Give horticultural therapy a chance to grow on you

THE last of my potatoes and onions have been harvested from my allotment.

That makes it sound like a grand haul but in truth it’s a meagre contribution to the household food requirement. The whole lot will be eaten within a fortnight.

My tomatoes have got smaller as the plants have grown higher, touching the greenhouse roof and bending over their flimsy canes. But they still taste better than supermarket toms. Of course, you don’t really expect to feed even a family of two OAPs from a small plot of land. And it probably costs more in terms of seeds, plants, growbags and weedkiller than buying the same vegetables in the Co-op.

But that’s not what an allotment is for. It’s horticultural therapy. Exercise and the simple pleasure of watching stuff grow – or not, as the case may be, and often is.

There is even the fun of the bonfire, burning twigs and dried plants on a spot clear of the wooden summer house – alright, shed – known as The Routers’ Return, where sherbet is known to have been taken.

There are still jobs to be done before the Pennine winter sets in. Digging over, weeding, trimming the blackcurrant bush, clearing out the greenhouse.

I’ve given the shed roof a generous coating of black bitumen paint but it will probably need another – and getting up ladders is not my forte these days.

Payment of my £10 annual subs came round this month, a snip. Thousands of city-dwellers would envy me.

But they have buses and shops. You can’t be in the country and metropolis simultaneously.

I’ve done both and I know which is better, especially now.