ALLOTMENT FORESTRY: THE IPSWICH EXPERIENCE

Ipswich Wildlife Group (IWG) is a small voluntary group established to provide opportunities for local people to get involved with practical work in local wildlife areas. In 1994 with the Ipswich Organic Gardeners Groups we began promoting the British Beanpole, through what we called the Allotment Forestry Project, by growing our own and encouraging others to do the same. Our first Beanpole plot is now seven years old (2002) and our work has widened to include other aspects of promoting a local wood using culture amongst gardeners. The Forestry Commission in England has promoted our work in a leaflet 'Allotment Forestry on your patch' and our practical experience is summarised in the Booklet 'Growing your own beanpoles'. In 2002 we held our 5th Annual Beanpole festival.

WHERE THE IDEA CAME FROM

IWG established a community tree nursery in 1988 on a redundant allotment to grow trees for use on conservation schemes. In 1994 we looked for ways to make fuller use of the Tree Nursery area as the land available was much larger than our needs. In doing so we were struck by the great quantity of bamboo being used by our fellow allotment holders to train their runner beans and other plants on. The thought struck us of what better indicator of our alienation from our environment could there be than importing twigs from China to support runner beans ! The tree nursery, being based on allotments, we considered it well placed to launch a campaign to promote the British Beanpole, which we called the Allotment Forestry Project. But how should we go about it? Through trial and error we have ended up concentrating on three areas:

Increasing Access to Local Beanpoles

The first step in developing a 'British Beanpole Campaign' we felt was to improve access to locally grown beanpoles and peasticks. We started by planting two derelict allotment plots adjacent to ours. This it turns out was not allowed under general allotment conditions and we were fortunate that once Ipswich Borough Council and Ipswich Allotment Holders Association were reassured we were not going to neglect the plots supported their continued use but stressed the need to keep them informed. Oops!

Waiting 6-8 years for the first beanpoles to grow we realised would mean a slow start for the use British Beanpoles Campaign! We therefore teamed up with conservation volunteers working a local wood, Spring Wood, where lots of useful wood was being put on the bonfire or in a dead hedge, as they had no use for it. A team of volunteer gardeners followed behind the conservation volunteers, who cut the wood, sorting the cut material into useful products. We now produce around 2000 beanpoles and peasticks each year as well as other items such as firewood Rustic Poles and walking stick blanks. We have also supported the planting of other allotment plots in Ipswich, Wickham Market, Aldeburgh and Kirton as well as further afield in Kent, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norwich.

Increasing Access to the Skills

Early on in the campaign it was evident that today's gardeners were unfamiliar with how to use locally grown wood in the garden. Skills that were commonplace a generation ago had been forgotten as people got used to manufactured items bought from the garden centre.
For a number of years we have run low cost courses on using wood in the garden. More recently our monthly tree nursery work party has included rustic woodwork projects as we develop our demonstration area. We have also produced factsheets on rustic projects for the garden that are available as paper copies or on the Internet. New in 2002 were a series of Rustic Wood work master classes held at our Annual Beanpole Festival.

Improving Access to the Products

Once we started talking to gardeners and encouraging them to use local grown beanpoles we were frequently asked for suppliers of other local products such as charcoal and rustic furniture. As a result we produced our own 'Yellow Pages' of local wood product businesses supplying products for the garden. We put together displays of these products borrowed from the suppliers at our annual beanpole festival. More recently we have compiled an Internet directory of over 200 businesses across England supplying every type of garden wood product.

THE FUTURE

As a voluntary group we need to keep our aspirations practical and fun. Our priorities for the next few years are:
· To improve our demonstration area;
· To get as many allotment fields in our 'Greater Ipswich' area to have their own beanpole plot;
· To continually develop the website, adding more factsheets and businesses.
· To develop an 'Allotment Forestry Network' to share ideas and to help others set up similar projects.

From our simple starting point of promoting the British Beanpole our work has widened to include promoting a local wood consuming culture. This we believe is essential for promoting a future where we meet more of our needs from what grows on our doorstep. As well as providing practical opportunities for people to make the 'right' choice we need to work to achieve the 'cultural' shift where it seems less wacky to cut beanpoles from the local wood than to import them from China.

Further Details


Allotment Forestry: A forgotten tradition

To come:-

The Beanpole Festival
The Demonstration Area
Promoting a local wood consumer culture