July 2006Allotment gardening is a mixture of wonderful highs and morale-crushing lows, I have discovered. It was a momentous afternoon when I snapped the first soft, velvety broad bean from the plant … for a delicious risotto which I cooked with that handful of precious produce.  | | Claire's prize lettuce |
But it was a soul-destroying day when rabbits ate the sprout plants, munching the thriving leaves down to spindly stalks despite my best care and daily attention. And I've had the demoralising sight of my first beautiful ripened tomato rotting on the soil, after it dropped off the plant and was attacked by the waiting army of birds and insects. So great is the constant battle with bugs, rabbits, drought, birds and weeds, I have learnt to revel in the small victories when they come.  | | Claire's neice lends a hand |
My first harvest of strawberries – all three of them! – was delicious. And my three-year-old niece loved plucking the lone blueberry to eat. I felt like a child at Christmas as I dug up that first withered potato plant to find a clutch of spuds underneath, and I savour every mouthful of home-grown lettuce with an intensity normally reserved for chocolate only. This is the season of rewards – at last! However, the allotment has been hard work over the past few weeks. Not only is plot 4a sucking up vast amounts of water, it also appears to be a black hole as far as time is concerned.  | | Tucking into the produce! |
Hours spent there are a continuous loop of weeding and watering, which must be carried out several times during the week. Neglecting the allotment duties even for a few days can be disastrous, as I realised when I failed to weed the onion bed and lost the whole lot under a mass of greenery. Meanwhile, the clued-up allotment owner must also be alert to all manner of other evils… tomato blight to watch for, club root among the sprouts, caterpillars which can (and did) reduce an asparagus fern to nothing within a day. Anyway, enough about gardening perils… has another blueberry grown yet? | 
