Grow your own: we need steady capital growth

From 10-16 August the Allotment Society is holding an open week and allotments all over the capital will be opening their gates and arranging visits.

Currently, there are about 330,000 allotments in the country, a number that is rapidly growing but waiting lists are still very long. According to a recent survey some six million of us are still waiting to get one.

Nowhere is the space more precious than in the city: one friend of mine regularly travels from east London to Harrow every weekend to work on hers. I love allotments and am now the owner of one in the country, after we converted our smallholding into an allotment association.

Part of my role as chair of London Food is to try to urge councils to find more places where new allotments can be set up, but it is hard to find large enough spaces. However, don't despair: if you can't get one — or your local waiting list is very, very long — start hunting around for empty bits of land and ask your local authority if you can establish a garden there.

If you can identify a site then the Capital Growth scheme can offer you help and support in getting started, with advice and possibly even funding. People often ask us what is the difference between a Capital Growth space and an allotment.

The distinction is clear: allotments are large spaces, operated by local authorities under charters that guarantee their long term — hopefully perpetual — survival. Waiting lists are long because allotments are handed over to people on a long-term, sometimes lifetime, basis.

Capital Growth, on the other hand, is about finding any spaces around the city — rooftops, deserted building sites, spaces in parks, disusued corners of estates — anything will do.

These spaces don't need to be permanent but the gardening projects must involve communities. In other words, I can't sign up my own back garden to be a project because I've decided that I don't have either the time or the inclination to look after it myself unless I hand it over to another group to garden.

Simple. If you want to know more visit the website and you could help us reach our goal of creating 2,012 new growing spaces by the start of the London Olympics.

www.capitalgrowth.org