Dominic Fawkes Talks To PSFK About His Allotment & Urban Farming

There has been a lot of talk recently about the trend to ‘Grow It Yourself’. In the US we’ve read articles on Urban Farming and Hipster Farmers and in the UK we noticed a renewed interest by younger people in allotments. We asked Dominic Fawkes, a 33 year old ad exec in London, what interested him in getting his hands dirty.

How long have you had your allotment?

I’ve had the allotment for 3 months. It’s near my home in North London.

What’s your day job?

My day job is a digital planner for AvenueA Razorfish. I love the whole strategy/marketing thing with the free beer and stuff.

Aren’t you a little too young and a little too media to be getting your hands dirty?

I hadn’t thought about it until now. Sexy it isn’t, but a lot of people ask me about it. It’s very different to what most people do and I think the whole back-to-basics thing attracts people. Though this cannot be classed as getting back to nature – this is manipulation of the highest order.

On the one hand, this is a challenge with great rewards for perseverance. Everything is now expected to be instantaneous. I skip Starbucks in the morning if the queue has more than 6 people as I have another 5 good options available to get my caffeine fix. Nature has its own rules and you can’t throw bodies at something to make it happen faster.

On the other hand I guess I’m a bit of a geek. Whether it’s kitesurfing, motorcycling, or gardening. It is just as much all the tools and gadgets that goes with it as the rewards the activity brings.

Also , I can’t wear a trilby and get a suntan in digital.

Any trends in allotment style or crops, you notice?

Allotmenteering (can I call it that?) in it’s raw form is all about working to tradition. Farming is pretty straight forward if you want results. Some approaches may vary – Do you double-dig (dig in fertilizer) or take the no-dig approach (place fertilizer on top of soil and leave it for the worms to integrate it) but in general you need to stick with what works. Remember, you only generally have one shot a year to get it right, you can’t just reboot or re-spawn if the slugs win the battle for the lettuces.

Style of allotments rarely change. On a BBC program ‘Gardener’s World’ Joe Swift, more at home with flower design than veg, has turned his hand to Allotments and introduced a triangle layout to his plot. This caused confusion in the allotment fraternity but saw a massive upsurge in allotment demand throughout the UK!

We read recently that St James Park is going to reproduce a WWII allotment as part of their education on rationing and the “War on Waste”. We thought allotments were for old men in sheds – why do you think allotments have become popular again?

This is never going to be trendy and will always be a bit of outsider culture compared to the mainstream happy with a herb box on the windowsill but people are signing up for a variety of reasons:

There are a lot of urban young people taking it up – in cities there is little space and gardens come at a premium (think an extra $100k+). Allotments offer your own green space at $100/year! These are a premium resource, some areas have 10 year waiting lists and there is potential that some may be reclaimed for housing.

Prices of staple foods are going through the roof. People tend to grow what they can’t get cheap in the stores. Rocket is pricy in the supermarket but grows like wildfire if planted outdoors.

‘Independence’ may be part of it, about 30% of plots are run by women.

Parents want to teach their kids about real food and use it to teach them about the cycle of life rather than handing them a suicidal hamster to be found dead a week later behind a bookcase.

Sustainability issues are high on the agenda. Whether organic seeds or sustainable fertilizer. The ‘old hands’ though still use peat and chemicals to ensure the best crop as they know that organic is a high risks strategy, with the possibility of losing entire crops especially with the changing climate.

Community wise, it is very liberating. You share something online, it feels very disconnected. You share something on the allotment and you create a real physical connection.

When I was a kid I didn’t want to be a farmer, I wanted to be a space man! I guess as you get older you still want to fly to the moon but fantasies can be more grounded and are generally about something missing in your life. We live more and more in a world where we consume everything at greater speed and yet produce nothing really tangible. As populations migrate into larger cities, less people own or have access to outside space. It’s basic human nature – It’s escapism, it’s creation on a level that other mediums can’t deliver. Hell, I can’t even bring myself to to eat half the stuff I’m growing!