Giovanna Dunmall investigates some literally ground-breaking gardening initiatives with multi-faceted benefits for all involved
 Pairing would-be gardeners with people who have land but don't use it is a simple but groundbreaking concept, and one that people in Britain are starting to take to with great enthusiasm. There are several new schemes in the UK which encourage, facilitate and promote the sharing of land, with many benefits for all involved. Gardeners share their harvests with garden-owners, food miles are almost entirely eradicated, friendships are forged, community spirit is fostered, anti-social behaviour is discouraged, and more people eat local, mostly chemical-free food. In the long term growing food locally also represents an important step towards independence from oil.
One of the most interesting projects to date was launched in the small town of Totnes in South Devon (the first Transition Town in the UK) at the start of 2008. So far twenty-four gardeners have joined the project, with more gardens and gardeners coming into the scheme all the time. The fact that the gardeners already involved in the project are keen to carry on this year is heartening, says Lou Brown, the Garden Share Scheme co-ordinator, because “improving long-term cross-community relationships is a major aim of the scheme.”
Brown vets incoming participants to ensure that they have the right level of commitment (in the summer gardeners need to tend to the land at least three times a week) and that garden-owners are not merely seeking free garden labourers. “I am certainly a believer that people work beautifully together and co-operate well when they have matching expectations,” she says. Brown says people taking part in the Totnes initiative don't fit any specific demographic, but that rather it has appealed to anyone “who doesn't have enough garden space for their growing needs.” Or those with no garden at all. That can mean anything from young couples, retirees and lodgers to students, groups of friends and single parents.
Meanwhile, the Adopt-a-Garden project, a fourteen-month pilot scheme launched in February 2008 on the Isle of Wight, has similar garden-matching aims. One major difference from the Totnes scheme, however, is that the garden-owners are mostly old or sick people who can no longer tend to their land. Ray Harrington-Vail of local environmental charity Footprint Trust, which is running the scheme, believes the initiative will prove to have many other important benefits besides the obvious ones, including the fact that gardeners will keep an eye on the householder (who may be very old and frail) and report any issues or problems they notice to the authorities.
Working on a much wider scale, and hoping to attract people all over Britain, is Landshare, backed by TV chef and smallholder Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. This website-only venture was launched in Spring 2009 – just in time for the new planting season. Landshare aims to put people all over the UK with unused gardens in contact with gardeners looking for space. For the moment people need simply register their interest as a grower, a landowner, a land-spotter or a facilitator (someone willing to support elderly or other landsharers who require help). So far over 20,000 people have registered, and interest is set to grow.
Harrington-Vail has some words of warning about internet-only garden-sharing initiatives. “They will fail to help many elderly people,” he points out. Most of his clients, for instance, do not have access to the internet. But whether or not his concerns are justified, it is clear that as we become more and more aware of the impact of large scale farming on our health and the health of our environment, growing food locally makes sense. As does getting to know your neighbours. Sometimes building communities and creating change can be deceptively straightforward.
 http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/gardenshare/home
www.footprint-trust.co.uk/adoptgarden.html
www.landshare.net
Appeared in Resurgence in May/June 2009 issue
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