An allotment (British English) ( or in North America, a community garden, is a plot of land made available for individual, non-commercial gardening or growing food plants, so forming a kitchen garden away from the residence of the user. Such plots are formed by subdividing a piece of land into a few or up to several hundred parcels that are assigned to individuals or families. Such parcels are cultivated individually, contrary to other community garden types where the entire area is tended collectively by a group of people. In countries that do not use the term "allotment (garden)", a "community garden" may refer to individual small garden plots as well as to a single, large piece of land gardened collectively by a group of people. The term "victory garden" is also still sometimes used, especially when a community garden dates back to the First or Second World War.
The individual size of a parcel typically suits the needs of a family, and often the plots include a shed for tools and shelter, and sometimes a hut for seasonal or weekend accommodation. The individual gardeners are usually organised in an allotment association, which leases or is granted the land from an owner who may be a public, private or ecclesiastical entity, and who usually stipulates that it be only used for gardening (i.e., growing vegetables, fruits and flowers), but not for permanent residential purposes (this is usually also required by zoning laws). The gardeners have to pay a small membership fee to the association, and have to abide by the corresponding constitution and by-laws. However, the membership entitles them to certain democratic rights.
Socio-cultural and economic functions
The Luxembourg-based , representing three million European allotment gardeners since 1926, describes the socio-cultural and economic functions of allotment gardens as offering an improved quality of life, an enjoyable and profitable hobby, relaxation, and contact with nature. For children, gardens offer places to play and to learn about nature, while for the unemployed, they offer a feeling of doing something useful as well as low-cost food. For the elderly and disabled, gardens offer an opportunity to meet people, to share in activity with like-minded people, and to experience activities like planting and harvesting.
Around the world
Austria
The first garden was started in Purkersdorf in 1905.
Canada
In cities like Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, and Ottawa, these are called community gardens.
Czechoslovakia
Allotment gardening used to be widely popular in the former Czechoslovakia under the communist regime. It gave people from suburban prefab apartment blocks – called in Czech – a chance to escape from city chaos, pollution, and concrete architecture. Holiday houses and gardens served also as the only permitted form of investment of savings for common middle-class citizens.
Denmark
In 1778, land was laid out outside the fortifications of the town of Fredericia for allotment gardens and according to an 1828 circular from the royal chancellery allotment gardens were established in several towns.
Private initiative formed the first Danish allotment association in Aalborg in 1884, and in Copenhagen an association named (lit. 'The Workers' Protection') founded the first allotment gardens of the Danish Capital in 1891. Since then allotment gardens have spread to most Danish towns.
In 1904, there were about 20,000 allotment gardens in Denmark. 6,000 of them were in Copenhagen. During the interwar years the number of allotment gardens grew rapidly. In 2001, the number of allotment gardens was estimated to be about 62,120.
In 1908, twenty allotment associations in Copenhagen formed the Allotment Garden Union which in 1914 was expanded to cover all of Denmark. The Allotment Garden Federation was founded to negotiate more favourable deals with the state and the municipalities from which the allotments associations rented the land. Today the federation represents roughly 400 allotment associations in 75 municipalities.
The Danish tradition for allotment gardens later spread to the other Nordic countries: first Sweden, then Norway and Finland.
Today, most allotment gardens are on land owned by the municipality which rents the land to an allotment association. The association in turn gives each member a plot of land. To preserve allotment gardens as something that is available for all kinds of people, the membership charge is set significantly below what a market price would be. Since allotments are often placed on attractive plots of land, this has led to huge waiting lists for membership in many allotment associations.