Plant Life

Two of my close friends both developed an obsession with their gardens and allotments at around the same time. An obsession with plant life. At either of their allotments I listen carefully. The best thing is that you can really learn a thing or two when all they talk about are plants. Why else would I be here drinking ginkyo and lemon balm tea? The ginkyo to improve both mental capacity and circulation, and the lemon balm for its relaxing and calming agents.

Mike took to allotmenting in an obsessive, possessed way. He read book after book and planted seed upon seed until, by late summer, he was inundated with plants. His two greenhouses (both acquired by kind donation) were full and so was his whole plot. He could hardly give it away fast enough.

But that was exactly what it was all about; trying things out. After the first year he figured out that the wild strawberries didn’t produce quite so much yield in that spot so he’d move them to a better spot for the following year. There was no reason to plant the herbs around at random so he put them all together in one tidy bed. Growing your own bamboo produced dozens of sticks for the beans to grow on.

Jay and I had endless talks about the sheer idiocy and un-sustainability of supermarkets and corporate culture. He read up and memorised what seemed like more than anyone could memorise. The textures of certain leaves, the places things liked to grow, the time of year for this that or the other. It seemed like he had an impeccable memory. Any time we ended up outside I’d be waiting for him to finish looking for Ramsons or Wild Rocket or Hogweed.

The difference between the two approaches was immeasurable. Mike was a gardener, or an allotmenteer, putting in endless hours digging over and weeding his neat plot. Jay was more of a forager; scouring rural Northamptonshire for free, edible food and then memorising what and where. And there is free food everywhere. It’s only a matter of educating yourself and spending some time hunting it out. Between the two of them I’d heard enough talk of plants to drive anyone crazy. But I was patient, and listened, and eventually picked things up. “Ah, Sorrel, that’s a perennial right?” I’d throw in at random and they’d confirm. Inadvertently, I was learning.

As I’d suspected Mike and Jay hit it off when they finally did meet. They were deep in conversation about plants right away. It wasn’t the first time I’d introduced people to each other and felt like the third wheel. To them both it was as much a political stance as it was simply a good idea to save a little cash. But more than either of these it was their interest; their fascination in plant life seemed to keep them upright and stable. As if through watching all this marvellous life and death and rebirth in their plants they gained both contentment and an inner warmth.

Being self-sufficient seems like quite an appealing, sensible idea to try and live your life. Only a tiny bit of thought gives you the knowledge that the shortest route from the soil to your mouth is the best. I started a vegetable patch not to bring food bills down, but to eat a wider variety of good, hearty, home-grown veg. It makes sense to eat the widest range of things possible and take in goodness in all shapes and forms. Research ailments and try remedies – don’t pay for a prescription for fucks sake! People have been ill for as long as humans have lived and I don’t believe they’ve been treating themselves with Paracetamol since the dawn of mankind. Sickness is a part of life. With the aid of a good range of food and exercise the body can run more efficiently and effectively.

It need not be a dying hobby, growing your own, and to some people it is very much alive. But, for people my age, rushing and hustling around, making use of an allotment is not a common occurrence. People would much rather go to the supermarket and save both time and effort. The one common agreement was that yes, by being frugal and dedicating time to maintaining an allotment, and also knowing where you could forage for edible plants you could feed yourself, even in these modern times. As recent as a couple of hundred years ago that is how the majority of people lived; by growing-their-own. Self-sufficiency is possible but you have to have space first, and patience. No-one I know has really managed to truly drop out of the system just yet, however much people have tried. Everyone I know is forced into paying council tax, unless of course they are studying. That same old chestnut - the only way out, but for only three years.

Individualism is connected to all of this. The idea that one person can make their own worth, their own world, and their own life aside from everything around them. These two friends constantly pinned up their ideal; owning and working on a self-sustained farm somewhere in the English Countryside, living out the rest of their days smoking homegrown dope, playing music and reading books. Keeping themselves to themselves mostly, just tending to their land forevermore, away from the bullshit and hype of the 21^st century.

Individualism is an artistic and creative ideal held by oneself only, but socialism could be construed as equality gone mad. Individualism leads essentially to capitalism because everyone is fighting to get things better for themselves. With socialism, you’d be devoting your time to help the ‘group’ and not yourself. Individualists would say society should be made up of people with their own free will and identity, whereas true socialists would say everyone should be under one banner, one heading, working for a mass. The two, although closely aligned, are vastly different. You cannot be both, it doesn’t work. But, at the same time, you can live partly both because they are fundamentally different; Individualism is a moral stance and ideology, Socialism is a political and economic theory.

