I met a gorgeous gal through my local gardening club who offered to share a sunny walled garden just round the corner from my North East London flat. It belonged to her elderly neighbours who could no longer maintain it. I struggled to grow anything that needed sun in my own small, north facing garden and I really wanted to try growing fruit and veg. So, knowing it would stretch my multi-tasking abilities to their limits – I agreed to try it out as an allotment.
Gardening as therapy
It’s a midlife cliche but gardening is my therapy of choice. I like nothing more than digging in the dirt for a few hours, kicking off my wellies and coming in cold, dirty, wet and deeply relaxed. It melts away stress. It’s the very definition of mindfulness – just you, nature and the elements working against a soundtrack of birds and London life. I had high hopes for a bountiful harvest and started out with a vision:
The reality was that the allotment’s first year was a disaster. The spinach, chard and rhubarb that were already abundant continued to grow without any intervention on my part. By contrast my efforts produced very little. I harvested a handful of cherry tomatoes, three courgettes and enough potatoes for one sorry meal. I blamed the mild winter, a wet June and a battle with slugs that I lost.
Preparing a bed for broad beans that never appeared.
Slug wars
As an allotment newby I had no idea how vulnerable my seedlings could be. I tried sowing indoors first but no matter how much I tried to protect the plants the slugs always got them in the end. I thought I’d finally cracked it when I found empty 5-litre water bottles and used them as cloches over my tender courgette plants. They survived two nights. Then a fox decided to knock them over and it was a slug feeding frenzy. I salvaged two plants and grew them in pots balanced on an upturned milk crate in the old greenhouse.
So what is the problem I hear you say? Don’t you use pellets? What about beer traps? What about nematodes?
I inherited a neglected garden where, for five years, the slugs had roamed free chomping on spinach and chard to their heart’s content. It was slug paradise and they had multiplied and grown to enormous proportions. Six-inch slugs curled themselves round strawberries, ate into potatoes and shimmied up spinach stalks without fear. I grew up watching my dad sprinkle slug pellets around the garden. It was a different time. My aim was to be organic and work with nature.
After consulting YouTube I made beer traps out of plastic milk bottles and managed to catch a LOT of drunken slugs – but this brought me face-to-face with their death. I needed to rethink and find a way of sharing my growing space with the creatures who already lived there.
Tomatoes in hanging baskets and courgettes in pots balanced on milk crates
Allotment envy
September’s Flower and Produce show approached but my first season’s harvest was never going to win any prizes. Spending every other weekend in Yorkshire visiting my mum in her care home had taken its toll. I’d not watered, weeded or fed enough. An allotment doesn’t like neglect. In truth I blamed the slugs because it was easier than admitting failure. When I passed a well-cultivated plot I wasn’t just envious, I was ashamed.
But I didn’t give up! That first season was a great learning experience. I’ve since adjusted my expectations. Every season has it’s own challenges and its about celebrating each small success. By the time I left for the Kent coast I had acquired a few fruit and veg growing tips to share.
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