I’ve fallen in love with my wife’s allotment hideaway
On Garden Day, Jim White explains how he’s become smitten with gardening
The more frequently I visit, the more I come to appreciate the labours of others
In these long weeks of lockdown, two things have happened to me: I have grown a beard and I’ve fallen in love. Don’t worry, the romantic attachment is not breaking any social distancing restrictions. Nor will I be adding to the pandemicswollen workload of divorce lawyers. Because my affair is not with another party. Well, not another human party. Rather I have been smitten by my wife’s allotment. Never before has a quarter acre alongside a railway siding appeared so enticing. Never before have I been seduced by a row of radishes. Over this past month I confess I have become obsessed by the hoe.
Earlier this week, as I spent my evening digging and raking, mowing and pruning, I was struck by an alarming realisation. While many people have embraced the lockdown strictures to learn Serbo-Croat, read
War and Peace or take up the trumpet, all I had managed to achieve was grow a bit of facial hair and visit the allotment. Yes, the virus was turning me into Jeremy Corbyn.
Something had to give. Which is why I quickly reacquainted myself with the razor. After all, there was no way I was going to end my new relationship with the soil. Corbyn may be wrong about many things, but here he is on to something: the allotment is another world.
My wife has rented a patch of communal land for some 15 years. For most of that time, I have been an occasional visitor. This was her space. Together with a friend she made it beautiful, filled with colour and brightness. Every autumn, she would return to the house on her bike, her basket laden with delicious fresh produce. Plus, courgettes.
It was fine to watch from a distance. I graciously congratulated her as I sampled her pickles, jam and juice. All I would do was provide occasional grunt work. I was called in every so often to mow the grass, prune hard, transport bags of compost and man the barbecue.
But my heart wasn’t in it. Often as not, I’d find an excuse not to cycle down there. Rarely was life as busy as when my wife asked if I might be available to do some digging.
Then came the lockdown. No longer was the excuse available of needing to watch an important League One play-off game. No longer did a vital reassessment of the Masters golf tournament need to be undertaken in the pub. I had time on my hands, why not spend some of it helping out down the allotment, she wondered? Why not put my Government-sanctioned hour of outdoor activity to productive use?
Since I took her up on the idea, something extraordinary has happened: I have started heading there on my own. After a few hours on the computer, there is nowhere better to disappear. And it was while applying a fork to the weed-infested top soil, that it all became clear: allotments have long been places to maintain isolation. Generations of diggers have sought refuge in their patch, taken to their shed with a flask and a rolled up newspaper to escape the strains and stresses of the world. Down here you can be properly alone. It is the perfect place for quarantine times: everyone is on their own patch, maintaining proper distance, keeping themselves to themselves. A bit like the old saw about “if nobody sees a tree falling in a wood did it really fall”: if nobody sees me down the allotment am I really breaking Government regulations by sitting on a bench and enjoying a cup of tea?
I quickly realised how grateful I was that my wife had long pursued her interest. The £50-a-year rent must be the bargain of the century. Particularly in lockdown. Here is the perfect bolt hole from the corona-infected headlines, the budget equivalent of the rural retreat, except without the locals painting “go home townie” on the car. Here I can abscond from the four walls of confinement and be free.
I’m not alone in this revelation. Statistics show that 45 per cent cope with lockdown by gardening (or planting seeds if lacking green space), more than are reading and cooking. Demand for garden centres to re-open has been growing, and some B&Q and Homebase stores opened last week. Today is even Garden Day – a chance for us to down tools and share the fruits of our labours virtually.
As I unleash my inner Monty Don, I have come to appreciate what an amazing service councils provide.
Since 1908, when the Allotments Act was committed to the statute books in order to allow the poor access to productive land, local authorities have been obliged to provide as much space as their citizens demand. Some 112 years on, demand is only rising and there are endless waiting lists for allotments. No wonder: here we urbanites can wallow in environmentally friendly open space. Here, as we grow older and our personal fecundity fades, we can pretend we remain productive. Here, we can commune with nature – the upsides of which are well known.
A study by the Royal Horticultural Society and the University of Exeter, revealed that the health and wellbeing benefits of gardening were similar to the benefits of living in the wealthiest part of the country, compared with the poorest. Researchers found that 71 per cent of those who used their garden reported good health, compared with 61 per cent of those who did not – similar to the well-being gap between highest and lowest income groups. Plus, those who spent time in their garden reported higher levels of physical activity and psychological well-being. You don’t even have to pick up a trowel, they concluded, simply relaxing outdoors will do.
That said, I have learnt a proper life lesson in my lockdown relationship with our patch: when it comes to allotments, the only thing rewarded is hard work. Those weeds don’t dig themselves up. There is a reason some sites near my wife’s are so magnificent. The one laid out entirely to vines, the other so full of flowers it resembles an Amsterdam tulip stall, a third like a mini market garden: they look good because their owners put in the hours.
The more frequently I visit, the more I come to appreciate the labours of others. Just to take in their work is to be uplifted. Not that many will be gaining similar succour from my efforts. As yet, I haven’t grown anything.
But, as the spring sun beats down, the first hints are beckoning. The green shoots of potatoes are breaking through. There are tentative suggestions of lettuce. The garlic is starting to look frisky. Even the courgettes are beginning to make themselves known. Until recently, so boring a vegetable is it, I would not have been remotely interested. But now I suspect the first time I cook one it will explode in my mouth like I’ve suddenly been transported to Le Gavroche. And all of my own making.