Four weeks away and the plot is astray. Like a wild child in need of love, perhaps a haircut. There’s been much rain and new growth. Slugs and snails have run amok. Many leaves are ravaged. Gaping gaps.
The bean poles are wilting under the weight of fresh growth in the wet. The chard stems are thick and white like skeletal structures. The herb fennel’s close to 2 metres tall, near to smothering some sweet peas. Howard’s also been out of town.
My over-eager over-sowing is rampant. Crazed compensation for not being here. Summer, too, is sliding. The days are shorter, the sun lower. There is an urgent need for tools and intervention.
I pull foot-tall nettles. Too impatient to wait for gloves. The stinging lasts all day. My neatly pressed office shirt is no longer immaculate. But needs must.
I pull and push. Hold back the overgrowth for our neighbour, John, to mow the paths. I tear at ragged grassy edges in the absence of shears. I trudge trimmings to the compost. I apologise to the plot for my absence.
Four weeks is a long time in high summer growing. But this is gardening and an hour or two’s work shows quick benefit. I’ll return tomorrow with more focus, maybe shears. More gratitude too. But for now there is work to do. I wheelbarrow some of the wild away. I encourage overgrown gastropods to relocate to the woodland.
After a while I slow to a stop. Remember to wonder.
One of the gifts of gardening is the ability to work changes in a short time. In just an hour or so before work, the rampant growth is less scary. Some balance has been returned. There will be beetroot, peas and leaves for our Sunday dinner, sweet peas for a vase on the table. All is right in allotment world.
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
