept of a sustainable organic vegetable garden or allotment is that we strive to eliminate pesticides and herbicides which permeate the food chain and kill our wildlife, as well as damaging us.
In the management of a sustainable organic vegetable garden or allotment we do many different things that are seemingly unconnected to the control of pests and diseases, but in fact all roads lead here! If we cannot eliminate the use of chemical pesticides and herbicides then we cannot produce organic healthy produce and that is the bottom line!
In the conventional vegetable garden and allotment pest and disease control is a separate task isolated from all the other tasks. In the sustainable organic vegetable garden or allotment pest and disease management is an integrated task and everything we do is aimed at this objective of eliminating chemical pest control. Click the link below to review how to manage pests and diseases in the sustainable organic ethos…
Organic Pest and Disease Management in the Allotment and Vegetable Garden
7 Landscape Management for Wildlife
Wildlife are allies in the sustainable vegetable garden and allotment. We have to manage the peripheral landscape of vegetable gardens and allotments to encourage and support wildlife. Click the link below to learn more…
Landscape Management for Wildlife
8 The Role of Garden Design in the Organic Vegetable Garden or Allotment
Design is the foundation of any organic and permaculture land use. LAC have years of landscape and garden design experience especially in the design of ornamental potagers and organic vegetable and fruit gardens. We have the knowledge and skills to make a garden really productive while maintaining sustainability. We can provide design services tailored to budgets and objectives. Below the productive ornamental potager at Somerton Randle…
And below one days harvest in summer from a small organic Mediterranean ornamental potager…
Summary
The sustainable organic vegetable garden is not achievable by any one or two means – it is achievable by a concerted HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT ETHOS…
For more on sustainability in landscape and architecture review the link below…
LAC have extensive experience in the production of organic fruit and vegetables and so can offer management and design services to Allotment Associations and to private clients. To understand the Benefits of Employing a Professional Landscape Manager click the link below…
Why Employ a Professional Landscape Manager?
To understand the Benefits of Employing a Professional Garden Designer click the link below…
Why?
For Garden Design Services click the link below…
Design
And to review our Landscape Management Services click the link below…
Landscape Management
Graham Slocombe © LandARCHConcepts 2019
Land Arch Concepts 