It may be a small plot of land in Osterley, west London, but it provided Karen Peck’s kitchen with rows and rows of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, broad beans and garlic.
But Peck, 60, takes much more of his share than just fresh food.
“It is so peaceful. I have a favorite thrush that comes to visit me, so the blackbird appears and there are wrens in the corner, ”said Peck in a telephone interview late last year. “You enjoy birdsong and tiny brown mice, hedgehogs, urban foxes.”
The connection to nature was especially pleasant during the coronavirus pandemic, she said.
Allotments – small pockets of separate urban land for city residents to grow fruits, vegetables, plants and flowers – were once common in British cities, especially at the height of World War II.
While German submarines were destroying supply ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the British were urged to grow their own food, and the “Cave for Victory” campaign was vigorously embraced.
In 1945, well over 1 million lots were supplementing people’s meager rations during the war.
This changed in the decades that followed, when the urgent need for new homes saw the arrival of affordable housing schemes, hungry for land. Mass-produced, low-cost supermarket food has also undergone a change in culinary habits.
But in the midst of the pandemic, demand for plots increased in several British cities, including London, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Sheffield, according to the South West Counties Allotment Association, a non-profit organization that protects and promotes the use of plots across the UK.
“For me, it’s more than just food,” said Peck, whose 430-square-foot plot is surrounded by dozens of others, also growing a colorful mix of flowers and produce.
Located just a minute’s walk from her one-bedroom apartment, the urban garden offered her an escape and the chance to mix responsibly with nature-loving neighbors.
“I live on my own. I think if I hadn’t seen people in the subdivision, I would have gone crazy during confinement,” she said.
At best, this is important; but in a year of forced social isolation and loneliness, she added that her “little oasis proved to be nothing short of a godsend”.
“Having a semi-private space, outdoors, does not conflict with the rules of social distance and offers the opportunity to do a little practical work, grow some food, burn energy and anxiety and maybe even socialize a little – this is proving important, ”said Miriam Dobson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield who is studying the resurgence of housing development.
Published in November, his team’s study supports the idea that subdivisions 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 distribution as a lifesaver during the blockade,” she said.
For others who wish to reap the benefits of a batch, the waiting list is long and can last between five and 20 years, depending on where you live.
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Owned by a mix of private landowners and local authorities, there are likely to be no more than 330,000 left in the UK, according to The National Allotment Society, a body representing British lot holders.
“In recent years, and especially now with Covid, demand has increased enormously,” said Ayesha Hooper, of the South West Counties Allotment Association, who waited five years for her own land in Barnstable, a small town in southwest England.
“People are constantly contacting us, saying that they want local authorities to provide more sites,” she added.
However, the new allotment space is not always available and the ubiquitous threat of property development means that existing lots are often at risk of being closed.
“You can have sites that have been around for hundreds of years just being sold for development and people don’t necessarily know how to fight it,” said Hooper.
Employees at her association, which assists allotment holders threatened with eviction, are optimistic for the future, with a younger, more diverse and female audience getting involved, she added.
Ania Klimowicz is at the forefront of this demographic change.
A victim of the chronic shortage of affordable housing in Britain, it took the 36-year-old woman enough money to buy a house with her husband. But without a backyard to talk to, she left her dreams of a garden aside – until she landed near her home in South East London in 2018.
“Although I do cultivation and crop rotation and all that sort of thing, we keep a little lawn and I have a picnic bench and a barbecue. When we invite people, we tend to invite them to the lot instead of the house, ”she said.
Like Peck, for Klimowicz it is the escape from urban life, the stress of work and, during the pandemic, the isolation of the confinement that she values most in its distribution.
“As soon as I enter, I take a deep breath of fresh air and really feel like I’m leaving the city,” she said.