An ‘accidental’ allotment by Victoria Ennion
ALLOTMENT
One day I went for a walk at lunchtime to escape from the office where I worked and came back an allotment holder.
It was a complete surprise and, it turned out, a pivotal moment in my life. Within two years of taking on the allotment I left my rather comfortable job, retrained in horticulture and became a professional gardener.
I spent the first winter combing out couch grass roots from the plot. I would close my eyes at night and see couch roots squirming behind my lids, but the experience of being out in the elements on cold winter days and drinking tea with other allotment holders made it all worthwhile.
The allotment provided the perfect counterpoint to inner city living and long days sat in front of a computer.
In the beginning I was like a child in a sweet shop. I germinated far more plants than I needed, then found myself overwhelmed with produce which I felt duty-bound to preserve. I discovered that heavy watering compacted the clay soil. And so the list goes on…and on.
Victoria Ennion on her allotment which became “a pivotal moment in my life”
When we moved to Hampshire, we took on a plot that looked derelict, but had in fact been covered with landscaping fabric. The plot was also very stony. Remembering the lesson of the original Acton, west London allotment, we re-used the landscaping fabric to line the paths and then surfaced them with the stones we dug up. We created raised beds by digging out the paths and using the spoil to raise the soil level in the beds. This works just as well as making wooden frames, but with a fraction of the effort.
Our new plot is a half plot, which is a blessing. I can tend it properly and enjoy it to the full, as well as running the gardening business. I have fewer plants but they are more productive because they get more attention.
The biggest lesson of all I learned from that first allotment was the use of energy and resources. We carried in bag upon bag of manure and wood chippings for paths, as well as planks for raised beds. Hindsight is indeed a fine thing, and I now feel we could have avoided all this completely.
Eventually it became too tiring to run the allotment as well as the gardening business. I badly missed the craft of growing vegetables and also, of course, the social interaction. However, I then started teaching allotment gardening. It is said that the best way to learn is to teach, and this was definitely the case. Students added their wealth of experience to the mix too. Teaching was my chance to give back what I had been given thanks to plants and gardening. Often the students had reached a crossroads in their lives, and gardening gave them a new direction, as it had me. They blossomed, they found purpose and confidence.
I now grow mostly low maintenance crops; perennial plants, crops that can be direct-sown, cut-and-come-again crops and self-seeders. This greatly reduces the amount of effort needed to grow from seed every year. My favourites are perennial sorrel and Welsh onions, CCA flat-leaved parsley and oriental greens, and self-seeders lamb’s lettuce and wild rocket. This season I am going to try a perennial broccoli called Nine Star.
Manuring the plot is always going to entail effort, but the results more than justify the energy expended. Last autumn, for the first time, I spread manure on the surfaces of the beds and covered them.
The theory is that by spring the worms will have dug the manure in for me.
I continue to travel hopefully.
Victoria Ennion is the garden designer at Crowsfoot Gardens, Southampton. Tel: 01962 714490
In a new series we look at the personal experience, trials, tribulations, emotions and sheer undiluted pleasure of owning and working on an allotment.
42
Country Gardener
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