If you’ve read about Market Cross Cottage, you know there was no ‘garden’, just a small paved yard with a small area of soil in which was growing a wonderful passion flower up the stone wall on the left – and the little area in an outhouse which housed our only toilet during the first year or so. I bought plants and planted up pots and they were pretty for a time but, what I really wanted to do was grow vegetables.

I was walking down Swan Street one day and looked in the window of the sweet shop where there were various hand written cards offering items for sale etc. One card caught my attention. It said something like ‘Allotment. We have a large piece of land which is now unused and would suit someone eager to tidy it up and grow fruit and vegetables. Phone xxxxxxx‘

I wrote down the number, ran home and phoned. The nice woman who answered said she thought it had already been agreed for someone else to use the land but I should come and look anyway. She told me where it was – on the A20 (the main road that runs from London right the way to Folkestone and Dover, at the time) and gave me the number of the house.

So, I walked down to the A20 through Banky Meadow, turned right and after another very short walk, there was the house. It was the end house of a small terrace, next to a driveway which separated the houses from the land which was going to be ‘mine’ to work on for the next few years. It turned out that the person who was given first dibs saw it and decided there was too much work to do so, as I was next in line, it was mine to clear and to cultivate.

There was a stream between the driveway and the allotment, which was crossed by a little bridge. On the other side of the bridge was a piece of land big enough to build a couple of houses on(!) covered mainly in brambles and stinging nettle. I asked myself, “What have I done? Where do I start? What do I need?” and other basic questions.

The land had belonged to a woman who kept chickens. There was a shed, where she kept the chickens at night, maybe, but which I could use for my tools (of which I had none, yet.) One thing all chickens do is poop. Chicken poop is, apparently, quite acidic but perhaps old chicken poop loses its strength. The land seemed to be very fertile and there were weeds a-plenty! All I had to do was get rid of the weeds and replace them with veges!

Remember, I knew NOTHING about growing vegetables so the first thing I did was find someone who did know the ins and outs of growing edible plants and that person turned out to be my next door neighbour, Iris, the wife of the owner of the restaurant next door. It seems she had lived in a house with a garden earlier in her life and she had grown all sorts of lovely things. Now she lived above the restaurant and harked back to her garden days fondly. She was, I believe, in her 60’s but strong and energetic – and she had tools!

That first time we walked down to the allotment carrying spades and forks over our shoulders along with a load of black plastic bags. Iris showed me how to mark out a (potential) row, removing the top growth and then digging with the fork, removing all the roots. There was a lot of top growth and even more roots! Luckily there was A LOT of land which I would never be able to cultivate so the roots and stems and excess soil was taken, via black bag, to a spare area.

It took some weeks for us to dig the area set out for growing veges but as one row had been dug and fertilised, I sowed the first lot of seeds. (I seem to remember they were broad bean seeds). I don’t know where Iris got the energy to carry on digging – she seemed to be far more energetic and far stronger in her 60’s than I was in my 30’s! I can’t remember when she stopped coming down but I think it was after it had been dug and I was ‘just’ tending the rows by weeding and watering.

I spent all my spare time at the allotment during that first spring and summer, just waiting for all the beans, Swiss chard, tomatoes and courgettes. Some things grew well and others hardly at all. Peas were one thing that didn’t like the soil, there so I didn’t try those the second year but the Swiss chard grew and grew as did the courgettes, the runner beans and French beans – and the tomatoes!

I couldn’t grow tomatoes in a green house as I didn’t have one, but I found a type of tomato that grew on bushes. They were French Marmande tomatoes and we ended up with loads! I had to carry boxes and boxes of ripe and unripe tomatoes home and they were the best tomatoes!

Next time, I’ll tell you about the potatoes and why I didn’t grow many!

OH CRUMBS! I must be getting old!! I’ve just found that I wrote the tale about my allotment a few years ago! I even used some of the same phrases! How embarrassing!

I guess I won’t have to write about the potatoes I didn’t grow, after all, because it’s all there in black and white in a post called Thank You, Iris