Topic: What made you start a lottie?

[Blue Bird]

Must admit the extra benifit is all the great people I have met and become friends with and of course the fact that I have also found this forum  ;D ;D

[Tinkie_Bear]

Brief history - Grandad had a lotty, as a toddler I used to wander around biting things - brocolli is still one of my favorites and find most veg are better raw.  Dad had a lotty when I was a kid too (Just been given his "grow your own veg" magazines from the early 70's - interesting read).  I spent 6 months off work spring / summer of 2005 and was bored stupid so hubby dug up a bit of the lawn (6' x 8') and got me some sead trays.  I could spend hours sitting in the garden watching plants grow.  Last year I got a green house and had more turf removed (plot grew to 18' x 8') and most things florished.  In October I got a share in a plot with a friend so I am now the proud renter of 7m x 13m of great lotty and 1/2 a shed a mile from home AND we have destroyed more lawn .....
I work full time and can't do much exercise so my veg is a great way to get some air as well as some yummy veg.  I also like to grow stuff that you can't find in the shops or costs a lot of money.  Oh and it's somewhere to hide - the first thing in the shed was a deck chair :-)

Helen

[emmy1978]

what a great thread, so interesting to hear all the different histories and reasons why we do it. for me I don't know where my love of growing came from. Mum nor Dad not at all into gardening and our garden as kids was overgrown jungle with a gigantic rhubarb! My grandparents functional gardeners, it has to look nice but it's all bedding and rockery and lawn.
I think it came from my friend Lee who is gardener extraordinaire. I left home very young and had my own little flat that I shared with a friend. Lee was a friend of hers and we went to his flat one day and out onto his roof garden and i was like a kid in a sweet shop. Running from thing to thing and just loved it. He gave me cuttings and seeds from then on and i just got addicted. Now I'm seriously ill with it! We got the lottie as we've moved into teeny rented flat to try and save deposit for our own house and i got sick of cramming more and more pots onto the doorstep sized patio. There's a patch of green around the side of the flat for girls to play and few pots but we needed something more and found that actually, we couldn't do without the veggies!
I love my lottie so much. it is truly my sanctuary. Oh yes, OH and kids love it too, but really, it's mine, mine, mine!!!

[cornykev]

Never been into gardening at all, moved into flat then house and oh did all the gardening, then she bought some cucumber seeds strawberry and tomato plants and I found myself watering and looking after them, she would say looking after your plants she thought it was hilarious. Then my dad told me his neighbour had an allotment and there was one going spare, I loved working outside and not being cooped up so I thought I would give it a go and the rest as they say is history.   ;D ;D ;D

[Good Gourd2]

5, years ago my husband  had a slight stroke and although he was always in the workshop making baskets and caning chairs he did not actually move very far. So i suggested us getting and Allotment, it has to be both of us  as my husband is registered blind and needs a bit of help with some things,the effort is 50 50 though. Small seeds can be a problem for him but hoeing the onion bed is a cinch he gets down and feels his way along and never chops the head off a plant as I may do.  All of the lines that we use for marking out are quite heavy and everything has to be in its place and the paths are slabbed so that the difference is obvious. We even won our local councils Allotment Cup of the Year (showing off now)We absolutely love it, half a chance and its flask, sandwiches and down to the lotty, there is always  someone to put the worlds to rights with.  We and all the plot holders get  constructive help from the Allot Assc. The site  of our allotments is in a wonderfull position, Over looking hills with the river running through the fields, peacefull.  Its was one of the best things we ever did.

[Tin Shed]

Its the sheer pleasure of it all - growing and eating, watching and waiting and experimenting, the community spirit on the lottie and its my space - I don't have to nag anybody and if something goes wrong there's no one else to blame, and anyway you learn by mistakes. Genetically I have no hope - on one side of there were nurserymen and seedsmen in the1850s and on the other side they were all gardeners - I have my grandfathers hoe and an old galvanised watering can.
And it just makes me happy!!!

[weedin project]

Watched the "Good Life" and always fancied the dream, but never had the ba**s to even try it.
Grew a load of herbs in our postage stamp garden, then a few veggies in it, then a colleague asked if we would take on half of her 10 rods, and then a year later we took on a whole 10 of our own.
Our lottie was about 1½ miles from the house, and eventually we got fed up with the greenhouse being vandalised, and the travel (especially the car parking problems when we got home).  So we sold up and bought a house with a big enough garden to do a half-lottie and some ornamental space too.  But we both still work, so no "Good Life" yet.
Made lots of mistakes, such as the ½ hundredweight or more of Jerusalem Artichokes we grew last year (why did I do that?) and we've had some pretty disastrous crop failures.  Our getting the lottie co-incided with me doing a Masters in Social Research Methods, and I suppose the experimentation and research element of developing the dream harvest is part of my fascination with research as a whole.

