THE big discussion among local Government allotment officials when they met at Newham was the price that should be charged.

Kingston has already shocked the locals by suggesting over £60 a year, when the previous average for the 33 London boroughs was £45.

Many boroughs are now heading towards a £50 annual fee.

As long as the out of work and senior citizens and the young, if any, get concessions I think the rise in rents is right. There are over 4,500 people waiting for allotments across the capital, many of whom will have to wait many years. I warned the AGM of my own Acton Gardening Association, who pay a mere £25 a year, that surely our rewarding hobby is worth £1 a week. It might also put more of a value on land so that those who take up allotments look after them. This past year we have had three highly visible plots ungardened for season. So if rents were more realistic perhaps plotholders would value their plots more highly.

Meanwhile we are still trying to get more land for a community garden around a troubled high rise block, based in a little used park, just across the road from our main site. No help there from local councillors on all sides, but we have had active support in our battles with landlords from the would be Tory MP Angie Bray. Both Ealing and my own Hammersmith and Fulham constituencies have been re-shaped.

Ealing is a good borough for allotments, Hammersmtith and Fulham, in my opinion, are one of the worst. They also have a would be-new Tory MP Shaun Bailey, who seems to be resisting all my emails to point out the importance of local growing but time will tell.

Although I write about events in London I am sure they apply to inner city allotments and community growing across the country. Still, there can be some nice surprises for those of us living in London.

The latest came in the form of the Restaurant Show at Earls Court where among all the catering stands was one representing the growers of Lincolnshire under the banner Select Lincolnshire. The good thing was the number of farmers we could meet. A message I keep telling those who want to sell their produce in London. Londoners just love talking with farmers, hearing their problems and what is growing at the moment. It’s a two way process because then the farming folk’s problems can get backing in the capital.

So it was with Jane Tomlinson who with her husband runs Redhill Farm near Gainsborough, where she produces free range pork and sausages. To aid their independence from the dreaded supermarkets Jane set up ten years ago Lincolnshire’s first farmers’ markets.

It was a hard job and began with six, that then grew to 17 and the organization and advice took up a lot of her time, when she wanted to be on the farm. Now she only runs one. She sees the whole movement as starting with educating the public, and from the start her own stall got the name of ‘the stall with the queue’, as people discovered what real pork tasted like.

Although she conforms to almost all the Soil Association’s demands Jane has not embraced a full organic branding. She explains: ‘We didn’t do the organic thing because we didn’t want to do the elitist thing.

We farm organically really, but organic feed costs more, and our pork is cheaper to the public.’ The feeling I got from meeting Lincolnshire producers was that they were campaigners, although the rest of the nation had not been told so. Jane said : ‘We have a shortage of British pork It will take ten years to get back to where we were.’ She recalls how she and many other Lincolnshire farmers went to Immingham Docks to protest against foreign imports of pork.

She argues that rules applied to British pig farmers are not imposed to pork meat imported and processed down the road from her farm, ‘If it’s processed here then they can stamp British on it. The imports are still going on.’ Not only did Select Lincolnshire have a stand but also produced a chef/farmer to cook on the main demonstration cookery and guide the famous TV chef Michael Caines through his demo as well. She was Rachel Green, a member of a farming gamily that can be traced back for 400 years, who has always loved farming and cooking, and is a good shot.

She cooked purely Lincolnshire produce to the cookery based audience. Unique in that she actually can grow her own ingredients and then cook them. As she says : ‘I’m also a keen gardener, and a great believer in raised beds because it’s easy to keep it under control and I’m a bean person so I can grow all sorts of beans like reds and green.

‘I like to grow hanging baskets of strawberries, and into the new house I’ve just moved into I want to set up a nut alley in the garden. I love traditional apples and campaign for many things that will preserve the countryside.’ As she cooked and spoke to her audience at Earl’s Court, where Italian star chef Georgio Locatelli, also appeared, she said that twenty per cent of the food cooked in Britain comes from Lincolnshire. and she asked Linc’s potato grower and crisp maker Alex Piper to hand out packets of his Lincolnshire crisps around the audience.

Lastly after she had cooked Lincolnshire beef and veg I asked her what her ideal local meal would be? She thought briefly and said rib eye of Lincolnshire red beef and Boston potatoes.

As a starter she would have Lincs asparagus, which she reckons is the best in Britain, with béarnaise sauce from Lincs eggs and butter.

As for us allotment holders we can grow asparagus and keep chickens for our eggs, but I’m afraid even as the Hon Sec of the Acton Gardening Association I could not permit Lincolnshire Red cattle to graze on our urban acres.