Gardening and community
The experience and benefits of allotment and community gardening
Before diving into the latest Compassionate Nature article I am delighted to share a recent episode of the Everyday Therapist podcast, hosted by Cody Northup and Rich Campbell, who kindly invited me on to talk about compassion, nature connection and gardening, along with reflections on how they help with daily life. It was a really fun episode to do, please have a listen after reading this week’s article which looks at recent research on allotment and community gardening, including the experiences of those who garden in these green spaces.
“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.’
Not sure if Abraham Lincoln actually had an allotment, and not sure he actually said those words which are attributed to him, however for many people an allotment provides a growing space that they don’t have room for in their garden or they don’t have access to a garden.
The National Allotment Society, a charity dedicated to supporting the provision and ownership of allotments across the UK, defines an allotment as “an area of land, leased either from a private or local authority landlord, for the use of growing fruit and vegetables.” The Society also provides a helpful history, highlighting that having a small plot of land for food production goes back to Anglo-Saxon times. The modern allotment started during the 1800’s, alongside increasing industrialisation and urbanisation, to provide opportunities for low income labourers and workers to grow their own food. Legislation followed with the 1908 Small Holdings and Allotment Act requiring local councils to provide allotment plots to meet local demand from workers while the Land Settlement Facilities Act of 1919 made allotments available as a way of helping veterans of the First World War. The rights of allotment owners became more protected by the Allotments Acts of 1922 and 1925.
Several other countries have the concept of allotments, although these may be called community gardens. That does get a bit confusing as a community garden usually refers to one plot of land that many people or households use as a garden, whereas an allotment plot is land given to one household. More recently allotment gardens have started in the Philippines and in Turkey, where they are called hobby gardens which I like the sound of.
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In the UK it has been reported that there long waiting times for allotments, fuelled by increasing demand for plots alongside delays in making unused plots available, with a reported 81% increase in application waiting lists in 2023 compared to 2011. The average waiting time to get a plot was quoted as being 3 years, with the most extreme case being a 15 year wait.
A paper recently published in the Urban Forestry and Urban Greening journal by a German and Swiss research team provides more insight on demand. Analysis by Dominik Bien and colleagues 2024 study) used data supplied from allotment and community garden organisers based in cities across several countries, including Switzerland, Germany, USA, UK, Canada, and New Zealand to look at application trends. Their analysis found that overall demand went up by 19% between 2018 to 2019, 25% between 2020 to 2021 and 15% between 2021 to 2022. The period of 2019 to 2020 had an overall decline in applications principally accounted for as a result of covid public health restrictions. This analysis highlights the growing (no pun intended!) demand for gardening spaces especially within urban residential settings.
Allotments and wellbeing
In her book The Natural Health Service, Isabel Hardman shares stories of how owning and working on an allotment has helped various people support their mental health, including her own experience. Research considered in the previous Compassionate Nature article included the evidence base of the relationship between gardening to mental wellbeing and a paper published a couple of weeks ago provides more insight into that relationship, this time including allotment owners. Previous research has suggested allotments may provide additional benefits and Boglarka Gulyas, Samantha Caton and Jill Edmondson’s study considered the relationship of home and allotment gardening to a number of health factors.
The study included a sample of 280 UK adults, who were mainly female (75%), with over half of the participants being at least 55 years old. Nearly three-quarters of the participants regularly gardened at home, with around half of those regular gardeners also having an allotment. Across the whole sample just over a third (36%) of participants had an allotment. The participants completed an online survey during 2020 which assessed their general physical and mental health, diet, activity levels, Body Mass Index (BMI) and gardening habits. The results found a positive relationship between gardening to physical and mental health factors, along with links to dietary choices of increased fruit and vegetables. The analysis also suggested that the duration of weekly gardening activity had a bearing on positive benefits to mental wellbeing, finding that at least 11 hours per week was required to find a statistically significant relationship. The results also suggested that the link to dietary benefits was only found when moderate to large amounts of fruit and vegetables were being grown. These two results suggest that for these participants some of the wellbeing and health benefits were linked to quite a lot of gardening activity and may require a large growing space, such as an allotment.
One interesting finding was that participants who had an allotment were less likely to have low scores on the mental wellbeing measure than those without an allotment, regardless of the time spent gardening each week. While the study is good in that it included allotments and considered different health factors, the results are restricted by the relatively small sample, which also has demographic limitations. Additionally data for some of the study variables was available from a subset of participants of the overall sample. However the results do support the suggestion that allotment gardens provide additional benefits and experiences which may be different to home gardens.
