The plot thickens. Almost every spare square inch (sorry, centimetre) is now packed with food and flowers. High summer is here.
I have oversown rows of chards, chicories, autumn salads: hardier Franchi lettuce mixes. The tear peas have conquered the hazel poles. Even their stems eat sweet.
The climbing beans are clambering the tipi. Reaching out like on a rock face. Still standing between them is a perfect overwintered flowering coriander bush, taller now than me.
The Jane Scotter-sown sweet peas have taken and are happy, their flowers not far away. There are tagetes, orange cosmos, cascading nasturtiums, bunching calendula all in bloom or nudging there. I have transplanted the rampant borage, more comfortable with it colonising the neighbouring bank than the plot.
The resident herb fennel has spread out like rainforest. Howard’s taken some newer roots home. Our corner poppies are coming to an end: deep scarlet, still alive with happy bees.
There is a tray of purple corn shoots from Kala’s Thailand seed waiting on the final cropping from the crimson-flowered broad beans. This then, is our peak summer growth. Every corner come alive.
It needs care, perhaps company, dosing with regular feed (seaweed and comfrey) and almost daily watering. I loop round the neighbouring allotments. Admire the yellow-flowering black salsify, the astonishing blue nigella, extraordinary magenta poppies. I have deep potato-plant envy.
There is a resident owl in the tree behind us. We count ourselves fortunate to hear its morning call. A gentle community of like-minded people. A nod, perhaps a small wave, a quick chat as you pass. Everywhere, the urgent thrum of contented insects. Allotments alive with bees.
I am off soon to the summerhouse. Henri to soak in her childhood memories. To mourn the absence of her mum. To tend the wild meadow’s no-mow May and June. Howard will look after the allotment while we’re away.
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
