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Dan digs in

14/ 8/2008

AS THE country's growers celebrate National Allotment Week, reporter Dan Thompson went digging around town's plots to ask why growing-your-own has become the latest trend.

THINK of allotments, and you may well think of old men in flat caps with a thermos flask, or of Arthur Fowler skulking around a patch trying to escape his nagging wife and mother-in-law.

But it seems that, like cooking before it, growing-your-own has become the new Rock 'n' Roll. The face of the traditional allotment is changing. Flat caps are out, and a new breed of allotment enthusiast - more likely to be female and younger - is in.

Rochdale Council’s allotment officer Dave Woolrich, taking a stroll around the patches on Whitegates Road, Slattocks, says he has noticed the trend changing over recent years.

"More and more young people are getting involved," he says. "At one time it was just older folk with flat caps but that has definitely started to change now. Gardening programmes on the television and a push towards healthy eating and organic foods has made allotments more fashionable with younger people."

There is currently a four-year waiting list for a plot at the Whitegates Road allotments, and it's a similar story across the borough. Mr Woolrich says the council islooking at allotments in town that are not fully cultivated, with a view to splitting them in half.

"The smaller plots would be easier to maintain and would help reduce the waiting list," he adds.

But there is some good news for those on the waiting list. The council has been given the green light to transform land at the back Valley Road, Boarshaw Road and Green Lane into a ‘community leisure garden’ as part of its five-year Allotments and Leisure Gardens Strategy.

The garden will include allotment plots next to a grassed open play area, a community building as well as an education area and wildlife walk.

"There’s about 16 people on the waiting list for allotments in the borough but we’re hoping they will take up plots at Valley Road," Mr Woolrich says. "It’s going to be a community gardens with the community running the place and taking care of the day to day management. There’s quite a lot of interest already, but we're hoping for more when the word's out."

The new plots – which are currently undergoing soil contamination reports – will provide welcome new growing space after allotments on Sherbourne Road in Hollin and Croft Gates Road in Rhodes were closed.

The Rhodes allotments have not been in use for eight years due to vandalism, a scourge of many plot holders across town. Local allotments have been subjected to mindless attacks over the years, and Eric Chaplin, plot holder at Whitegates Road, says that security fencing is a priority for Slattocks.

At 64, Mr Chaplin, from Rochdale, is not one of the younger generation who have become interested in allotments now they have become fashionable.

He applied for a plot at Slattocks 12 years ago, when he was forced to retire due to illness. This week is National Allotments Week (11 to 17 August), and as well as promoting the benefits of allotment gardening in terms education and community well-being, the National Allotment Gardens Trust event hopes to highlight growing’s health advantages for older people.

"This plot was a life-saver for me," Mr Chaplin says. "I became very depressed when I was ill and had nothing to do but just sit there. I can't do a lot all at once but a little bit every day keeps your mind busy and your body active. It stops you going mad."

He agrees with Mr Woolrich that TV coverage has made allotments increasingly popular and fashionable.

"It’s a good thing, really," he says. "People want homegrown vegetables without chemical treatments. But people think allotments are just for growing vegetables. This is my garden and I grow everything, including flowers. There's all these programmes but not once do they show what allotments are really like. Vegetables are for the body but flowers are for the soul."

The council charges 25p per sqm for an allotment plot, which works out at about £30 to £40 a year. To register your interest in a plot, or for further information, call allotment officer Dave Woolrich on 01706 693000.

In next week’s Guardian Dan goes in search of ‘The Good Life’