[gary]

When I moved back into my house after renting it out I was working away so I did not have the time to do anything with the garden. A large area was block paved, the rest was graveled leaving only three small beds for plants.

Once I came back to work at home I then had the time of an evening as I have always grown something, mostly strawberries or summer pots.
last year I grow veg between the flowers but it never went down to well, a recent quote "can we have propper flowers this year?"

Being self employed and the girlfriend working shifts is great, she was on nights all weekend so I went down the plot out the way as not to wake her.

The GF tries to help but take a bit to get down the plot but when she does she works like mad.

[Squashmad]

Because I've been obsessed with gardening for as long as I can remember - watched the Good Life as a child, and read Hovel in the Hills etc - when we finally bought a place of our own in a village it had a tiny garden -- and I was longing to start growing food - so we asked about an allotment and before we knew it we had 3!!! I'd have to say its a way of life to me. The garden is just down the lane from us -- and I pop down to check my plants before getting the train to work -- then I'm down again in the evening to potter around again. I love it - and its so satifsfying to produce meals from the garden, as well as vases full of cut flowers.

[Deb P]

Also have a gardening heritage a generation back (grandad had an allotment, my Nan, as mentioned on the 'acquiring plants by stealth' thread famous propagator of everything!), they grew up on an commercial orchard, so I guess that put my mum off!

I have always grown some veg in our own garden since we moved here 13 years ago, but gradually became frustrated by the lack of space (potatoes in bags, sweetcorn in barrels..).

I was worried that I wouldn't have the time required to keep an allotment going, as we both work full time, 2 kids etc, but finally took the plunge Jan 2006 and put myself on the waiting list. Got my plot August 2006, and now realise that everything else in life just fits around the lottie......... ;D

Would have done it sooner if I'd realised!

[Larkspur]

Runs in the family I guess though I never had any interest in any form of gardening till I was in my twenties. My father had worked as a professional gardener, still tended intermittantly the allotment that had been my grandfathers and had a fairly large garden at home where part was ornamental and part was for veg. As I said this interested me not at all till I had a house of my own and thought I ought to do some thing about the garden to my amazement I found I could grow things and I enjoyed doing so. It was the start of a lifelong passion.
However, to go back a little in time and to show this growing things thing may run in the blood even if we may not be aware of it, I have infront of me a cast brass ornamental plaque in Art Deco style, designed by Hamo Thorneycroft RA. On the plaque it says National Open Championship - Horticultural Prize S. Ashley  1925. Presented by Toogood and Sons, Seedsmen to H.M. The King. Sam Ashley was my maternal grandfather. I also have his first prize certificates for prizes won in fruit, flower and vegitable shows.
So it may be well hidden but the need to be in touch with the soil does I think run deep in the blood :) ;).

[ruffmeister]

lack of space in garden as plants out growing it, the allotment is a logica fabulous option  :P

[coznbob]

I grew up with my grandparents and my nan was an avid gardener, spent a lot of time in the garden with her earning 50ps weeding and helping to dig beds etc. I enjoy being outside so decided to environmental science at uni, then the kids came along and life became playgroups and school runs.
When doing some volunteering to clear up the school grounds, one of the people took us down to see his allotment after a hard mornings work to get some strawberries. I came home raving about it and Rob (OH) said that I should get one. I didn't think I'd have time, kids too small etc. But am loving every second of it.
Like others have said, its great for showing the kids how food grows, getting fresh veg. in them and not having to eat food that has untold chemicals in them.
Also great for a break from the kids...definate me time.

[muggs]

Always liked growing things, my dad had a large veggie patch in the garden, as did both sets of grandparents, indeed my maternal great grandfather was a gardener on a large estate, as was his father before him. 

I got the lottie two years ago to get my Dad interested in something too really and he is obviously enjoying it! We get lots of jokey comments and everybody seems to think we're a bit "odd" having a lottie (dont know why tho!), and this year we have taken on two plots that had been vacant for over 10 years.  I love it  their, the sun shines, the sound of the cricketers on the pitch next door and chatting with the other "plotters".   We take our flask and our picnic and spend the whole day there with the children (aged six and 7 months).  Its totally idyllic.  Total relaxation (yes ... even when you've got 900 sq.ft. to dig!)

