Garden Share

Our other little gardening project is the shared use gardens and this is where someone local uses their garden or a large proportion of their garden to produce their own food and as they cannot get an allotment due to demand as covid was a killer for demand for allotments, we expanded our garden sharing which means you use a proportion of a neighbours garden.
If someone is getting older or loses a partner or even has an accident, injury, or illness they may not be physically able to manage all of their garden or they may not have the inclination then the scheme matches up these people with other local gardeners who cannot yet get an allotment and require more space to obtain more fresh produce, so who are these people? Actually they are from all walks of life and some are on a health kick while others are simply wanting to reduce the amount of highly and ultra processed food they eat and some thought it may be a nice hobby and taken to gardening because they need more exercise because of their jobs and we have a banker and an accountant as well as a scientist and a company director and the common denominator is they spend a lot of their day siting down and not exercising.

How does it work? Basically someone allocates a piece of their land and a neighbour takes it up for growing food and the amount of land is negotiated and the terms of the land use are also negotiated such as they can/cannot have bonfires, can/cannot have sheds or greenhouses and can or cannot grow long lived plants such as fruit trees; and the real biggie is what happens if the site owner dies and usually a codicil is added to allow the gardener to remain until the end of the season if the land owner dies. Benefits include people keeping their land while having a smaller area to maintain themselves and making it small enough for them to manage themselves and generally these people are older and many do not have visitors and a gardening family of mum and dad and a couple of children means constant visitors as well as these people keeping an eye on an older person and this alone has benefits as they will often spot if they have a fall or other incident and they wont be there for days before help is summoned. Often the gardeners will periodically take on other tasks such as cutting the lawns or pruning for the owners if they have an accident or injury and this reduces stresses on the land owner and just having friendship between older and younger people is an incredible experience for both sides and they have the benefit of each other’s experiences and wisdom.
There are other benefits to and these may include getting a proportion of fresh produce as gardeners generally grow too much and too much means some spare, and the spare is often their next dinner as many were bought up on fresh produce and actually miss it until they are handed some. Some gardeners actually freeze fresh produce and if they have so much they take it to the land owner and tell them to put it in their freezer which they do as it is all fresh when frozen.

Other things do occur as some owners have a water meter fitted and the gardener may have to catch their own water to take to their plants from a water butt or they may have to take containers of water from home and store this in their additional garden and generally these are simple problems if people are prepared to talk and listen and a simple problem remains a simple problem and them a non problem as they resolve it. Generally these matches are with neighbours and they may only be doors apart and it isn’t uncommon to see a wheelbarrow going up the street a few doors and coming back a couple of hours laden with produce and basically the simplicity works so why overcomplicate things.

We have had several bereavements and in the majority of cases the remaining families were aware that part of the garden was let out to a neighbouring gardener and usually there are no issues and in some cases the property was sold with the existing gardeners still in their notice period and instead of leaving the new buyers were agreeable to let them remain gardening and in some cases this meant people looking at a property have bought these properties as they were fully aware of the gardeners and have wanted them to remain as the property may be too large for them to manage alone.


Our salad bars really began because of a fellow gardener who had an injury and couldn’t manage his garden and allotment as the recovery period was very long and painful and he was pained as he couldn’t grow produce and the nucleus of the salad bar idea began as the original was built to accommodate him and allow him to grow some produce even though it was salad stuff. Some people saw this and mocked him (in fun) and people saw it and generally older people saw this as a way to obtain a proportion of their own fresh food in a confined space where they could choose to have that space and we began collecting any old local pallets to the point where locally we have a pallet shortage.
More people saw this and thought it would be a way of disabled people getting into a little gardening and families of the recipients with disabled people saw this as an opportunity to get them growing as a hobby or pastime where it was of a suitable height and in a location which was accessible if they were of limited mobility or in a wheelchair. Salad bars can be located anywhere and often it was located in the best spot for the sun or a combination of the most accessible spot and in the sun, and this compromise was often also the best for the recipients and a standard design was made. These incorporated the ability to be made to a number of lengths and widths and to a number of heights and potentially with inbuilt seats for the disabled or infirm and their great advantage was the legs could be removed easily and put away for winter storage.

At this time we made our own compost and as demand grew we made more as many elderly or disabled people could go to a garden centre and get compost, the outlet had staff who would load their cars for them and the issue was when they got home as they couldn’t unload it and this was a problem. Many people had to rely upon neighbours or family and these may not arrive for days or weeks and while they had compost it remained in their vehicles for this period and many people often bought too much and had to store it somewhere and often this was an issue.
When we delivered the salad bars we began delivering the compost in bulk and filling the salad bars once they were in position and this ensured they only got the correct amount of compost and none was stored and this was often beneficial to numbers of people and it literally exploded from there and today we deliver fewer salad bars and much more compost as the same salad bars are simply refilled each year. To do this we have to make a small charge for the tractor diesel and we never demand a charge as some cannot afford it and some simply say its cheaper than buying manufactured compost and the cost of fuel to go and fetch it and some donate generously simply to support the scheme and those less fortunate, and some villagers volunteer to come and barrow the compost from the trailer to the salad bars.

