Food and our current situation  Food supply - or what is increasingly being called Food Security - is one of our most vulnerable areas as we approach peak oil. We are vulnerable for the following reasons.
While we can save energy by travelling less, buying less, and keeping our houses cooler, we all need to eat every day, preferably several times a day The system we operate at present has built into it huge amounts of energy use. If you include the use of fertiliser, pesticides, fuel for agricultural machinery, transportation, processing, and packaging - all of which have become hidden because plentiful cheap oil and cheap food has meant we need hardly consider them - roughly ten calories of oil are used for each calorie of food that we consume. For an adult consuming 2,500 calories per day, this translates into the use of 6.42 barrels of oil per adult each year, just to get our food on the table. If oil remained plentiful and cheap, and there was not the additional problem of use of fossil fuels exacerbating global warming, we could carry on as we are; but with the twin looming crises of peak oil and climate change, we urgently need to address this problem. If oil prices rose to $200 a barrel: the cost of getting our food to the table would rise to $1,284 per annum, per person. The sums speak for themselves. A family of four - two adults and, say, a ten and fourteen year old, with oil at $200 per barrel, would spend roughly $5,136 just for the oil component of their food. There is no need to go further into the mathematics of this to make the point that such a way of living will be unsustainable in times of ever more expensive oil, apart from being unethical in regard to climate change. If we are, as many now believe, at or near peak oil, it becomes obvious that we must urgently deal with the way we use oil in our food supply chain. My belief is that we must start to do everything in our power to re-localise our food supplies, to help mitigate some of the problems we will face if we continue to expect 'business as usual'... For a Food and Oil Factsheet click HERE
Grow Zones
 We are interested in starting a Grow Zones project in High Wycombe. To learn more see www.earthabbey.com/growzones. This involves a group of around 10/12 people (though can be fewer or more) getting together to help each other cultivate their gardens for growing fruit and veg. Although this originated as a church project the emphasis is very much on involving anyone in the local community and Transition Town High Wycombe would be very keen to work with local churches on the project. There appears to be a common interface between ethos of the faith groups and the Transition Town movement in relation to the management of the planet's resources which is embodied in local community food production. See Churches in Transition at www.christian-ecology.org.uk If you would like to join a local group please contact our Secretary Celia Carter.
Tamzin Pinkerton & Rob Hopkins "Local Food"  ISBN 978 1 900322 43 0. "Local Food - How to make it happen in your community" was written by Tamzin Pinkerton and Rob Hopkins. Published by Green Books in 2009. Finally! A really useful book about Transition. "Local Food" is the best stab yet at showing Transition in working practice. This is the real deal - littered with examples from around the globe we get full coverage of everything from "The Great Reskilling" through to School Projects and "Community Supported Agriculture". Whereas the earlier Transition books looked largely at the reasons for change and the theory of Transition, "Local Food" really deals with the meat and potatoes (pardon the pun) of HOW DO WE TRANSITION? Here is the answer.
 Now if a spot of gardening really isn't your thing don't worry. This is not a gardening book. It is more of a 'legs-up' explaining each type of local food project and how to get it started. Clearly it takes a lot of hard work and a little bit of money. But enthusiasm seems to count for a lot too. Some of the projects are really simple - like selling organic veg at a primary school, but they do scale all the way up to full grown farms and supply chain businesses. There is something here for everyone. So if you are asked for a project brief by your Council or funding agency then please plagiarise this book shamelessly. It is eye-opening just how many projects are up and running but also how sophisticated some have become. Many pre-date Transition and have since been absorbed by the Transition phenomena or are now closely linked to them.
One of the high points comes on page 16 with a suggested model for local food distribution: 2.5% of food should be from your own garden, 5% from your neighbourhood, 17.5% from local sources, 35% from within 100 miles, 20% from the UK, 15% from Europe leaving 5% from abroad. Hopefully this dispels the myth that Transition is some self-sufficiency cult. It is all about redressing the balance more in favour of the local to build resilience. Highly recommended if you love food and feel the need to do something. Mark Brown - November 2009
Our Community Allotment Project 2009 - The Exhibition There was an exhibition of plans for the Allotment at the Environment Centre on Holywell Mead in High Wycombe. The exhibition started on the 14th February and ended on the 26th April 2009. This was a must-see exhibition about allotments, compost, worms, vegetables and flowers...and just in case you thought it was boring, take a look at this: You think carrots are all orange? You can get red and purple ones, round ones, fat ones, thin ones... Radishes are round? They are all shapes, colours, and sizes. Potatoes are all round or oval and a sort of browny colour? They can be red, pink and knobbly, yellow...and inside powdery, waxy... Beetroot is red and sliced in vinegar? There are many different shapes, colours and sizes, and they can be cooked in lots of ways! The only kind of beans are French or runner? You can grow beans to eat raw or steamed, cold in salads, beans to dry for winter...red ones, brown ones, yellow ones, spotty ones, stripey ones... Flowers are just there to look pretty? Many flowers encourage bees, hoverflies, butterflies... Worms just look funny and wriggle? They work hard to turn over the soil and improve its fertility for free.
