Unearthing Potential
By Anne Bladen
"I had learned how to grow food for my family. In the summer months I could harvest a large full trug of rainbow-coloured veg every two days. It was like going to a supermarket where the shelves kept refilling themselves without me having to pay anything!"
The beginning of my allotment journey
First of all, I didn’t have a clue about how to grow veg, but I had three small children and had the idea that this was one thing I might be able to do while they were around. So I put my name down on the waiting list for our local allotments – which was somewhere between four and ten years wait at the time. To my shock, I was offered an allotment after just four months. I knew it would probably be more than I could manage, so I asked a friend if she wanted to share it with me.
When we went to see it, it became apparent why I had been offered it so quickly! No one else wanted it because it hadn’t been cultivated in years. Three quarters of it was in shade most of the time, and half of it was in shade all of the time. It was covered in brambles, nettles, live and dead trees, and broken glass. Nevertheless, it was my own bit of ground, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I loved it!
The most expensive tomato ever
Finding useable ground was not easy, but that year we planted a few manky seed potatoes (all we could get hold of so late in the season), a few runner bean seeds, and I bought ten tomato plants for £1 each. The tomato plants did not like the shade, and in total I harvested one tomato - the most expensive tomato I have ever acquired! My dream of being able to dig while my children played happily soon disappeared into the realms of fantasy, especially when I ended up having to take one of them to A&E because they had poked themselves in the eye with a stick! But we harvested enough beans and potatoes to motivate me to grow more.
Greenhouse saves the day!
I saved up some money from supply teaching and paid for a greenhouse to go in the one sunny corner of the plot. It was unheated, but was a great success. I grew more produce in that small greenhouse than in the whole of the rest of the plot - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, even melons!
Gradually over the years we dug every square inch of the plot, clearing the broken glass, the brambles, the couch grass and most of the nettles. The living trees were a problem – still half of the plot was shaded, and apparently, because of their location, I had no right to cut them down. But then, amazingly, funds were raised for the badly neglected Shepherd Wheel, which is very close to my allotment, to be renovated – and this meant removing the trees (mostly sycamores) whose roots had penetrated the dam. Suddenly I found myself the owner of a plot in full sun in a fantastic location!
'Best Small Plot City-wide'
One year, as a bit of a joke, we entered the allotment competition. Crazy idea, but I got the bug! Over a few years I learned what the judges were looking for – which included a good variety of crops that could be harvested all year round. I had already planned a good layout that made crop rotation easy. The crops that grew well I grew again, the ones that didn’t I abandoned. I planted a few fruit trees. And I added flowers, like calendula and nasturtiums (both edible), to make the plot attractive, to attract pollinators, and to repel pests. The plot did better and better in competitions, and finally won ‘Best Small Plot City-wide’, and a photo of it appeared in a local calendar. A very proud moment!
Working with the seasons
But more importantly I had learned how to grow food for my family. In the summer months I could harvest a large full trug of rainbow-coloured veg every two days. It was like going to a supermarket where the shelves kept refilling themselves without me having to pay anything! And my kids certainly knew where food came from (it was often a challenge to get the tomatoes and raspberries to travel as far as the punnet)! I learned patience, and a lot about working with the seasons. I looked forward to that harvest of parsnips and Brussel sprouts on Christmas day, the sudden rush of sprouting broccoli in February, the early rhubarb and asparagus, the summer strawberries and blackcurrants, the autumn raspberries…..
I also challenged myself to grow everything I needed for a recipe. It felt so good to eat a home-grown jacket potato, with homemade baked beans made from home-grown onions, tomatoes, garlic and borlotti beans! Or a stir fry with ginger, red peppers, baby corn and French beans. I designed family menus around what was in season.
Veg growing as a morale boost during the pandemic
And all this gave me an appreciation of climate change and sustainability. I noticed the seasons changing. Spring coming earlier and being drier. The challenge of getting water to the plot. July becoming wetter. I sought ways to make my plot more sustainable, reusing seed where I could, and creating homes for insects and hedgehogs. The three-stage compost heap, with its accompanying nettles and comfrey was the powerhouse of the plot!
And during the pandemic veg growing has been a much needed boost to my morale. During lockdown I have planted edibles in our garden. As I write this, I am looking at the green shoots of garlic now taking off. And only yesterday I harvested several kilos of potatoes that had been sitting in the ground all winter, still in surprisingly good condition. I see gardening as a sort of investment: you don’t know what will succeed, so you try lots of things. Some fail, but thankfully most of them succeed. And when it’s cold and wet and horrible and I just want to stay inside, I remind myself that there’s one way to guarantee a failed harvest – and that’s not to plant anything.