A few months ago, when I received an email about an available allotment in my area, I struggled to remember when I had signed up for one. It turns out I had done so two years ago, fuelled by my envy for those with gardens during lockdown. Back then, all I wanted was a small bit of outdoor space that felt like my own, to plant flowers, herbs and, at a push, some chillies. A place where I could read and write in the sun, safe from distractions.
Now I was being presented a half plot of available land (125 square metres!) with an established apple tree in the middle – which I mistook for a cherry because of its pink blossom. “You’ll have to have a trial period, to see how you get on,” the woman showing me around said. She meant business. The plot, which was bigger than I could dream of, was beautiful but overgrown – getting it started would require proper graft. I wasn’t sure I had it in me.
Fast forward to now, when I spend hours a week sowing, pruning, weeding, watering and harvesting. After seeking guidance from family and watching beginner’s gardening YouTube videos, my boyfriend and I ditched date nights and arranged our weekends to get our hands dirty and trim overgrown grass, shovel composted soil into raised beds, build an insect hotel from scratch and deal with slug infestations. It helps that our surroundings feel like a slice of heaven: birdsong fills the treetops, the scent of blooming flowers perfumes the air and buzzing bees hop from one flower to the next in our little patch of south-east London. Given that we knew nothing about gardening at the start, the fact that we’ve managed to grow anything feels like a miracle.
My summer at the allotment has so far offered countless lessons, but the most important one has been learning more about how food actually grows. Take the humble cauliflower – a common sight in the supermarket aisle, yet the patience it demands lasts for up to six months, tending and nurturing, all for a fleeting moment on the plate. Or strawberries, which are wonderfully sweet when allowed to ripen fully, but may yield only a handful of fruit if the soil conditions aren’t right – from our three netted plants, we’ve managed to harvest a cupful at most. Then there are plants like runner beans, which are stubbornly dependent on the kindness of pollinators. Despite studying GCSE biology many moons ago, it’s only now I truly understand that every fruit starts as a flower.
Seasonality has also taken on a new meaning. I knew of course that all fresh food has its “season”, but it was only when I was overwhelmed by an endless supply of courgettes that I really understood I could be eating them for months. So far, we’ve tried courgettes in every form – grated into fritters, spiralled into pasta, grilled, baked and fried.
Yet bountiful harvests come with a lesson in impermanence. Fresh produce goes off quickly once ripened and picked. And so I’ve turned to the old craft of preservation – learning what to boil and freeze, pickle, or make into jam – to make things last. When the harvest has been more than the two of us can manage, we’ve shared the abundance with friends and family, spreading the joy.
While gardening is a welcome escape from the chaos of the modern world, you can’t avoid the reality of the climate crisis. This year, a wet and gloomy summer in the UK meant armies of slugs gnawing away at most plants. The lower average temperatures also mean that things are growing more slowly..
Wetter summers in the UK are no doubt a result of climate breakdown – something already affecting our farms. But while it’s one thing to read these things in the news or see them reflected in prices, it’s quite another when you have to be in tune with weather patterns, praying for prolonged sunshine without the piercing heat.
As I continue to tend my plot, I do so with a sense of humility, wonder and excitement. What started as a desire for a small patch of green has grown into something much more significant – a connection to my local environment, a respect for the food I eat and an awareness of the fragile natural systems that sustain us. In the beginning, I was worried I’d fail the allotment; instead, I’m finding myself growing alongside it.
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Diyora Shadijanova is a journalist and writer