Get healthy with your kids and create a Vegetable Patch in your Garden.
Research by such bodies as the National Trust encourages homeowners and others to get hold of an allotment or start a Vegetable Patch in the garden.
Over 1000 children were polled for the NT, which found that 42 % of children would hide the vegetables they do not fancy under their cutlery and under other food that they intend to leave on their plate. About 30% would then throw them away when their parents were not looking and nearly a fifth surreptitiously pass the food to the family dog.
More than half the children in the poll would be more willing to eat vegetables if they had grown them themselves. Nearly ¾ of children would like to have their own growing space in the garden.
The National Trust is setting up some allotments in certain properties that it owns, to help fulfil demand for growing space.
Local Authorities are reporting huge demand with a 40 year waiting list in one London Borough. LV= (Insurers formerly known as Liverpool Victoria) report that on average, 30 people are on the waiting list for every allotment in the UK!
An allotment can save the family some £950 per annum, which is an example of one of the benefits that a good vegetable patch in your garden or allotment can produce. Fringe benefits are healthy activity and knowing what pesticides have been used on your food.
Celebrity allotment users include Chas of Chas and Dave, Terry Frisch (Bilbo Baggins in the West End and star of many a panto in Barnstaple) as well as Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
10th August 2010