Kitchen Garden Forum

I recently took over a new allotment. Over half the area was covered by brambles -a real jungle, with junk beneath. It would be quite a challenge for anybody, but I am enjoying bringing an old, abandoned plot back to life.
However, why is it that whenever any of the other plot holders comes over for a chat, they insist that their own allotment was in a much worse state than even mine? I have to take them at face value, but am unaware that any landmines were laid on any plots in this area... Nevertheless, they must have been, because the only way my plot could be any worse would be for there to be land mines beneath the brambles and thorn bushes? Why is everybody's else plot clearing experience much worse than mine?

Didn't you know that everyone's everything is much worse than yours!

Except mine, which is only just a bit worse, but I don't care...

perhaps they are trying to encourage you? if those idiots could clear a worse one yours must be possible?

It's the same with women and births, their experience is always much longer/worse than anyone else's....

Or far better, easier, more wonderful and Earth-motherish!

The reason I mentioned this is when I took over my original allotment at another site, I remember being told exactly the same thing by all the old lags. While my allotment might look a challenge, theirs had been well nigh impossible to clear!

You can't have a good yarn over the fence about clearing your plot if all you had to do was give it a quick hoeing.

I bet mine was much worse than yours

Couldn't resist it...sorry

A friend of mine and I took on an allotment about 12 years ago in the days when women were not a common sight on allotments.We were the first women to garden on that site without our husbands. We were such an oddity that we had a lot of the oldtimers coming to watch, commiserate and give advice. One of them said that he wasn't a gardener. It was something he did to fill the time between retirement and the grave. He's gone now and I missed his - ' You don't want to do it that way luv' or 'you'll never get it done like that,' or 'you're making hard work of that luv'. I remember little presents of cucmbers, parsnips turning up in my greenhouse. I thanked him for the parsnips but it was ' don't thank me. You're getting them off my hands She doesn't like forked ones.'My wheelbarrow was mended, but he wouldn't admit to it and I shall never know for certain who did it now.One of the men would never leave until he had made sure I was going home and wasn't last on the site. The last Kitchen Garden had an article on these old timers which I thought made a very good point - that they'd kept allotments going during the lean times. They're getting older now but they don't want us to forget that once they were young and they'd won that plot back from an awful condition and that maybe it looked easy now but that was because they'd brought it to that level of cultivation. Be good humoured with them. Enjoy their banter and listen to their advice because whether they're true gardeners or not, they have great local knowledge and that's what we all lack in the early stages.

I too was welcomed onto a site near Reading about 20 years ago ... most certainly the only female ( the OH was and still is only interested in slash and burn or out door hoorvering .. ie grass cutting) and then I was probably at least 40 years younger than most of the old residents. They were fantastic help and I learned so much from them. Even if they did laugh at my 'rocky mountain peas ' ... hadn't quite mastered the use of the rake then ....
And one summer one of the old timers came up sheepishly with a big bunch of dahlias ... saying 'he hoped he didn't think he was being too forward ... but would I accept a bunch of flowers as a gift from one gardener to another ... as he was going on hols and didn't want to see them wasted'

I also spent many a happy time discussing the best way of killing slugs ... mine was and is scissors snipping them in half . Dave who I dubbed the 'king of the allotments' who had lived in Africa and had some interesting tools as a result favoured the lenghtwise slicing with a Stanley knife.

Ah happy days .... now with a big veg patch in the garden but very very fond memories of the allotment.

yummyveggies

Just for a laugh, I think I shall plant some Japanese knotwood on one or two of the surrounding plots, then lean over the fence and say: "Your's is definintely a lot worse than mine is!" Do you think they will appreciate the irony? Of course, I will deny it was me that planted it....