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To mark National Allotments Week this month, Susy Smith extols the simple pleasures of tending your own patch and sharing the bounty with friends

To mark National Allotments Week, Susy Smith extols the simple pleasures of tending your own patch

There is only one thing nicer than friends popping round to say hello, and that’s when they arrive bearing gifts. Take my dear friends Amanda and Graeme. They are keen allotmenteers and often drop in on the way back from working their plot. I never quite know what to expect when I open the door. The most recent visit brought rhubarb stalks and a bundle of purple sprouting broccoli. In the past, I have received a beautiful bunch of dinner-plate-sized dahlias, a box of courgettes and, once, a perfectly plaited string of garlic. It was such a work of art, I hung it in the kitchen and couldn’t bear to use it.

I have grown my own fruit and vegetables in the past, so I know the time and effort it takes. When we were living in Hampshire, we created a kitchen garden with a soft fruit area and an orchard of apples, pears, plums and cherries. My best-loved vegetable had to be the broad bean. The thrill of being able to pick these great, fat, furry pods from my own garden – blackfly permitting – never palled. I loved, too, the miracle of root crops, such as carrots, with their filigree foliage up top giving no clue as to the fingers of gold hidden beneath the soil. And few things trumped the joy of harvesting my own potatoes. These were the first vegetables

I ever grew, chitted in cardboard egg cartons and planted in an old dustbin. I earthed them up as the books told me I should, and then, as the foliage died off, dug my trowel into the crumbly compost and could barely believe my prize of perfect oval, creamy-white new potatoes. I took them inside instantly, to boil and eat with salt and butter for my dinner. What a thrill that is – tasting one’s own produce for the first time.

These days, my garden is purely ornamental and it is therefore a real treat to be gifted fresh produce that someone else has grown. And it seems the recent stay-at-home rules of lockdown have encouraged more people to participate, with those who don’t have a garden joining long waiting lists for allotments all over the country.

I am a sucker for allotments, with their higgledy-piggledy mix of makeshift sheds, improvised bird scarers and rows of eclectic vegetables. We have some especially fine examples in my neighbourhood. My regular train route runs high above a hotchpotch of community allotments on the banks of the

River Thames. A window seat on the train affords a bird’s eye view of the various plots – some as neat as a new pin, others ramshackle, but no two ever the same. Watching their owners work them, and observing how the plots change through the seasons, always brightens my journey.

Allotments have been around for hundreds of years, originally as parcels of land allocated to the poor to graze animals or grow crops. The National Allotment Society was formed in 1901, as a members’ co-operative to promote and protect this designated land. It still operates as an Industrial and Provident Society, owned, managed and funded by its members. Their website (nsalg.org.uk) provides advice on pretty much everything from composting to crop rotation, as well as listing sites with vacancies. Demand outstrips supply in many areas but aspiring plot-holders are encouraged to sign up regardless: without waiting lists, allotment authorities cannot assess demand.

This year’s National Allotments Week, an initiative launched by the society in 2002, runs from 9-15 August. It was introduced to raise awareness of the role these precious plots of land play in developing communities, and help us all to grow our own produce wherever we live. If you want to be inspired, take a look at the winning videos from a competition they ran last year. To watch ordinary people talking about their love of working their little patch of land is immensely uplifting. The youngest contributor, Thomas, is just 11. He can barely contain his excitement as he walks the viewer around the family plot where he keeps chickens and bees, as well as growing an impressive selection of fruit and vegetables. It’s a great advertisement for getting children interested in horticulture and helping to nurture the gardeners of the future.

Anyway, I could expend many more words on the joys of allotment gardening but I am suddenly distracted. I’ve just heard the doorbell and I’m hopeful it might herald the arrival of some freshly picked peas that we can have with our dinner!