National Gardening Week - can gardening improve our mental health?

Sam_Alumni

It's not a perfect system at all @foxuk but it can be doable.  At your costs above, it's around £11 a month and if you can share that with another person or two then costs can be minimal.  

You can get lots of equipment and even seeds on freecycle sites. The other great thing about allotments is the community spirit, if you make friends with the others, they usually have things/seeds/seedlings/wisdom to pass on.

I disagree that it isnt financially viable to do in year one.  Year on year I definitely get more back in fruit and veg than I put in money wise.

foxuk

The trouble is that it isn't £11 a month the money is paid annually up front.

The problem for anyone on benefits is that with that sort of outlay on day one month one the total is impossible.

Even if the ability to spread the expense exists the commitment for the year is off-putting i.e. risking future expense on food by committing in advance to pay that money elsewhere. i.e. what happens if there is a crop failure.

Otherwise I totally agree with you. Even small areas can be productively 'farmed' at quite a good profit, not to mention the freshness and flavour.

A tomato grown from seed on a patio in a pot or even poly bag (yet another use for carrier bags) will pay dividends. Runner beans, grown up string not bamboo, are very profitable (avoid dwarf varieties as the yield is much lower).

Small areas,cropped in rotation. containers made from milk cartons and 2ltr bottles. Low outlay in money and physical effort.

Jon

P.S. My Nan was North Wales Welsh and she made the Scottish stereotype look like spendthrifts.

P.P.S. At present experimenting with drip feed irrigation using (very out of date) Bard 2ltr bed bags as a reservoir and Chinese fittings. I knew they'd come in handy for something! 

 

Sam_Alumni

Ohh I keep looking into drip feeds, that's interesting! My husband just made me a water drinker for the chickens out of tubing, a barrel and water drainage off a garage roof - very exciting!

I understand your point about the upfront costs, I also think running an allotment on your own is such hard work, I strongly recommend people to find like minded friends and chip in on money and work.

foxuk

I was younger when I had mine but having an allotment 'in common' is just like any partnership. You need to get the 'rules' down first better not to have one than lose friends over misunderstandings.

I may even post the drip feed on here when working. I stress that the bags were leftovers from when my dad died and I tried to get the district nurses to have them many times. Now they are 'out of date' so better re-purpose than go to landfill.

Drip irrigation parts are cheaper by the 50s from banggood.com (China), eBay (China) and Amazon (China). I recon to have spent around £10 for all the parts that I had to buy .... 50 2ltr dripfeeders for single plants.

I wish I could buy from the UK but as the parts sold by the UK companies are repackaged here and made in China anyway..... As long as the value is less than (Ithink) £15 there is no Tax or duty to pay. I always try to stay under £10 for any single purchase anyway to be safe.

No dig, raised beds, square foot layout and the work after year one is minimal. On gardener's question time Bob Flowerdew claimed that he had not dug his garden in 21 years. 

iza

Hi @Geoark, Hi @Sam_Scope, 

Thanks for the tips and links about gardening. I will check them out soon. 

Have a good day. 

Iza 

Sam_Alumni

There is an interesting video on the BBC website about gardening, allotments and mental health.