LITMIR.BIZ

      Back in the real world, the late April sun is drying out the earth and making the digging of the rotational beds that bit easier. Each of the three will measure approximately 18 feet by 10 feet (5.5 metres by 3 metres). I suspect that each year we might try different crops within each bed, but the principle of grouping a type of crop together, and moving it along one bed each year, remains. The various books seem to overlap in advice on which vegetable goes in which group, however. For instance, Dr Vegetable Expert puts onions in with his legumes, while the Royal Horticultural Society put onions in with their roots. We make up our own minds on these arbitrary points by letting the chef decide – an onion to me in the kitchen is a root vegetable and so be it. So, we finally have a list of which vegetables we are going to put in each of the rotational beds:

       Bed number one – roots

      Potatoes

      Carrots

      Onions – spring, pickling and large

      Beetroot

      Parsnips

      Garlic

       Bed number two – legumes

      Beans – runner and broad

      Spinach

      Lettuce

      Tomatoes

      Sweetcorn

       Bed number three – brassicas

      Cabbage

      Broccoli

      Kale

      Cauliflower

      Radishes

      Brussels sprouts

      Swede

      Having worked out what vegetable gets grown where, however, we have to re-read all the books to see what vegetable gets planted when. It turns out that ‘just about now’ is the answer to the above question, certainly when it comes to the bed of legumes; it is late April and runner beans, broad beans, tomatoes and sweetcorn are all in need of sowing.

      The books also advise that most of these plants should be started off at home, so we make yet another trip to the garden centre, this time for plant pots and potting compost. I thought that growing your own vegetables was supposed to reduce the cost of living but, right now, it’s costing us a bloody fortune and we still haven’t eaten anything home-grown.

      At home Ellie, Richie and I cover the table with bin liners and set about sowing seeds. They are actually far better at it than I am. Whereas Ellie easily manages to sow each tiny tomato seed dead centre in its little pot, they are far too small and delicate for my wacking great hands. Peter Schmeichel would make a useless gardener.

      Within a couple of weeks our fledgling plants are ready to be transferred to the allotment and we all drive down to Blondin. All three passengers have a tray on their knees full of little plant pots, each containing a potential supper. While MJ and Richie plant up the seedlings, Ellie and I plant spinach and lettuce straight into the ground. I haven’t yet managed to grow anything but I already know that, when I do, I want it to grow in a straight line, so we put a bamboo cane across the bed and crawl along it placing each seed with great precision.

      Before long our entire legume bed is a mass of baby plants about which I worry constantly. My dad had explained that watering at the beginning of the day is far more beneficial than a midday water so each morning my first job is a pre-breakfast dash to the allotment to water the plants.

      One morning, while I am busy watering and generally minding my own business, a lady from a plot not too far away comes over to chat. She is obviously a gardener with some years’ experience and she immediately realises that I am a complete novice and therefore must be in need of tips – lots of them.

      It is almost impossible to carry on watering when you are having a conversation but I do my best and, even in this department, she is on hand with some useful advice. She advises me to purchase a hoe at my earliest convenience. Apparently hoeing breaks up the earth and allows the water to penetrate the ground, thus reaching the roots of the target plant rather than forming a small temporary pond a little further down the bed, which, to be fair, is exactly what is happening to me. She is actually a little incredulous that I don’t already own one. I feel like telling her that I am new to all this and, while she has spent the last ten years fretting about bindweed and parsnip germination, I have been busy having a life. She doesn’t look the sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll type, however, so I keep my opinions to myself and leave to buy a hoe!

      My other mission at present, since I failed at Wisley, is to buy and plant asparagus in our inaugural bed. During the digging of the asparagus bed I had continued to read up on this wonderful vegetable and now feel I am more knowledgeable. Asparagus, or Asparagus officinalis to give it its full title, is a fussy customer. The books advise me to prepare the soil by adding lime. It turns out that different plants require a different pH factor; in other words, some plants like a limey soil and others like an acid soil, while most sit somewhere in between. This is good information, but only if you know what pH your soil is in the first place. Luckily, help is never more than a vegetable patch away on the allotments and Andy tells me that our soil is relatively neutral, which means we definitely need to add lime.

      The books also advise removing all weeds and stones because these can cause bent spears, which can be particularly annoying to the cook (don’t I know it?). As well as this, the Royal Horticultural Society book urges top dressing of the soil. This apparently means sprinkling on a general fertiliser; however, the book warns the – by now terrified – novice asparagus grower that too much fertiliser will cause excess nitrogen and, guess what, old fussbags asparagus doesn’t like too much nitrogen.

      American Edward C Smith also knows a good deal about asparagus cultivation – at least this is his boast in The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. He advises lining each trench with something rather frighteningly called triple super phosphate. I buy this at the garden centre – it is very

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