ALLOTMENT SHOP

PART 1 OF KATE NEALE’S ALLOTMENT JOURNEY

Why did I get an allotment?...

It all started with a polytunnel that was bought for my birthday in March during the first lock down. It seems a giant leap from a polytunnel to an allotment but it all flows.

The first summer I tried my hand at growing the usual tomatoes and cucumbers. I learned a lot that summer about sowing seeds, germination and watering. The second summer We bought a second polytunnel and embarked on trying to grow melons as well as beef tomatoes, cucumber and Gherkins. The gherkins grew and grew, the polytunnel became a jungle but I enjoyed the challenge of sowing the seeds and succeeding in keeping them alive long enough to provide us with fruit. It was a success, and we couldn’t shut the fridge door for all the produce!

The melon plant only had 2 fruits on it, so storage wasn’t too much of a problem. They were delicious and lasted 2.5 minutes when they were ripe enough to eat!

In the third year the polytunnels were packed to the rafters and the garden became the place for excess tomatoes. I also had planted butternut squash which climbed up the fence and the pumpkins were trailing through the grass. We also grew lettuce, leeks, potatoes and strawberries which we dotted around in the raised beds. We were at capacity for what we could grow in the space we had.

Year four came and my list of what I wanted to grow had become even longer. I liked the idea of growing some fruit as the strawberries at home never got to the kitchen; my grandchildren ate them whilst out playing in the garden. We didn’t have space for trees or any more strawberry plants in our garden, so that’s when we contacted our local allotments to see what was available. We heard back within days and was invited down to visit 2 allotment plots. To our delight, we chose a plot that was perfect for what we wanted with established fruit trees and a fruit cage that was so full of bramble, nettles and huge currant bushes we couldn’t get through the door. The plot was completely overgrown with weeds, there was a lot of hard work to be done. The challenge was accepted!

by Kate Neale LEABROOKS ALLOTMENT-SHOP