People became creative and following a comment from me a few people began putting tops on their salad bars and this was simply bent steel rods covered in cling film to create a cheap miniature greenhouse with its own micro climate and one piece was removed to access the salad bar and this spread among other salad bar owners and some took to insulating the bottom and this kept the compost warm from below. This allowed many to begin their salad crops earlier and grow later into the season and this massively improved their salad yields and maximised their growing times.
Our next problem was space as many modern houses simply don’t have enough garden space and the temporary or pop up garden emerged and this was a small or temporary garden which used minimal garden footprint and allowed a potential 3D growing system and the need to remove crop rotation which created compost rotation as crop rotation is only to allow the soils to regenerate. If the growing medium is changed instead the need for crop rotation is removed as the soil doesn’t need to regenerate.
Many shared premises such as apartment blocks or standard houses for students for example may have some gardens and each individual or apartment may be allocated a small space and it was time to utilise this space to its maximum and the 1 tonne bag idea was formed even though it wasn’t ours and it served our purposes. Basically these bags are single use bags and once filled and used they are thrown away and most come in a size of one cubic metre meaning only 1 metre squared of floor space is taken up and if they are located against a wall or other solid structure either growing wires, mesh, or trellis may be installed and give a 3D crowing capability with climbing crops such as broad beans growing at the back of the bag and climbing the trellis.
Where such abilities are not possible a number of canes can be installed in the bag to form a wigwam frame for climbing plants to grow up and this allows these plants to be grown in the middle of the bag and the bag to be placed in the middle of a plot and eliminate the need for a wall to attach trellis to. With these bags being 1M high they can be filled to 1/3rd of their depth giving 333mm of compost depth or 13 ½ inches and that is deep enough for the majority of crops and if the bags are folded in half as 500mm they have a screen to protect crops from wind and other prevailing conditions and this helps prevent soils drying out so quickly and in the event of sudden snow the top of the bag can be used to cover the whole bag. Tonne bag growing demands careful growing planning as once a crop is harvested you replant the vacant space and if you plan and carefully time it you can grow a very useful quantity of crops from such a small space and if you get winter varieties of crops you can literally crow all year round in a tonne bag. If you don’t want to grow all year round you can simply empty the bag of its growing medium and put it in the compost heap as it can be infinitely composted and you can fold your bag up ready for next year and put it somewhere safe and dry.

Two local builders merchants supply our bags and when most builders order bulk materials they come in these bags and most of the time builders shovel out of them and return to the supplying builders merchant who usually has a skip to put them in and they go straight into the skip; some builders want to empty then somewhere and they slash the bottom of the bag to empty them and this is no good. These builders’ merchants usually get one of their yard men to check them weekly and separate the intact bags from the slashed or damaged bags and put the intact ones away and we collect them periodically and they all go to good use and as all companies have environmental policies, reusing these goes into the benefits column. One local builder’s merchant has a guy called Ray working for them and Ray is an avid gardener and actually has one of my allotments and the builders merchants has standard Arras fencing at the front of their premises and it gets regularly hit by traffic and Ray suggested they put bags of compost behind the fence line and plant them as this would give them growing space and protection if the fence is damaged. They now have bags with shrubs and some with seasonal veg and some with plants and it makes a bland builders merchants look attractive and in summer the staff can sit outside and actually have freshly picked lettuce or radishes or even tomatoes to add to their sandwiches instead of crisps and chocolate biscuits and it actually attracts customers who like the opportunity to have some fresh produce for their snap.

Is home growing actually cheaper? The answer is both yes and no as this is dictated by the crops you grow and what you eat as you may grow beans and you can get a big bag from Tesco or Asda for £1 and this may be less than it costs you to grow, if you grow expensive produce them potentially yes. Essentially it’s about control as you are controlling what you put into your food and by proxy, what you are putting into your body and as all my plots are chemical free it is all organic produce and this dynamic changes it to a YES it is much cheaper as organic foods cost a fortune with their hefty premiums. It is all about exercise and being in the fresh air all year round and continually exercising means you save the expensive gym fees where the majority of users are pressured into joining by their peer group while still getting exercise and with an end benefit as you save elsewhere and you maintain your health and what price do you put on that. You are not subsidising slavery of populations of third world countries and contributing to them starving as the first world countries are not buying their foods, the foods which feed their populations and finally if you believe the climate crisis B/S you are not part of the problem of shipping tonnes of food around the world, so yes it is a win and cheaper.