In 20 years I’ve had three goes at allotmenting, none of which have lasted more than a year or two; but there’s more time now, time to appreciate how Rome not being built in a day was probably due to the weeding. Perhaps Lockdown delivered a different perspective, or one’s perception of time changes with age, but an allotment’s more a marathon than a sprint.

Taking on a neglected patch raised the question of how best to bring the ground back to cultivation. From a previous attempt, my youngest had turned me on to Charles Dowding’s “No-Dig” method, where instead of turning a sod, you plant through a layer of mulch laid on top of cardboard, the idea being to weaken the weeds by starving them of sunlight and for the worms to work the fibrous matter back down into the soil below. But without copious amounts of cardboard the idea evolved so that during February a cubic metre of spent mushroom compost was spread over the wild ground and covered with Mypex membrane. Subsequently, when a bed or row was ready to plant, it was easy to roll up a sheet to reveal relatively weed-free soil.

Allotmenteers are a diverse bunch who are at once both strangers and comrades. There is community here: the annual flush of newbs with their BnQ booty, the old hands, the regulars, the occasionals, the elusives, the fertilisers and pesticiders, the organics, no-diggers, bed raisers and row planters. Though there’s little consensus, there’s no shortage of advice and the occasional offer of a raspberry cane or two; buckets of home rotted compost; wood-chips, cold beer, and freshly dug new potatoes are exports.

The gardens are a place of diversity and creativity where everyone contributes to the great sum of collective knowledge. There’s much to learn and at this time of war and food inflation, of insecurity, prime ministerial piss taking, face masks, monkey pox and jubilee, it’s reassuring to be surrounded by life on the verge of Summer and sitting peacefully of an evening as the pigeons covet the crops from the safety of their rooftops and the local kittys patrol below.

This jubilee bank holiday weekend looked set for an off-road bike trail riding trip down in Wales, but an unfortunate encounter with a nervous horse rider prompted an over zealous grab on the brake leaving me with a sore leg and egg on my face. So instead it’ll be the town’s annual plant sale and a planting of runner beans.

103 years of the allotments, 70 years on the throne, 2 billion years of plants, 58 years of growth –
so many scales and perspectives.