I’ve finally found an allotment via the River Cottage Landshare website and in March of this year we move onto a prime strip of Hampshire land in nearby Hook.
Colin The Cactus
My green fingered experience began with a cactus, called Colin, whom I’ve nurtured since he was 1cm tall.
Herbs Avec Un Chien Piss Jus
My second and final horticultural fling was with a herb garden in an old sink and more commonly called “the place where the dogs ended up peeing”, which I have now been forced to abandon (People complained the Mojitos tasted bitter).
Thanks to the spaniels I needed to move beyond our back garden, hence my search for an allotment. The 42 established allotments in Hartley Wintney have a 5 year waiting list and new allotments planned to border the fields behind our house already have a waiting list of 250 people and even then they still won’t be opened until…….. er……….. the year 2016.
So I logged into Landshare and applied for other allotments and vegetable patches in the surrounding area. But to no avail. Months later I thought I’d see if anything had changed and bingo…… new allotments were being allocated in Hook. I spoke to the marvellous Emma who told me, although we were just outside the catchment area, to apply anyway because any spare places would be allocated on a first come first served basis to us savage aliens who live over the frontier that is the Hook border.
Now I need to work out what to do with a space, which at 10m by 12m, is a lot bigger than the sink full of herbs I inadvertently provided for the dogs to pee on. Oh – and before I forget – don’t think I know nothing about horticulture because I’ve already proved that unlike other herbs, Mint can thrive no matter what dogs rain down on it.
