I’m growing my own veg now, and my mind has been opened

Roslyn Dee

Working an allotment is a learning curve that eventually rewards growers with great produce. Picture posed

March 16 2023 02:30 AM

When it comes to gardening, I’ve always favoured the delicate peony over the knobbly old parsnip, sweet-smelling roses instead of radishes, and beautiful begonias instead of basic broad beans. You get my drift – I prefer to grow things for aesthetic rather their practical purposes.

So it is at this stage of my life, and despite many years of very pleasurable flower-gardening, I have never knowingly grown a vegetable.

Yes, my name is Roslyn and I’ve never grown a runner bean. Until now.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, so they say. Well, surely that depends on the dog and, indeed, the level of difficulty involved with the trick. And what I know for sure is that this old dog is more than up for a brand new trick.

Even at this stage of this fledgling love affair, I can see this particular trick has the potential to be life-changing. I mean, I haven’t picked up a novel in a week because this latest interest has had me eschewing all my normal reading material and turning my attention to a whole new range of books entirely. Books that, previously, in my old life, I wouldn’t have given the time of day.

I still haven’t got my head around potatoes, what with first earlies and second earlies, but it’s a learning curve, this allotment business

So it’s goodbye, for the moment, to the latest fictional offerings from Joseph O’Connor, Jane Harper and Donna Leon, all now languishing forlornly and gathering dust on my bedside table. And it’s hello instead to Vegetable Gardening For Beginners and those other tomes that tell you what to plant when, all in an easy-to-follow month-by-month guide.

Potato seeds. Photo: Getty

Why such a new-found zeal for vegetable growing? You’ve guessed it: I have just become the proud keeper of a small allotment and am delighted to be launching myself into this brave new world. It’s a totally new insight, not just into the cultivation of the aforementioned parsnips, radishes and broad beans, but, well, also into myself.

Did I ever think I’d see the day when I’d be down on my hands and knees on the living room floor with tape measure in hand while plotting the size of my assigned allotment? Yes, was my reaction to the space: it’s small, but with more than enough room to lash in all sorts of veggies.

I’m learning something every day. There’s even a whole new language. I’ve known, say, about badger setts all my life, but onion sets? Who knew?

I still haven’t got my head around potatoes, what with first earlies and second earlies, but it’s a learning curve, this allotment business – and that’s the appeal of it.

It must be a year since I put my name on a waiting list for one of my local community allotments. Then, last Friday, the email arrived to tell me I was top of the list, and did I want it?

Did I what? I can’t wait to get started. If you find yourself this weekend in Woodie’s on the Southern Cross Road near Bray, Co Wicklow, I’ll be the woman with the puzzled look standing in front of the racks of vegetable seeds.

But I do know this: it’s March, so peas, broad beans and those onion sets are all on my list. Bring them on.