Two days from the start of spring and I am itching to sow and grow. Bags and packets of seed are calling impatiently. But as I write, we are still unsure when we’ll be paroled to the plot. Perhaps longer than the three-month sentence we’d hoped for.
I thought, then, to take time to look back this week on what I’ve missed most about communal gardening. Is it the in-the-distance company of other growers, perhaps picking their runner beans? Maybe Mary’s giant sunflowers and perfect poppies? The early-morning thrill of kestrels and foxes, the scent of another neighbour’s sweet peas?
All this, of course. And the call of growing my forever flowers, the memories and peace of mind they come with. Howard and I don’t much make plans at the plot. We hunt and share good seed and grow it. Lose ourselves in nurture and nature.
We will miss, though, the self-sown insistence of amaranth and orache, gone now with the old soil. Too soon to know what histories our imported earth will bring.
Every year’s plot has had a different personality, depending on mood, the sun, the season; what we want to grow. The past two years, there were more flowers than ever before. I suspect this shift will stay. Our constant tagetes and nasturtiums, our flowering fennel, a few good food things– summer herbs and beans and salad leaves, Italian chicories in autumn. It’s yet too soon to say.
It’s unclear when we’ll be back together again, conjuring new life from new soil and seeing what grows well when and where.
Until then, Howard and I will make occasional pilgrimages to the plot. We may toast it with smoky whisky. We’ll gaze longingly over the fence to Plot 29. We’ll walk back slowly over the Heath. Search woods for signs of lords-and-ladies (Arum maculatum). And we’ll try to wait patiently.
Allan Jenkins’s Plot 29 (4th Estate, £9.99) is out now. Order it for £8.49 from guardianbookshop.com
