Allotment window

Like most jobs, mine has its share of the tedious. It also has some true pleasures, and the last 7 or 8 months has been dotted with some seriously life-affirming days travelling to allotments all over. The excuse: taking pictures for a book, My Cool Allotment, part of the ‘My Cool…’ series. Lia Leendertz wrote the words, I did the snaps.

Not, as you might imagine, the perfect year for doing such a book. We put together a long list of allotment possibilities, and the weather and assorted dullnesses pruned some out. The odd tedious person pruned themselves out too, if I’m honest. Somehow 30 promising possibilities remained, in this the worst of all years to be trying to persuade something to grow.

It is staggering what people will get up to if given a patch of land and the freedom to grow what they fancy. A little imagination, some dedication and the wherewithal to ask themselves ‘what would I really like to grow here?’

All were fascinating, but a few randomly chosen: Arthur Scott, growing vegetables at the oldest allotment site in the country, on the same few square yards as his father before him; Teresinha’s Birmingham allotment, dedicated to entirely dye plants; Luigi Valducci’s allotment, home to the National Collection of Brugmansias; Jean Ducrocq, growing flowers and vegetables in the periodically flooded gardens at Amiens; Lee, above, with his yards of callaloo and squash; and the one that kicked us off on a hot June morning in Paris, Sophie Laporte’s allotment, wedged between a trainline and a tram station in Paris.

All had a story to tell – like almost any landscape, these patches of land were as much about the human personality as the plants themselves. Brian Carter’s beautiful monoculture of perfect, orderly dahlias; Martin Crawford’s genuinely inspiring 2 acre designed-jumble of forest garden; Annemie Mae’s astonishing garden, designed as a haven for bees high over the streets of central Brussels, with everything growing in a few centimetres of volcanic material; the largest, ripest figs I’ve ever eaten, from a Tottenham jungle of fruit, flowers and herbs.

It’s a shame it is over. It is months until publication, so I’m posting this partly as I thought you might like a quick visual window into the book and partly as I want to drag out the pleasure of the last half a year by writing about it.

Some of the images from the book. Click the pics, some get larger.

  • I can’t think of a more pleasurable way to spend a summer & yet you have the audacity to call it work.
    It is the people isn’t it. A challenge, to try & determine the owner’s character by looking at their plots, however self-analysis may not be the best idea.
    Yours from a scruffy, overgrown but in places with OCD like detail, yet productive & wildlife friendly allotment

    • It’s a cheek really isn’t it. The reason it was work was because of trying to organise Lena Linedance.

      And yes indeed…to capture the character of person and place, and the intersection thereof. Yours with a fine idea of a place yet only occasionally pulled off (Miss Jones)

  • The Brussels garden looks amazing. I’m surprised at all the flowers, you mention. I thought the allotment-police had nixed those a long time ago and keep throwing people off their plots for not growing enough edible stuff?

    • So many flowery ones out there….there seem to be few restrictions in most places as long as people keep things reasonably in order

  • I hope you talked to Snr. Valducci about baldness. He is an internationally known trichologist
    You may need some advice someday.

    You’re quite good at portraits: although that Cleve West lets the side down a bit with his mincing and posing while just out of shot there is nothing but weeds.

    • Fortunately I have yet to develop an egg in the nest, so have no call for Mr Valducci’s expertise. I do hjave his contact details for when you require them though.

      And so true about Cleve…sheds full of jazz mags and weeds everywhere..and people think he’s all smouldering and sensitive.

  • Well, that’s refreshed my attitude to my allotment a tad. Another book to look forward to. You’re in danger of becoming prolific. No bad thing.

    Just finished wrapping the last present… with that in mind, I wish you and yours a very Happy Christmas.I raise a Balvenie to you.

Comments are closed.