From Plant Murderer to Green Fingers: Learning to Love Allotment Life
IF you’d have told me a few years ago that I’d embrace allotment life I would have laughed my socks off. For one I didn’t think that I was green fingered at all. I had strong evidence for this given the number of plants that I’d killed off! Although I saw many benefits of growing my own produce the logistics of doing so seemed overwhelming.
For starters I didn’t have the knowledge. More importantly I couldn’t see how I would have the time to devote to grubbing around in the dirt on top of holding down a full-time job and parenting as a single mum. Other activities just had to take priority. When I bought my home a decade ago I’d seen its tiny low maintenance back yard as a time-saving positive.
The Start of Our Allotment Journey
But in 2020 my partner, Paul, moved into my house at the beginning of lockdown. He was a keen gardener and had previously owned a property that even had its own orchard. He wasn’t ever going to be entirely convinced that container gardening in a tiny outdoor space would meet his needs. Soon he started to hanker after getting an allotment. There are a couple of sites within walking distance of our home.
Now the wait time for a plot can be up to fifteen years in some areas of the UK. This is not the case locally. Friends who had spent a few years on allotment waiting lists in Plymouth and Bristol were green with envy. Our council allocated Paul an allotment also immediately after he started looking. He’d seen it advertised on their Facebook page.
And this was it! The overgrown area in the foreground of this picture. It seemed like a place that confirmed my worse nightmares. How were we ever going to get the time to sort it all out?
However we’d both stopped work and this was a game changer. During that first autumn, a little at a time, we cleared the area and actually started growing stuff. Drought stricken 2022 was a difficult year to initiate our horticultural aspirations especially as our allotment is as far as it gets from the communal water source.
Some crops were a disaster. Onions failed to thrive. Our friends dug up our parsnips when they were looking after the plot while we were on holiday. And the pesky flock of local pigeons ate all our broad beans. But we grew enough to give us enough hope to keep going. As an added bonus I collect pottery shards for a future mosaic project!
What a Transformation!
Here’s a more recent snap of our plot. You’d hardly believe that it was the same place. Yes, those tunnels and the greenhouse are ours. What’s more they were given to us for free. A friend was giving up his plot on another allotment site and gifted all this to us.
Now I have the time to do it I’m totally sold on growing my own produce. On a trip last year to Southern Spain we witnessed that environmental devastation that intensive farming brings. I’m even more determined to grow more food and source other produce locally. The problem was that we outgrew our plot. It just wasn’t quite big enough to meet our needs. I especially wanted to grow more soft fruit and crops like potatoes that take up quite a bit of space.
Allotment Number Two!
So then something happened that would have been unthinkable while I was working. I put my name down for an allotment of my own. In September 2023 I was allocated one in my name. It already came with blackcurrant canes, fruit trees and its own swimming pool!
But Allotment No: 2 also came with a veritable jungle of bindweed. We spent a good few months digging it out its long white roots that seems to go down to Hades and beyond. But all that hard work wasn’t in vain. Here’s the plot during the summer of 2024 just eight months after we took it over. I’ve ever managed to plant a fledging asparagus bed.
Disclaimer
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