Howard arrives with the new hazel. Beautiful bundles of freshly cut poles and pea sticks, sourced through his spoon-carving/growing fraternity. The allotment summer starts here.
It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon. Our corner of the site is the busiest it’s been this year. We stand sharing our planting thoughts. Admiring the tulips and narcissi. Talking to neighbours about growing potatoes.
Howard and I scan the plot, make invisible 3D plans, before settling on four hazel structures. A long, straight five-pole run for the climbing beans, plus three tipis: two for the incoming Jane Scotter sweetpeas (pretty ones, I am told), and a taller one for peas.
As before, we’ll be growing Basque tear peas. With, this year, a fresh supply of seed from chef Eneko Atxa’s brilliant restaurant garden outside Bilbao. We’ve been sharing saved seed with friends.
Peas, for me, the finest of the gardener perks. Maybe best eaten standing in early-morning light, trying to keep enough back for a bowl to take home and share for dinner. Conjuring memories of Mum, podding into her colander. Batting me away from trying to eat too many… Nothing much changes.
The structures will decide the plot’s shape for the year. We discuss where to sow everything else, though self-seeding sunflowers, poppies and purple orache may have already made some decisions for us. Within a couple or so hours, though, we are sorted. The handsome poles and sticks are up. Skinny branches in between. The shape of 2023 is set. Where to grow short rows of beetroot, longer rows of herbs and leaves. Where we’ll sow orange cosmos.
Yet to be resolved are the trickier questions: what to do with the sprawling courgettes, the large Italian pumpkins we had planned. Of course, there’s not near enough room. And don’t get me started on homes for the nasturtium…
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
