Christine Mackay

Footprints on a Hill
My allotment is on a hill. From my plot I have a fine view of the sea, part of Scarborough and the countryside beyond. The down side is that it is too exposed. With this summer having been rather inclement and windy the impact of the elevated position on my crops became more apparent. Many of the leaves were ripped off my French and runner beans and I had to prop up so up to my allotment. This is a 30 minute journey, the majority of it uphill. Because of this outlay in time and energy I generally stay for as long as possible before making the return trip. Sadly, there are very few gardeners at Sandybed that rely on either pedal or foot power to get to their plots. I wondered, has anyone ever measured the carbon footprint of an allotment? On the odd occasion, I do rely on motor power to transport bulky items such as seaweed but I prefer to manage as much as possible without four wheels (it definitely helps if you never learn to drive!). I have noHere is the hill ticed that a many plants, including broad beans and number of my allotment neighbours sweetcorn that I completely ran out of make frequent journeys back and forth by car. The centre of Scarborough is just canes, of which I had a large supply. Down at the entrance to the site it over 2 miles from Sandybed and I susis much more sheltered and the pect many of these trips are short and difference in the development of crops fuel-inefficient. Perhaps the fact that is noticeable, with sweetcorn growing they are making short journeys to and to twice the height of mine. In spite of from an allotment rather than a superthe long periods of unsettled weather, market goes some way to mitigating this my fruit trees have set a fine crop. My but I suspect they also make short jourVictoria plum is now in its third year neys to the supermarket too. and is laden with fruit, having produced just one plum last year. My cherry tree The rotovator hater flowered well but did not set fruit but Growing at least some of your own food it is the most recently planted so perhaps is a positive activity in respect of food it will achieve next year what the plum miles and eating more healthily but there are many ways to garden. At tree has achieved this year. Sandybed, what I call the old school (mostly male and retired) have an Carrying the compost.. Another drawback of gardening high up unhealthy addiction to rotovators. On is having to cycle up to it. As I do not occasion, a rotovator is passed from one have a garden at home I must regularly plot to the next and the noise is carry bag loads of compostable material continuous for hours. I have never really seen the point in these smelly, petrolguzzling, high -maintenance machines. When I first got an allotment a chap tried to offload one on to me for 75. I almost choked to death when he attempted to take it for a spin. It took him long enough to get it going in the first place - my puny arms just werent up to the job, which gave me the perfect reason to reject his offer. The worms must have breathed a sigh of relief when the demonstration was over! The next big old-school obsession is manure. They are quick to pass on the supposed virtues of this stuff to new gardeners who often carry a blank canvas when it comes to veg growing. One lady plot holder two down from me took delivery of a huge great pile of the stuff and then proceeded to spread it all over her allotment, thinking it might smother and kill all the weeds. Very soon the weeds had grown to twice the size and after receiving a warning letter from the committee, she came back and dowsed the whole lot in weed killer another old school favourite when nature gets a bit out of hand. When I get the chance to speak to new plot holders I advise them to keep any ground covered that they are not going to have time to maintain. I still have the large pieces of black plastic sheeting that I used to cover half my allotment five years ago. I removed it in stages until my whole plot was being worked. I have found that the less I disturb the soil, the less weeds come back and with the addition of mulches it is possible to avoid reaching for either poison or rotovator. A permaculture principle which I like to observe is minimum intervention for maximum gain and this also helps to reduce the overall carbon footprint. The compost connection One other carbon footprint consideration is the purchase of

14 GGI No 20 Winter 2007

compost. As Vonnies will know, it isnt an easy job to get animal free and organic compost and who knows how far this specialist product may have travelled. My allotment has four compost heaps, a leaf mould heap and a black plastic composter. There is never enough of the stuff to go round and I still need to purchase seed compost. (If anyone knows how to make seed compost I would be very interested to hear from them). Luckily for me I can get bag loads of seaweed to cover beds and I grow masses of comfrey to feed crops with. But even then I still need to buy a few bags of compost each year. It still amazes me how little other plot holders compost. My old school neighbour has one compost heap on a plot of comparable size to mine. The communal skip is regularly filled with weeds, which many have a fear of composting in case they reinvade. A few years ago, the committee took up my suggestion of constructing a communal composting area for the stuff plot holders didnt want to risk on their own plots and often tried to burn instead. Now, one committee member is regularly to be seen clambering about in the skip removing as much compostable material as she can salvage to put on the communal heaps! My next suggestion to the committee is that every new plot holder receives an introduction to composting as part of an induction to get them off on the right footing. It could even be given the title allotmenting the low carbon footprint way or something equally as catchy and scary! I had better watch out though, if I keep making useful suggestions they may want me to join the committee.
Editors note: the VON information sheet number one explains how to make your own seed and potting mixes, its on the VON website or see the advert in this issue.

Evie Sier

Sweet Treat
Sweet potato growing in England
I have always loved sweet potatoes but assumed that it was too cold to grow them here in England. I planted a sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) in the green house once in an effort to grow some, and when I dug it up all I found was a rotted tuber, so I gave up. Then last year when flicking thought my organic seed catalogue, trying to decide which seeds to get for the coming year, I saw some sweet potato slips (a rooted cutting). You see although it is called a sweet potato it does not behave like a potato, you cannot plant one and then wait for it to grow, as I discovered. Sweet potatoes come from the same family as bindweed, but it is not as prolific as bindweed as the plant is killed off during the winter. Sweet potato roots form slips and these are what you plant. When the slips arrived in mid May I planted them in deep pots (6-8cm), with just the flush of leaves showing (large soya yoghurt pots are perfect) three weeks prior to planting out, this gave the roots a chance to grow. After three weeks I planted them out, sweet potatoes prefer warm conditions and luckily I live in the south (in cooler climates they may be better grown in a polytunnel or greenhouse). Anya with her next meal! I planted them 35 to 45cm apart with plenty of well rotted home made compost, it was strange planting out my bindweed and as my allotment has a lot of this already I was worried that I may get confused between that and the sweet potato. Luckily, the sweet potato leaves were slightly darker and the stems were very slightly thicker, so it was not too bad telling the difference. I fed my sweet potatoes some seaweed liquid fertiliser, and some home made nettle and comfrey brew, and they grew well throughout the summer. I told my fellow allotmenteers that I had planted sweet potatoes and that they looked like bindweed, just to make sure that they had not thought I had gone completely mad cultivating bindweed. They already think I am strange growing vegan-organically! The results At the end of September I was delighted to find lovely red tubers had grown under the ground. My daughter Anya can be seen in the picture holding one of the larger tubers. Sweet potatoes keep well and you store them as you would a squash or pumpkin, and we were eating them right up to Christmas. The poor weather of the 2007 season has held the crop back somewhat; however a warm autumn should bring another fine crop of lovely red tubers.
Editors note: Evies advice goes for any temperate part of the world. Sweet potato is comparatively a nutritional storehouse: rich in complex carbohydrates, vitamin C, vitamin E and also containing good quantities of vitamin A, calcium and iron. If you wish to store the roots, lift with care and do not wash them until needed for cooking.

GGI No 20 Winter 2007 15

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