the town growing ALL its own veg

[Murray]

Bad paper, good story.

Carrots in the car park. Radishes on the roundabout. The deliciously eccentric story of the town growing ALL its own veg

Admittedly, it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest, too.

Outside the police station in the small Victorian mill town of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, there are three large raised flower beds.

If you’d visited a few months ago, you’d have found them overflowing with curly kale, carrot plants, lettuces, spring onions — all manner of vegetables and salad leaves.

Today the beds are bare. Why? Because people have been wandering up to the police station forecourt in broad daylight and digging up the vegetables. And what are the cops doing about this brazen theft from right under their noses? Nothing.



Well, that’s not quite correct.

‘I watch ’em on camera as they come up and pick them,’ says desk officer Janet Scott, with a huge grin. It’s the smile that explains everything.

For the vegetable-swipers are not thieves. The police station carrots — and thousands of vegetables in 70 large beds around the town — are there for the taking. Locals are encouraged to help themselves. A few tomatoes here, a handful of broccoli there. If they’re in season, they’re yours. Free.

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[sunflower]

Great article! Let`s begin within our own community and encourage each other to plant beds wherever feasible. Gardening skills improve and soon pickling, canning, dehydrating as well as other activities are added to the mix. You get to know your immediate and remote neighbours which comes in handy when emergencies arise.
Last year we had serious flooding problems in an area near us. Local volunteers decided to plant a community garden in a large lot behind the Methodist church. The intent was to share the produce, bags of corn for example, with the local people in a spirit of fellowship. Another good beginning...

[Nenuphar]

Love this article!

[777]

I heard this on radio four today. I take my hats of to this community and feel very inspired accordingly. Amazing stuff!

[panopticon]

G'day Muzz,

How dare you post this propaganda!
Imagine a village where everyone gets along, vandalism is reduced, people eat healthily and think that co-operation is better than competition!
What rubbish.
Really, come on.
Next thing they'll be starting a local farmers co-operative, setting up a Mondragon style workers co-op and (no! this last one is too ghastly) actively helping each other.

Not only that, it's not being contained but spreading like a disease to other towns and other countries!
The horror!

Seriously though, this is the way I see a reconstructed community behaving.
Do it in your local community.
Spread the dis-ease.

Thank you for the excellent post.
Kind Regards,
Panopticon

[markoid]

What a delightful, inspiring, heart warming project... thanks for posting it Muzz.

[Murray]

I hope they plant loads right round the local Tesco and open a stall at the carpark entrance.

[modwiz]

Posted by Muzz (here)
I hope they plant loads right round the local Tesco and open a stall at the carpark entrance.

Living in a tent for 6 months at a time must be taking a toll. A good one probably. What is a TESCO? Sounds like something that isn't very good.

[joedjemal]

I think this sort of thing is the solution to the collapse. When I lived in Manchester I had a good look around and realised that there was probably enough open land to feed everyone. I approached the council but they wouldn't discuss it. I think that might start changing soon. I'm convinced this predicament is resolvable if people cooperate.

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Posted by modwiz (here)

Posted by Muzz (here)
I hope they plant loads right round the local Tesco and open a stall at the carpark entrance.

Living in a tent for 6 months at a time must be taking a toll. A good one probably. What is a TESCO? Sounds like something that isn't very good.

It's the biggest supermarket chain in the uk bigger than wallmart which is called asda here

[panopticon]

Posted by Muzz (here)
I hope they plant loads right round the local Tesco and open a stall at the carpark entrance.

Bloody anarchists.
Bloody Guerrilla Gardeners.
What is the world coming too...

Next thing we'll have a bunch of hooligans (like this lot from permablitz) turning up and building a garden!

Here's a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's 7.30 Report showing how much damage these Guerrilla Gardening mongrels do planting 'date palm, aloe vera, lavender, macadamia and lemon trees' on council property!
Unbelievable.

What did you do last night?
Kind Regards,
Panopticon

[WhiteFeather]

Look Mom No Monsanto. This is very inspiring. Perhaps all of us Terrans should join the bandwagon.

[Murray]

Hi Modwiz

Tesco is like Walmart over here in the uk. Theres almost one on every high street.

Bloody Guerrilla Gardeners.
What is the world coming too...

Yes panopticon if we dont stop them soon theyll be attcking us with sharpened mangos.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piWCBOsJr-w

[Nerge]

Good on them. They set such a good example and show what's possible with a little bit of cooperation and drive.

I wish I could get something similar started to be honest, as it's things like this which takes us back to a time when we did all know our neighbours names and there was a stronger sense of community and helping each other out.

