I have been lamenting the lack of decently-sized allotment gardens in this part of the city for some time. There are a few teeny tiny ones down at the local collective garden, but less than a metre square and only two or three of them. Not really what I'm looking for.
My next thought was garden sharing - there's a website (pretersonjardin.be) which links up budding gardners with people wanting to share unused garden space. (Note: I have not used the site so cannot comment on its reliability etc). I periodically check but nothing ever comes up this central, it's mostly further out in the suburbs.
But a chance discovery informed me that Brussels Environment - an organisation that covers a range of environment-related activities here from maintaining the public parks to running information campaigns promoting seasonal eating to collecting and composting the city's Christmas trees every January - offers 'family gardens' (ie decent-sized allotments) in various nature reserves, one of which is just at the edge of the city and served by a bus route. And the waiting list is only six months.
Image: http://www.bruxellesenvironnement.be
I think this is one of those times when I need to hold myself back - I've only just planted the first seedlings of my container garden on the balcony, so it would probably be a good idea to build some confidence and test my commitment with that before taking on an allotment garden I would need to visit every weekend.
But it's very very tempting...
Such a wonderful opportunity. We are looking to do a similar thing here on the farm . Our interest arose from Landshare which started in the UK from Hugh of River Cottage fame. We would offer allotments for locals who have little to no land available where they live to grow food. A big step for you but if there's a 6 months waiting list maybe you could go on the list and see how you feel when your name comes up. All the best with your balcony garden.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking I could try that - after all, just because they say six months doesn't mean it is six months, it might be longer.
DeleteThe other thing I was thinking about was inviting some of my friends who I think are in a similar position - keen to grow food but not quite ready to make such a huge commitment - to share a plot with me, so we could split the work, cover for each other if we go away, and have the benefit of several heads and several pairs of hands.
Maybe reconsider the plots at collective garden? You'd be surprised at what can be crammed into a square metre. Could you give that a go while waiting for your name to come up for the larger allotments? That would give you a taste of the kind of time commitment necessary even for a tiny plot.
ReplyDeleteBizarrely, the waiting list for the tiny plots at the collective garden (and I think a square meter is a generous estimation) is much longer - probably because there are only four of them - plus the rules about what you can do are much stricter.
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