Allotments have a way of fostering individuality. Just take a walk around your site and you will get a sense of a person just by looking at their plot and what they're growing: subtle differences in crop choice, different layouts or approach and most exciting of all, people trying new things or going against convention.
There are a few simple considerations that can be made when pondering over what to grow. Make a list of the foods you and those around you enjoy eating: focus on your tastes, your loves and your favourites – your shopping basket in essence. Many crops that you wouldn't think could be grown in our climate are surprisingly hardy: for other plants it may be possible to find substitutes that have similar properties. Then whittle the list down to the definite, the possible and the seemingly impossible. Use the internet to research whether or not it is possible to grow certain crops and it's likely that you will stumble upon a forum, a blog post or an article that will give you an indication of it's potential to succeed.
Then make a list of the things you would like to try growing but haven't eaten. There are many delicious but hard to find or slightly left of mainstream crops that can be grown on the allotment. Most recently, crops such as Oca (Oxalis tuberosa), Chinese artichokes (Stachys affinis) and American groundnut(Apios Americana) have found their place on my plot, and these would be difficult to find in most shops. Without the aid of the internet and some helpful individuals found on social media sites it's likely that I would never heard of these crops let alone sourced them.
The benefits of growing your own food are vast and well documented, including health benefits and helping you to save money (as long as you don't include your hours of labour). But it doesn't have to end there: allotments can be used for other ends too. Growing cut flowers, keeping livestock, including chickens and bees and as a quiet retreat from regular life. Whatever your intentions are, just remember that this patch of earth is yours now and what you chose to do with it is entirely up to you (as long as the committee agrees!).
What are you planning to grow this year? Share your seed list in the comments below.
This is the latest in a series of blogposts from Ryan Lewis, who writes about his small urban garden, allotment and chickens on his blog, Ryan's Garden.
