The Allotment Book

Product Information

Getting involved Allotments do not exist in a vacuum, and sooner or later you are sure to encounter politics.

Easy Jams, Chutneys and Preserves was a collaboration with his wife, Val, and it has become a bestseller because of it's straightforward, honest style. All land has a hidden history and, unless the site is very new, you will be treading in the footsteps of previous tenants, possibly going back for generations. Tending a plot can be a shared activity for families, while the wider community of plotholders, uniting gardeners of varied ages, abilities and backgrounds around a shared interest, offers the kind of support, co-operation and tolerance often lacking beyond the site boundary. There are a large number of gardening books around but these are the really useful ones that you'll take down from the shelf again and again. This excellent guide is all about the experience of having an allotment and to getting the most from it.

By following these guides, even a complete novice can put fresh wholesome food on the family’s table all year round. If you find a book you think our visitors would like to read, please let me know – contact page Publishers Please Note: We welcome books to review but will only guarantee to review them honestly. These allotments may be statutory, in which case they are protected by law, or temporary sites on leased or rented land, where long-term tenancy is not guaranteed. The sheer scale of the task puts many off even trying, while countless others abandon allotments or veg plots within months.

You may be given a starter pack that includes all the benefits and opportunities open to you (like sharing in a bulk purchase of materials or manure), a full description of the site as a whole and possibly details of your own plot, and even the offer of assistance from volunteer members to help you clear an overgrown plot and get started.If you love spending time on your allotment or ‘Grow Your Own’, we’re sure you’ll love this inspirational allotment guide… full of allotment tips, allotment advice and a fantastic reference point if you’re new to allotments, starting a new allotment or just looking for allotment ideas… Its been four years in the development, two years in the writing, 172 pages. Full of images, advice and tips for both the wise and the new, the book illustrates how to achieve suc No longer considered the preserve of old men in sheds, allotment gardening is currently enjoying a renaissance of interest. From watering to weeding, plating to propagating, this all-encompassing how-to-grow vegetables guide has it all. By contrast, the outcome can be a model of equity: on an allotment site all pay equal rent for the same size portion of land and rights of use, whatever their wealth, ability or social standing.

In many parts of Europe and the USA both a sense of patriotism and enforced self-sufficiency caused a boom in allotment gardening, urged on by slogans such as ‘Hoe for Liberty’, ‘Soldiers of the Soil’ and ‘Dig for Victory’. This book is excellent, rising above the usual dutiful trek through chores and cultivars and capturing the life-expanding possibilities of a new plot.

While I admit I haven’t made that especially in the spring and harvest time where it took me 7 hours to harvest 2 blackcurrant bushes!

The decline was in any case short-lived, for a couple of decades later allotment gardening in many industrialized countries experienced a major revival as a new breed of plot-holders began to emerge. When tilling your own plot it might take a leap of imagination to link your efforts with these prime movers and their supporting thinkers, such as Peter Kropotkin with his anarchist philosophy of self help and mutual aid, the libertarian Proudhon who famously asserted ‘Property is theft’, or the New Englander Henry Thoreau, hoeing beans beside Walden Pond.

With this book I defy anyone not to enjoy the wonderful world of the allotment, from the soil to the table.