Gardening
Allotments
Terry Walton
Meet Terry Walton, whose down-to-earth dispatches from the vegetable patch guide and inspire Saga readers in his weekly blog. The much-loved allotmenteer of BBC Radio 2's The Jeremy Vine Show explains why he feels growing your own food is so important - and why he loves allotmenteering
Welcome to one of modern life's 'growing' pleasures. Yes, I mean the trend of people taking up the growing of their own fruit and vegetables.
Back in the fifties and sixties, before increased prosperity affected the family income, allotments up and down the land were full, as growing your own food supplemented the budget.
These declined during the booming seventies and eighties as supermarkets and fast food outlets provided the daily diet of unpalatable, fattening food.
All this has changed as more and more people are starting to put taste and freshness as the most important ingredients of the daily meals.
The garden, or even better the allotment, provides many of the pleasures for a fraction of the cost that is spent on other leisure time activities.
What are these pleasures and benefits you may well ask?
Well you don’t need a sun bed to get a healthy tan; a couple of hours on the plot will provide that for free.
Why pay exorbitant fees for a gym when a little digging, hoeing and planting will tone all of your muscles for free .
In addition to these physical health benefits you get to eat fresh, tasteful food grown as you want it. Free from pesticides and artificial fertilisers and eaten hours after harvesting. Think of the air-mile pollution you have saved by growing your own food locally. You grow the vegetables you like and with experience you could be savouring these most of the year around. So a degree of self sufficiency creeps into your life.
The added icing on the cake, although icing is not a crop easily grown, is the wonderful social life that most allotmenteers enjoy.
When on your plot there are many like minded people who are not only there to till and plant the plot but like to while away some of the time in social discussion. It is now a growing tradition to have a small gas stove in your shed to brew fresh tea and coffee. The whistle on the kettle gives the impetus to stop what you are doing and to congregate in one another’s shed to sup a brew and put right the woes of the world. You can be alone amongst your beans one minute then among company the next.
What else could provide all these activities so well as an allotment?
Go on surprise yourself, go get one and experience all of these life’s pleasures!
Reader comments
Hi Terry.Just to let you know how much I enjoy your slot on the Jeremy Vine show.I thought how will an allotment work on the radio?But with your expert knowledge it's just fantastic and for a novice gardener,such as myself I find your advice extremely helpfull. Oh and I bought your book as a present for my father.I just need to prize it off him,to read it myself.It will probably be easier for you to prize your veg out of the ground,before I can get to read your book.Fantastic show.
Posted by: RICKY GILBERT | 03/11/2008 16:29:16
Dear Terry Every year our carrots start off well but as they get older they develop dark woody bands around them. Have you any idea what is causing this? It doesn't seem to make any difference what variety of carrot we sow. Our soil is quite sandy,well drained and easy to work even though we are in an area of Kent famed for it's heavy clay. Best regards and thanks for bringing the joys of gardening to us all.
Posted by: Averil Brice | 02/11/2008 13:16:22
Hi Terry, Love your slot on the Jeremy Vine show. My daughter was given some tomato plants from her school this Summer. No doubt due to lack of sun they have not ripened and to prevent the slugs eating them we have picked them and brought them indoors on the windowsil. Unfortunately they are still not ripening and are going black/diseased? Is there anything else we can do apart from putting them next to bananas and will they all go black ?? Kind regards, Adrian Noyce.
Posted by: Adrian Noyce | 20/09/2008 11:53:40
Hi Terry, I have some raspberry bushes in my garden that gave good fruit for over five years, but two years ago they were attacked by caterpillars and the fruit failed. I have bought to new bushes this year and planted them, but they have been similarly attacked. Should I let the stems stay in place over the winter or should I cut them back, both old and new? Many thanks James
Posted by: James Sinclair | 05/09/2008 19:10:30
Hi Terry, In my front garden, its dominated by a fig tree. I pruned it a couple of years ago - not in the spreading grape-vine style but in a bush shape. This was after I had been strolling through St James park and a saw fig tree by the lake/pond and I had to second glance it, initially it was like a weeping willow. So thats basically how I pruned it, roughly copying want I had seen in the park! This year its gone mad , loads of fruit but also really spreading its branches. I live in Orpington (London SE). So weather is never usually severe, except 87 hurricanes/tornados. Any advice please would be most welcome - particularly as I want to control this thing now I have more time on my hands, Many thanks Ron Sudds 28/7/08
Posted by: Ron Sudds | 28/07/2008 17:57:21
HI Terry Im trying to find out when your on radio 2 the Jeremy Vine show would you please let me know Thankyou.
Posted by: Valerie Barton | 16/07/2008 13:04:20
hi Terry my red and green cabbages look healthy but thier are all leaf and no hearts what is the problem
Posted by: arthur douglass | 28/06/2008 17:18:38
