The Benefits of Allotment Gardening

Cultivating an allotment can be one of the most rewarding and healthy pastimes one can pursue. Francis Bacon once said of growing a vegetable garden: “Indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man.”

There are so many benefits to having a space to grow your own fresh produce – a peaceful little haven that revitalises your senses. Madingley Mulch offers fast compost delivery to addresses in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex and Hertfordshire, so you can grow your favourite fruit, vegetables and herbs yourself. Here we look at six benefits of tending an allotment.

Peace and a Sense of Accomplishment

Allotment gardening is a great way to relax and get away from the stresses and strains of everyday life. Not only can you enjoy the visual beauty of your allotment, but you can reap the many delicious and healthy rewards that grow above and below the soil.

Producing fresh fruit and vegetables on an allotment is a fantastic way to become more self-sufficient, save money and reduce your carbon footprint. It is also a great way to teach children first-hand where their fresh food comes from and how to grow it for themselves in the future.

Community Experience

Using an allotment can be a rewarding community experience. You are likely to make friends with like-minded people with similar interests and share knowledge and expertise with one another. Allotments are wonderful spaces of discovery for people of all ages, as more and more families participate in the ‘grow your own’ trend.

Health Improvements

Tending an allotment can be an excellent form of exercise for people of all ages and abilities. Spending just 30 minutes gardening on your allotment can burn around 150 calories –  the same as doing a low-intensity workout at the gym.

If you’re fair-skinned, spending as little as 15 minutes in the sunshine can increase your body’s level of vitamin D. For those with darker skin, up to 90 minutes of sun exposure will help raise your vitamin D levels. Being outside and working your allotment can help your body to ward off some illnesses. However, it is also important to consider the long-term health risks of spending time exposed to the sun, so please make sure you stay protected.

Financial Gains

When managed properly over the year, an allotment can produce enough fruit and vegetables to supplement a family’s weekly shop. This does require hard work and dedication, but even the smallest amount of produce grown is money saved from the supermarket.

Most people don’t use chemical pesticides on an allotment, so you’ll be able enjoy fresh organic fruit and vegetables without the ‘organic’ supermarket price tag. Also. if you have invested the time and energy to grow your produce, you’re less likely to let it go to waste.

Environmental Impact

By using an allotment to grow fresh produce, you will reduce your carbon footprint, which is often linked with driving to the supermarket. Similarly, when you buy less packaged food from supermarkets, you are creating less plastic and household waste.

You’ll be amazed by what you see while working at your allotment: just one square metre of land can support hundreds of species of insects, frogs, spiders, hedgehogs, and many other kinds of wildlife. Allotments provide local wildlife with sustainable habitats, and these include birds, foxes, badgers, bees, butterflies, slow-worms and many others.

Using Mulch on Your Allotment

When your allotment is established, you should take the time to add mulch around the base of your plants, avoiding the stems. Mulch is perfect for suppressing weeds and protecting the soil from the elements. In the summer, mulch helps to retain moisture in the soil and in the winter, it retains warmth for the roots of your plants. Madingley Mulch have a range of high-quality mulches and top soils, including our exclusive product Denise’s Delight, a mixture of Black Fen soil, horse manure, wood shavings and other plant nutrients.

Consider the soil and climate conditions of your allotment and experiment with trial and error. Some of the easiest and most rewarding crops to grow on allotments are peas, lettuce and other salad leaves, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, potatoes, rhubarb and strawberries.

How Madingley Mulch Can Help

As experienced compost suppliers in Suffolk and Essex,

Madingley Mulch provides a regular mulch and compost delivery service to Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. Orders within 15 miles of our HQ on the edge of Cambridge are delivered free, while deliveries up to 24.5 miles away have a £20 charge. We can also help organise deliveries further afield.

Give us a call today on 01954 212144 to speak to one of our friendly team or use our contact form.

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