At the allotment you may see foxes playing, birds of all sorts ...and lots of enthusiastic people digging the ground so we can plant our first crop.
A Start - December 14th 2008 
The first ground has been turned at the new Transition Town High Wycome Allotment. On Sunday Dec 14th morning Julian, Spencer, Justin and Celia (of the Allotment Group) arrived for the first dig. Bad colds prevented two further team members from making it on the day. However the digging will continue through the Christmas break. Spencer's son William certainly made up for the absentees! 10 square meters of ground was cleared in addition to a similar size area uncovered by the removal of tarpaulin. Hot Tea kept the team going although the mulled wine failed to show as poor Frances was tackling computer problems! Please let us know if you wish to join the team. We are seeking experienced gardeners and local permaculturists to advise us. Can you help?  The current plan is to divide the plot up into demonstration segments. One will follow conventional UK gardening techniques. The next will follow permaculture techniques and one may have raised borders. Other plots will experiment with "no dig" techniques and anything else we find in the books that we would like to try. It will be a great chance for us to learn and share skills. We'll start an Allotment page on this web site so you can track progress.
Update (29th March 2009) - since the Bassetsbury Allotment is now closed indefinitely, due to alleged contamination, the open invite to the public to see the site has had to be withdrawn. However the Food Group has other Allotment sites which they are working on. There are also other ideas - so watch this space! The Plan 
This plan was done in Visio to indicate the sort of Plans we will be working on. This is a work in progress design featuring forest garden (left), conventional (center) and raised borders (right).
The Importance of Growing Traditional and Unusual Varieties of Veg The EU has a list of 'approved' vegetables whose seeds are allowed to be sold in the UK. Most of these are F1 Hybrids (a cross between two chosen parent-plants belonging to the breeder, meaning they will not breed true in the next generation i.e. in your garden; in other words you have to buy the seed again next year). These tend to be ones which crop at the same time, are roughly the same size, and have uniform and known characteristics and probably not too much flavour either!
Uniformity is of course what large-scale farmers want, but is not at all appropriate for gardeners or allotment holders. Having such a small gene bank (i.e. just those on the approved list) is ecology risky too, because it makes the crops vulnerable to disease - one disease could spread through and wipe out the whole variety - , and unable to adapt to changes in local conditions. It is only by people growing the ones that are not on the approved list, that they will continue to exist at all. By growing these older varieties and saving seed, the veg in question will modify itself over time to take account of local conditions, thus becoming even more resilient.
Because of EU rules, the Real Seed Catalogue is not strictly allowed to sell its 'unapproved' seeds to the public. They get round this by counting 1p of your order as membership of their seed club, after which they can sell to you as you are a member, and not 'the public'! I labour this point a bit because it shows how important it is for us to be doing what we are with the allotment. It is an important thing to keep the skills of growing food alive in the community, and keeping as many varieties going as we can.
Where the seeds come from:
Key: [RSC] = Real Seed Catalogue http://www.realseeds.co.uk/
[CS] = Chiltern Seeds http://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/
Crop Rotation and why it is important
Crop rotation is the practice of growing crops in different places each year, for the following reasons:
To prevent a build-up of pests and diseases in one place.
Crop Rotation Considerations
Crops in permanent beds such as rhubarb, asparagus, globe artichokes, soft fruit bushes, comfrey and other perennial herbs obviously do not need to be considered in a rotation plan, although when they need to be replaced it makes sense to put them in a different place if you can.
The following crops do not suffer from being grown in the same place in consecutive years, and these can be put wherever there is space: - Aubergines
- Beetroot
- Chicory
- Courgettes (JR)'Verde di Milano' Dwarf Bush[RSC]
- Cucumber
- Endive
- Fennel
- Lettuce
- Marrows
- Melon (JR) 'Collective Farm Woman' Canteloupe [RSC]
- Orach/Mtn or German Spinach
- Peppers
- Pumpkins
- Quinoa
- Runner beans
- Squash (JR) 'Anna Swartz Hubbard' Winter Squash [RSC]
- (JR) 'Waltham Butternut' Squash [RSC]
- (JR) 'Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato' Winter Squash [RSC]
- Sweet corn
All other crops should be included in a rotation plan.
