It may be a small plot in Osterley, in west London, but it provided Karen Peck’s kitchen with row upon row of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, fava beans and garlic.
But Peck, 60, derives much more from her assignment than just fresh food.
“It’s so quiet. “I have a favorite twig that comes to visit, then the blackbird comes up and there are wreaths in the corner,” Peck said in a telephone interview late last year. “You appreciate the birdsong and the little brown mice, hedgehogs, urban foxes.”
The connection with nature was especially nice during the coronavirus pandemic, she said.
Grants – small bags of urban land cut off for city dwellers to grow fruit, vegetables, plants and flowers – used to be common in British cities, especially at the height of World War II.
While German submarines made waste from ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the British were encouraged to grow their own food, and the “Dig for Victory” campaign was adopted with force.
By 1945, more than a million grants had supplemented people’s meager war rations.
This changed in the following decades, when the urgent need for new homes brought with it the advent of land-hungry, affordable housing systems. Low-cost, mass-produced supermarket food has also seen a shift in culinary habits.
But amid the pandemic, demand for awards in several British cities, including London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Sheffield, has skyrocketed, according to the South West Counties Allotment Association, a non-profit organization that uses allocations protect and promote. across the UK.
“For me, it’s about more than just food,” Peck said. The 430 square meter plot is surrounded by dozens of others and also grows a colorful mix of flowers and products.
The urban vegetable garden, located just a minute’s walk from her one-bedroom apartment, offers her an escape and a chance to mingle with like-minded, nature lovers in a responsible way.
“I live alone. “I think if I had not seen the people at the award ceremony, I would have suffered during the closing ceremony,” she said.
At the best of times, it’s important; but in a year of forced social isolation and loneliness, she added that her ‘little oasis was nothing less than a religion’.
Having a semi-private space outside does not violate social rules and offers the opportunity to do a little practical work, grow food, burn off energy and anxiety, and even a little socializing – it’s important, ”said Miriam Dobson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield, studying the revival of award-winning life.
The study of her team, published in November, confirms the idea that assignments offer a multitude of benefits, including physical exercise, stress relief, friendship, connection with nature, and a sense of tangible accomplishment.
“More than one person described their assignment as a lifeguard during closing time,” she said.
For others hoping to reap the benefits of an award, the waiting list is long and can take between five and 20 years, depending on where you live.
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According to The National Allotment Society, a representative body for UK grant holders, there are probably no more than 330,000 in the UK, owned by a mix of private landowners and local authorities.
“In recent years, and especially now at Covid, demand has increased tremendously,” said Ayesha Hooper of the South West Counties Allotment Association, who has been waiting five years for her own yard in Barnstable, a small town southwest of England.
“People are constantly contacting us and saying they want local authorities to provide more sites,” she added.
However, new allotment space is not always available, and the ubiquitous threat of property development means that existing plots are often in danger of closing.
“You can only sell sites that have existed for hundreds of years for development, and people do not necessarily know how to fight them,” Hooper said.
Staff at her association, which keeps evacuees threatened with eviction, are nonetheless optimistic about the future, with a younger, diverse and more female crowd getting involved, she added.
Ania Klimowicz is at the forefront of this demographic shift.
It was a victim of the chronic shortage of affordable housing in Britain. It took the 36-year-old time to scrape together enough money to buy a home with her husband. But without talking a garden, she set aside her dreams of a garden – until she got a lot in 2018 near her home in south-east London.
‘Although I do grow and crop rotation, and all that stuff, we keep a little lawn and I have a picnic bench and a barbecue. “When we invite people over, we tend to invite them to the award rather than to the house,” she said.
Like Peck, it is for Klimowicz the escape from urban life, work stress and during the pandemic the seclusion of closure that she appreciates most about her award.
“As soon as I walk in, I take a deep breath, and it really feels like I’m leaving the city,” she said.