The search for the Good Life

The City of London is growing fruit and vegetables in grow bags in vacant building sites to tackle the increasing demand for allotments.

The eye-catching B&Q vertical allotment garden won gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London this year.

I went along to the Open Garden Squares Weekend in London to see how neglected urban space is being used for growing food in the City.

Thousands of people across the country have been inspired to grow fruit and vegetables in their community thanks to the ground-breaking achievements of a food growing project in Todmorden, Lancashire.

Secretary of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Donna McDaid says growing your own organic vegetables can save you from health scares like the recent E.coli outbreak.

Whilst there’s a push to turn neglected public land into allotments, there’s also a lot of unused private land owned by organisations like Network Rail, British Waterways and the National Trust, which could be used to rectify the shortage of allotments.