Would you allow a vegetable garden to be planted on a traditional grave in ‘your’ cemetery?

There was a photograph of a well-tended grave which featured low growing ‘tumbler’ tomatoes, mixed with traditional companion planting of basil, nasturtiums and geraniums, posted on the Allotment Facebook Group that I belong to recently. Further posts on the Facebook page, included the posting of this further photograph, showing of a beautiful herb garden planted within kerbstones on a grave in traditional section of another cemetery. These photographs led to a great deal of discission on the suitability of growing vegetables on graves and I wondered if Resurgam readers were aware of any vegetable or herb ‘allotment’ garden planted in their

area and how these were viewed by visitors. This is particularly relevant as the post received a significant number of comments, with many indicating they would do the same next year with their family graves.

As I have not seen such a specific planting arrangement before and feel this may be quite new to UK cemeteries, whilst researching ‘graveyard gardens’ I discovered the Miller Street Cemetery in Howick, South Africa. Here the local council has gone one step further and have provided a vegetable patch for public use within their cemetery. The plot, together with others around Howick are tended by council workers and the produce free to anyone who can make use of it.

Developed as part of a local municipal project to provide ‘share gardens’ throughout the town, the cemetery vegetable garden is planted over a septic tank which could not be used for graves. This site has received mixed comments from visitors and local residents. Some of whom enjoy the garden and benefit from the produce, whilst others who see it as disrespectful, and / or a waste of time and money, especially in a cemetery where many families fail to tend their plots leaving them overgrown and unsightly.

What are your views on this? Should councils focus on putting old and neglected graves in order or would such a flourishing vegetable plot in a cemetery be classed as a useful local resource that encourages visitors to visit a cemetery?

Would you allow the planting of vegetables on graves on sites you control? Should community gardens, vegetable or otherwise we promoted in cemeteries?

Please send your views and feedback to:

resurgam@fbca.org.uk