The experience
Emelie Larsson and Katarina Nygren 2024 paper provides a narrative study on Swedish allotment gardeners experiences of allotments. It is an interesting paper as it considers social aspects by looking at allotments through the construct of “thirdspace”, indicative of the balance of an allotment as both a private space and a public space. It is a small sample of 8 allotment gardeners and 4 community gardeners, reflecting on their experiences and the meaning they take from these garden spaces. One specific aspect of Swedish allotments is they can have a cottage on the plot, a small sized (25 to 30 square metre) building which is brought when taking on the allotment. A number of the gardeners found the allotments provided a space in-between the city and countryside, providing an escape from the urban environment and encouraging spending time outside across all seasons. They expressed sense of place-attachment to the gardens and reported restorative factors from working there. An emotional attachment was also mentioned, both to the location and to the plants they grew, with a number of the gardeners reporting pleasure in engaging with nature and supporting ecosystems. As well as fostering community, the gardeners highlighted there can be conflict between the public and private space of an allotment, resulting from poorly maintained plots or owners motivated to use the space for more leisure based activities than gardening. There was also a conflict within the private and public space perspective, where some gardeners felt they preferred to be left in peace to work on their allotment rather than being part of a social group. While it is a study of a very specific group of gardeners in a specific context, one thing I took from the analysis was the sense the gardeners had of a close, emotional attachment to their allotments, which meant it had a symbolic meaning within their lives.
Community
Despite the historical usage of allotments it is argued that current urban planning policies often do not include them and community gardens. A research team of ecologists reviewed community gardens in Berlin and Munich to highlight their importance within urban settings. In their 2024 paper, Monika Egerer and colleagues considered 23 community gardens, which in this case are garden spaces used by a number of households, to highlight three key beneficial contributions. Firstly over a three year period the community gardens contributed to increased biodiversity levels within the cities, with the gardens containing a high diversity of crops and wild plants. Secondly the gardens provided opportunities for residents to connect with nature, instilling a sense of land stewardship and providing educational opportunities, such as learning about how to save seed or propagate plants. Thirdly benefits to supporting social cohesion within the local community were identified. The authors highlight the importance for both residents and nature of including community gardens into urban planning.
Community gardens may also be used to support specific groups or individuals. Sarah Swift and colleagues 2024 qualitative paper reflects the experiences of a small group of individuals with dementia who developed a community garden over a 6 week period. Dementia can bring a reduced sense of self and identity, along with stigma and isolation, which an activity like community gardening may help with. The paper provides insight from three of the gardeners involved in the form of short vignettes. The community garden helped with maintaining an identity as a gardener, something one participant felt they had lost from not being to do as much in their home garden. The gardeners felt a sense of freedom and autonomy in the community garden, which they helped to design. In doing so they felt that this provided the opportunity to challenge perceptions of dementia and address stigma that may be associated with it. The authors link this to the concept of “everyday resistance”, with the garden providing activities and space for the gardeners to resist being defined by dementia. The garden helped to replace the sense of being a burden and of suffering with a sense of belonging and active stewardship of the garden. I found the reflections of the gardeners very powerful and the study underlines that gardening, when used as a collaborative and supportive activity, can be empowering for individuals who may feel restricted or defined by a health condition.
Taking on an allotment is about putting down roots. It is a long-term commitment that involves considerable emotional and physical investment.
Sue Stuart-Smith in her book The Well Gardened Mind sums up what it means to become an allotment owner, something I have had the pleasure of becoming recently, after a three and half year wait. Even in the short time of having the allotment plot some of the findings of these studies has resonated with me, from the sense of attachment to it and the aspect of it as both a private space and a public space.
Something which the studies did not reflect in and which always strikes me when working on the plot is the way that gardening connects us to the past, present and future. For example the activity of sowing seeds into the ground. The past, as the methods of sowing seed have been done by humans in the same way for hundreds of years. The present as you focus on the activity and the elements of nature you are engaging with, from the seed to the soil. The future, as you hope the seeds will flourish to provide a harvest in a few months. I think that historical connection to working land that has been looked after by a previous owner or owners is a key element of an allotment that may be different to the home garden. Perhaps that connection supports the sense of attachment and stewardship that was highlighted in a couple of these studies.
And perhaps while a home garden provides a connection to nature, an allotment provides a connection to nature, community and history.
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References
Bieri, D., Joshi, N., Wende, W., & Kleinschroth, F. (2024). Increasing demand for urban community gardening before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 92, 128206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2024.128206
Egerer, M., Karlebowski, S., Conitz, F., Neumann, A. E., Schmack, J. M., & Sturm, U. (2024). In defence of urban community gardens. People and Nature. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10612
Gulyas, B. Z., Caton, S. J., & Edmondson, J. L. (2024). Quantifying the relationship between gardening and health and well-being in the UK: a survey during the covid-19 pandemic. BMC Public Health, 24(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18249-8
Larsson, E. P., & Nygren, K. G. (2024). Cultivating thirdspace: Community, conflict and place in Swedish allotment gardens. Landscape and Urban Planning, 243, 104959. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2023.104959
Swift, S., Jenkins, N., Brown, M., & McCrory, M. (2024). “They didn't think we'd do it!”: Community gardening as an act of resistance for people with dementia. Journal of Aging Studies, 68, 101216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101216
Thanks for taking the time to delve into the science behind the practice of Forest Bathing. Some things are more challenging to prove. Step into a forest. There is magic there. We know...
Another great article! Thank you, Chris.