Here in the UK, we’re individualists, capitalists. We’re not poor enough to be a socialist country through and through like Cuba, Vietnam or China – although those three are actually becoming increasingly wealthy. It is said that once a capitalist system is adopted by a country there is no turning back. Although most young white liberals would probably consider themselves socialists, when it comes down to it they’ll look out for themselves and no-one else. They’re capitalists in disguise – guilty and middle-class. Often, the faults lie with the people who don’t think they are part of the problem.

On the first page I skimmed of the John Seymour book Mike leant me I noticed a heavy truth: “our traditional milk delivery service, employing re-usable bottles and electric vehicles is a highly efficient system.” It resounded. It seems you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Gone are the milkmen of yesteryear, replaced by a system which is neither viable nor sustainable. We had a perfect system before – one where milk hardly travelled a dozen miles to get to your doorstep, but we lost it. We gave up on it, and gave it up, like we have many perfect systems.

Jay suggested starting a campaign. ‘Make Northampton Edible,’ he dubbed it. “I want everyone to plant stuff and eat it,” he said with gusto and zest, and you could tell he meant it. He (rightfully so) wanted to convert everyone round to his way of thinking. Under the cover of darkness we walked over to the park. We’d noticed an empty flower bed, which had been dug over but had not had anything planted. We took a huge bag of Berlotti Beans with us. I ran in lines digging small tranches with a trowel. Then we sprinkled in the beans, I covered them over and we through on a bit of water. We’d finished planting three 20ft beds in less than three minutes. No-one saw us or approached us. We felt, afterwards, as if we had won, like we had ‘showed them,’ that we had taken a step in the right direction. It was a liberating experience, even if the flower bed was re-dug two days later and filled up with pretty flowers.

With Mike the revelations were equally random and unexpected. After a couple of years he’d argue against Gardener’s Question Time on his little radio at the allotment. I thought it was hilarious. Caught by the rain one afternoon we sat in the greenhouse watching water flow down the panes and into the water-butt. It was an unmistakeable sound – a tapping and rhythmic pulse, not the usual sound of running water. Two muddy dudes sharing a joint. “There’s so much work to do,” he’d repeat like a skewed gardening mantra, showing that all his work was not just about this year. It was forward-thinking to the extreme; planning and pruning every year, working out the creases in the lay of his plot of land, thinking of the future.

The Amish seem to be getting a lot of press recently. They’ve got it right; avoiding the need for speed and making a point of living in a traditional way. Their communities are totally self-sufficient, which I envy but am not sure whether I could live that way. Where do they have the bands play? Do they grow their own dope? Are they allowed to travel further than a couple of miles? Some things I would be willing to give up, but not others. Now, the Hutterites I feel more closely aligned to (they live more communally and can actually make use of technology) but they’ve still got to get rid of the religious elephant in the room before I’m anywhere near converted.

I think The Garden City Movement makes most sense to me when the matter of town planning comes into discussion. ‘Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained, communities surrounded by "greenbelts" (parks), containing proportionate areas of residences, industry, and agriculture. The concept of garden cities is to produce relatively economically independent cities with short commute times and the preservation of the countryside.’ There you have it, shamelessly lifted straight from everyone’s favourite online encyclopaedia, but I couldn’t find a better way to put it. Unfortunately Ebenezer Howard, who came up with the idea in 1898, basically sold his vision short by having to deal with wealthy benefactors who turned their back on the cooperative values Howard intended to instil in his cities.

They didn’t adhere to his strict plans whilst building and the owners later hiked up the rent. The fact is Garden Cities devolve into suburbs and green plots are quickly sold off and filled in with housing. The workers living there travel further and further to work, to shop, to socialise. If only they could have run according to the original plan and rode it out to test the theory, then we’d know if they were able to become successful over the course of a decade or two. By now they would have really stood the test of time. All the fruit trees would be producing, the compost bins overflowing, all the allotment space used to its full potential and, most importantly, plenty of water butts.

The Garden City seems to me to be the logical conclusion to the idea of buying a piece of land, keeping it to oneself then living happily and working hard forevermore. It’s for the greater good, and seems socialist to the max. But why farm? The reasons are just endless. To exercise, to feel like you’re giving something back to the world, to keep up traditions, to relax and to improve life itself. There are other reasons, dozens of others, but I just can’t list them all here. Let me say that this will come back round – getting our hands dirty – and it will come back round soon. Community gardens and allotments seem to be getting constant press at the moment. Children are constantly pictured even in the local rag holding pots containing plants they’d grown. It’s just starting to be in vogue as a lifestyle choice more than out of financial necessity.

       As far as I’m concerned these two friends are people who are saving the world, one seedling and one leaf at a time. By letting their views become your views.