Good news. The chap who owns the plot next door has finally turned up. His excuse for having done nothing whatsoever this year to his allotment is that he is busy with all the arrangements for getting married next September. A reasonable excuse I suppose.

He has the rolling accent of someone from Liverpool.  In other words, he is a ‘scouser’ as we affectionately like to call folk who come from that part of the world. The plot belongs to his wife-to-be. Perhaps her terms and conditions for entering into marriage is that he proves himself to be handy with a spade. He has certainly attacked the plot with gusto and made up for lost time.

His saving grace is that he cleverly covered his plot last winter with a landscapers fabric weighed down with hefty boulders. When he lifted the fabric for the first time this week it revealed a weed-free soil that only required a quick dig through before seeds could be sown and potato tubers planted.

On our plot everything is slowly growing up. The tomatoes and courgettes have been planted out and look happy enough. The runner beans go in next week!

This isan excerpt from my journal found on www.englishrosegarden.co.uk where you are most welcome to visit...

I wandered around the allotment this evening admiring the other plots. Some have not been touched this year and are an abandoned mess of weeds. One plot has the neatest furrows of potatoes that I have ever seen. Another is artistic with lavender and fancy paving.

The best plot of them all though must belong to Alfie who is inclined to spend much of his time sitting on a portable chair admiring his pristine garden. Vegetables are sprouting up everywhere but there is not a weed to be seen.

It has been noted though that Alfie never seems to do anything in his garden. Whilst everyone is toiling away he just sits there with his flat-cap slung low over his eyes dreaming away. Perhaps he takes up his hoe in the night when everyone has gone home? It is a complete mystery to us all.

Our plot continues to flourish and we have planted out the tomatoes, courgettes and beans. There seems little in the way of frosts on the horizon but I have a sheet of fleece ready just in case.

We continue to live on a diet of radishes!

This is an excerpt from my journal found on www.englishrosegarden.co.uk where you are most welcome to visit...

Come early evening the allotment is busy and we all congregate around the water tap and have a natter about this or that.

The exception is the bloke in the corner who prefers to keep himself to himself. He has been digging incessantly for the past fortnight and one cannot help but admire his labours. He has planted nothing but main crop potatoes. He likes them mashed apparently.

The chap next door has finished digging his plot and he turned up the other day with an instant vegetable garden bought from the garden centre next door. Trays of courgettes, peas and lettuce came out of the boot of the car and were carefully planted in place. None of this germinating seed malarkey. Bung it in, a dosh of water and be done with it. His five-year-old daughter stands by his side supervising his labours. She takes after her mum.

I am pleased to report that my small seedlings are now large seedlings and can be seen without the aid of a magnifying glass. The broad beans are up and getting bigger every day. My wife assures me that the courgettes and runner beans fare well in the nursery.

My compost bin rumbles with digestion. All is well on the allotment!

this is an excerpt from my journal on www.englishrosegarden.co.uk

Despite the showery weather we have been able to spend a couple of evenings up at the allotment. The path is perfectly straight in a hazy rough old country way. I still need a plank of wood though to finish the last five feet but I am sure that a piece will turn up in time.

Having done all the donkey work I have now been told by my dear wife that the allotment is no longer ‘mine’ but ‘ours’! She has been up there this week and admittedly done an excellent job of raking the soil to a fine tilth until it looks as smooth as a billiard table.

The recent rain has moistened the soil and made it easier to work. Some of the weeds that I buried with the top soil have poked their green noses above the surface but I hope that by persistent hoeing they will die off.

Five stout hazel poles have been lashed together with twine to make a sturdy tepee for the runner beans to be sown later. In the meantime a crop of radishes can be popped in the middle to fill in the space.

My wife and I have rather different approaches to gardening. I tend to throw seeds around with poetic abandon: where they land is where they grow. Straight lines do not feature much in my world of geometry. She, on the other hand, likes to have plans, diagrams, spreadsheets and crop rotation schemes. I leave things where they fall and she likes to keep things tidy and shipshape. Oh, what fun we shall have!

But we have put our differences aside and sown various seeds which include: radish, parsnip, carrot, beetroot, turnip, spinach, various types of salad and shallots. Each row has been marked on either end with a hedgerow stick and a white, plastic, plant label inscribed with the name of the crop.

We wait with eager anticipation for the first of the seedlings to emerge!

The village has an area set aside for allotments: a curious hotchpotch of cloches, compost bins and vegetable patches. Each plot has a shed made out of recycled materials and one or two men have been known to take up residence when ‘life with the missus’ becomes intolerable.

Sadly the ownership of these allotments is jealously guarded. One would have to have put your name on the waiting list in the days of Noah or, allegedly, have connections and a wine cellar. The chances of my ever having an allotment seemed slim. Each year the parish clerk would shake his head and declare solemnly that there were no plots available for the foreseeable future.

And then out of the blue came an offer of an allotment on the outskirts of a neighbouring town. The newly acquired site is not perfect: the soil is a sticky clay, sheds and fugitive husbands are not allowed and the site lacks the character that is built up over the years. Yet beggars cannot be choosers and so I signed on the bottom line, paid my fifteen pounds and accepted.

I have already been down there to turn a part of it over and have erected my flag of ownership in the way of a clump of rhubarb that I have half-inched from the estate. I have also purchased a bag of ‘red baron’ shallots from the local store.

Grumpy George, who naturally has an allotment in the village, has promised to pass by and teach me all he knows of the noble art of growing vegetables. I can hardly wait!