These days it often feels (at least to me in a big-ish city) that we all live seperately, trying our best to stick to ourselves on our individual plots of land. All while getting what we need from the extremely impersonal highstreet and big food stores, where there's little interaction and you're made to feel like another walking money bag waiting to be juiced.

Heck, if I'm wanting to see more of this, as a fairly quiet person who enjoys my own space there's hope for us all.

Has anyone had any luck getting these sorts of projects off the ground - or something similar - to foster a bit more community spirit? It can often feel daunting to know where to start or to initiate such a thing, perhaps out of fear that no one will be interested or think you're nuts.

Any tips? Perhaps a thread on practical steps we can all take to create these sort of initiatives is in order, unless I've missed one?

[panopticon]

G'day Nerge,

Try getting in contact with a local Permaculture group and see what's going on in your area.
There's also the Transition Towns movement which was originally from England and its network website is here:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/

They should get you started anyway.
Kind Regards,
Panopticon

[Murray]

Hi Nerge

Have a look at landshare

[joedjemal]

People are welcome to come here, help us garden and have a share in the food we produce, basically if you help grow it you can have some, we're in Pembury in Kent.

[VaughnB]

FREE! That's un-American, where's the profit, how obscene, giving people a necessity of life such as food.

The next thing you know they'll be providing shelter and medical care, education, recreation. What do you think would happen to our society if that were to happen?

My God! What is this world coming too. In my day we have to work 8 hours for a slice of bread and a cup of watery soup. Those were the days when mens labor was really valued.

In my day there was so much work to do to make ships, airplanes and tanks for all the wars across the world so that we could preserve our right to freedom to work 10 or 12 hours a day, raise our kids so that they could go fight in these wars and die to insure the prosperity for large corporations and banks to make loans.

After 30 years we paid off our homes, retired, but we always had doctors and hospitals that would take care of us, the best healthcare in the world, it cost us our home and most our savings but we survived. They put us on wonder drugs, that barely kept us alive, but we continued to pay our share until the end.

Of course we had all kinds of insurance to take care of not only our health but our funeral expenses, although there were a few things not covered due to pre-existing conditions. Turned out our funeral plan only covered the pine box, not the nails to the coffin, but our children inherited our debt so all is o.k.

I wouldn't trade capitalism and our monetary system for anything, just look around at all the prosperity, freedom and equality it has provided along with a lovely clean environment for all our future generations.

And if you believe everything you've read than our education system and media has done their job well.

[Nerge]

Posted by VaughnB (here)
FREE! That's un-American, where's the profit, how obscene, giving people a necessity of life such as food.

The next thing you know they'll be providing shelter and medical care, education, recreation. What do you think would happen to our society if that were to happen?

My God! What is this world coming too. In my day we have to work 8 hours for a slice of bread and a cup of watery soup. Those were the days when mens labor was really valued.

In my day there was so much work to do to make ships, airplanes and tanks for all the wars across the world so that we could preserve our right to freedom to work 10 or 12 hours a day, raise our kids so that they could go fight in these wars and die to insure the prosperity for large corporations and banks to make loans.

After 30 years we paid off our homes, retired, but we always had doctors and hospitals that would take care of us, the best healthcare in the world, it cost us our home and most our savings but we survived. They put us on wonder drugs, that barely kept us alive, but we continued to pay our share until the end.

Of course we had all kinds of insurance to take care of not only our health but our funeral expenses, although there were a few things not covered due to pre-existing conditions. Turned out our funeral plan only covered the pine box, not the nails to the coffin, but our children inherited our debt so all is o.k.

I wouldn't trade capitalism and our monetary system for anything, just look around at all the prosperity, freedom and equality it has provided along with a lovely clean environment for all our future generations.

And if you believe everything you've read than our education system and media has done their job well.

Hehe, excellent - we sure are a lucky bunch aren't we!

Thanks for the links people, some interesting stuff there to read up on.

[mahalall]

Presently liaising with my local police station to voluntarily maintain their overrun gardens, have not yet explained what is on mind!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az3m5ewU9Us

http://www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk/

[Nick Matkin]

Posted by VaughnB (here)
FREE! That's un-American, where's the profit, how obscene, giving people a necessity of life such as food.

The next thing you know they'll be providing shelter and medical care, education, recreation. What do you think would happen to our society if that were to happen?

My God! What is this world coming too. In my day we have to work 8 hours for a slice of bread and a cup of watery soup...

You were lucky!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13JK5kChbRw