[Kea]

It's in the gene's on both sides in my family. I lived on a large farm when i was a child though my Dad wasn't a farmer for his whole life, his father was a farmer as well. My father had sheep (NZ!) and cattle and he grew fodder crops both for our stock and to sell the hay/seed.
I have just found out from my Aunty that after the war before he had the farm he was living with my Mother's parents (who also gardened both of them) and he had an allotment, I guess that was his own space away from in-laws and children.
My Mum ran the flower garden and vegetable garden on the farm plus other farming jobs. The vege patch was huge bigger than my house and garden in area. My maternal grandfather's main occupation was  vege growing when he lived with my Aunty after my grandmother died.
My parents retired from farming but not work andmy Mum ran a country store while my Dad returned to vege growing which he continued right up until i saw him last at age 88 then he spent a year in a nursing home before he died.
My Mum lives with my brother and just potters in the garden now while he grows the vege....apparently he didn't grow enough carrots this year! My Dad grew fantastic carrots easily so I didn't realise until recently how hard they can be to grow.
My youngest son (14) has been biten by the gardening bug and loves to help at the allotment.....but not all day! He's growing the strawberries.
So gardening is genetic but mutations can occur.

[Jeannine]

Bluebird, some years ago a friend who thought I should say no more often loaned me a book called " The Art of Being Selfish".At first I thought it was awful but then it dawned on me...if I asked here to do something or go somewhere and she decined she did it so nicely that it was very natural,much better then I did it stumbling for excuses.  It turned out to be a really good read.It was not about being mean,it was simply caring for yourself too.

XX Jeannine

[triffid]

Learnt my gardening by toddling along in the wake of my Daddy with a trowel and a marmalade-tin-with-wire-handle bucket. Loved growing things since I planted up my first mud pie.

Began growing veg when starved of a garden, living in a bedsit. I had cherry toms, sugar snaps and herbs growing with marigolds and nasturtiums in windowboxes in my three windows. The herbs and marigolds grew up and the rest sort of crawled downward, much to the amusement of the neighbours. Harvested by lifting the windowbox onto the floor so I could reach the furthest tendrils.   ;D

Got my lottie nearly five years ago, when Small Triff was still in pre-school. And I still haven't dug it all over!
Our site is big, and less than half occupied.  :( The good side of that is that it gives the kids somewhere to wander that's wild and woolly, not like the park. They love coming on to the plot in summer to choose what supper to pick, and Small wants his own plot now! Tiny Triff hasn't ever known life without fresh fruit and veg. She thinks there's something strange about courgettes that don't weep juice when you cut them. But they both want to help, which is lovely, except there are times when that just ain't possible (or not unless you have, for example, a day to plant carrot seed one by one...   ::)

It's hard to spend enough time there. Once Tiny goes to school full-time next Jan :o it should get a bit easier. Last summer and the year before, there were many nights when I was weeding by touch because there wasn't even sunset left to see by. It's my favourite place in the world.

[artichoke]

I've enjoyed reading all this.

My father used to escape from his noisy family (4 daughters) by going to a place he called "Paradise" where we were occasionally allowed to watch him digging and growing broad beans.

I spent my first married life with a craze for self sufficiency, with fields, pigs, cow, geese, sheep, veg patches. My second married life is here in a big house with virtually no garden, so in 1999 I managed to find an allotment and now I have two. I do feel slightly guilty for spending increasing amounts of time at one or the other but I tell myself that there is one huge benefit: I have 7 grandsons who burst out of our house and tiny garden, and I am already finding that my second allotment, in a large empty meadow, is perfect for entertaining them.

We have already cooked lunches over bonfires and put up a hasty shelter when it poured with rain. We will build a hut, one has his own tiny patch (this one lives in Germany, so I send him photographs of it), there are trees to climb and grassy space to run about in. I also have plans for some of them to build their own huts (if anyone complains, they are my attempts at compost bins), and I have come across the idea of "debris huts" which I think they would enjoy making, temporary shelters...  My children remember a childhood of making shelters, cooking food and running wild, and I have been sad that I coudn't offer this to the growing number of grandsons (this is not sexist: no-one seems to be having daughters in my family).

At my age I could become sedentary and stiff, but out in all weathers digging and planting is the perfect antidote.

But the basic reason is that I am greedy and love eating what I grow, hate entering supermarkets, and have no other source of fresh clean vegetables and fruit locally.

[Froglegs]

I got my plot for purely heath reasons.........was sick of being stuck in with the wife ;D ;D ;D ;D   ;)

[Froglegs]

   :P  Health  :-[