Principles of Crop Rotation
Potatoes should not occupy a piece of ground where potatoes have grown before until as much time has passed as possible. They like manure, but not lime.
Brassicas, the cabbage family, also need the longest possible gap between two crops. Brassicas like soil that has been limed.
Root crops such as carrots and parsnips do not want soil that has been manured the previous autumn. It will cause them to fork and split, and produce leaves at the expense of root.
Where possible, keep plants of the same family together as their requirements will be similar
The Four Year Crop Rotation
I estimate that as we have half an allotment, we have approximately 125 square metres of ground. This needs to be divided into five beds of roughly the same size.
Ideally long thin beds are best: a bed 20m x 1.25m across can be reached from either side without standing on the soil. This method has been shown to produce the best crops, as the plants can more easily get their roots down into the loosely-packed soil. It also has considerable advantages to the people growing the crop: the plot does not have to be dug as deeply in subsequent years! However, beds 1.25mx20m may not be possible. Whatever shape the beds are, bear in mind that the less you walk on the soil the better.
Keeping a plan of your plot and marking in what has been planted where as you are unlikely to remember what was planted where after a couple of years.
Example of Four Bed Rotation: Year One
Bed 1: Potatoes Enrich area with compost/manure and plant potatoes and tomatoes, and any others (Solanaceae family). - Potatoes
- Tomatoes (JR) 'Millefleur' Yellow Vine Tomato [RSC]
- (JR) 'Urbikany' Tall Bush Tomato [RSC]
- (JR) 'Lettuce Leaf' Early Bush Red Tomato [RSC]
- (JR) 'Gardeners Delight' )Supersweet Irish Version) Cherry Vine Tomato [RSC]
- Aubergines
- Pepper
As these are harvested, follow by winter varieties of onions and leeks
Bed 2: Carrots etc
Sow parsnips, carrot, parsley (Chenopodiaceae family) and lettuce, plus others in list. - Carrot
- Parsley
- Lettuce
- Onions
- Garlic (JR) Garlic Chives (CS)
- Shallot
- Leek (JR) 'Bleu de Solaise' Hardy Leek [RSC]
- (JR) 'Jaune de Poitou' Early Season Yellow Leek [RSC]
- Celeriac
- Celery (JR) 'Reselected Giant Red' [RSC]
- (JR) 'Full White' self-blanching [RSC]
As these are harvested, sow Green Manure: Alfalfa, Clover, or Phacelia Tanacetifolia
Bed 3: Brassicas
- Grow cabbage, kale, rocket (Brassica family) during the summer.
- Broccoli (JR) 'Early Purple' Sprouting [RSC]
- Brussels Sprout (JR) 'Sanda' [RSC]
- Cabbage (JR) 'Rouge Tete Noir' Early Autumn Cabbage [RSC]
- Calabrese
- Cauliflower (JR) 'Autumn Giant' [RSC]
- Chard (JR) 'Sibilla' [RSC]
- (JR) 'Leaf Beet' - Perpetual Spinach [RSC]
- Kale (JR) 'Red Ursa' Russian Kale [RSC]
- (JR) 'Sutherland' Kale [RSC]
- Landcress
- Mustard
- Radishes
- Swede
- Turnip
When these are harvested, follow with Winter cabbages and Brussels sprouts
Bed 4: Legumes
Sow peas and beans (legume family). When harvest has finished, lime the soil for brassicas which will move from area three to occupy the space next. - Alfalfa
- Clover
- Broad Beans
- French Beans (JR) 'Cherokee Trail of Tears' Climbing French Bean [RSC]
- (JR) 'Cupidon' Dwarf French Bean (filet type) [RSC]
- Runner Beans
- Peas
After harvest, lime the soil for Brassicas which will be here next
Bed 5: Perennials (not involved in Rotation):
- Globe Artichokes
- Asparagus
- Rhubarb
- Currants
- Gooseberries
- Raspberries
- Comfrey (JR) Russian comfrey [CS]
- Borage (JR) Borage [CS]
- Hyssop (JR) Hyssop, Pink-flowered [CS]
- Siberian Purslane (JR) Siberian Purslane (Montia Sibirica) [CS]
- Rosemary
- Thyme
- Sage
- ......etc
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