Generous : 'Asparagus Finally Giving Forth'

'Asparagus Finally Giving Forth'

16 May 2008 by Helen

People often say your garden says a lot about you, and I wonder if your allotment does too. Mick’s, opposite our patch, is laid out with manly, high piled trenches, and a neat patio the wife had him build for her. Bill’s, just down the path, is rather unkempt. The frames for his beans don’t look too steady, and the improvised shed has seen better days. But he has an amazing gift, and produces the most magnificent crops, in abundance.

Ours, plot 23, shows sporadic signs of activity: yes, we have an allotment, but no, we’re not especially earnest about it. When we started out, about three seasons ago, we bought all the books, and they made it seem like a full-time job, which, with two kids and a full-time job each, was precisely what we had already. We wanted our plates full of good things, but already had our hands full. So here, over the course of a few equally sporadic posts, is a blog about having an allotment without having to have a bee in your bonnet about it. A very Generous style allotment, if you will: full of good things, but without having to sound off about it.

Generous is actually the first word that springs to mind when we do go down to dig. The small array of plots, tucked away through a gate behind some lock-up garages in South East London, is a tiny oasis of generosity. Need a particular tool? Someone will always lend it. Run out of organically-minded slug pellets? Someone will let you have some. Doing something completely foolish with your broad beans? Someone will cheerily correct you, and likely offer some of their own spares for you to plant. This is what naturally happens when people get their hands dirty together: the barriers that prevent them communing outside those gates rust and dissolve into the soil. Black, white, asian, gay, straight, young, old, rich, poor… Every variety our local community has to offer is planted here and thrives together.

I think this is what keeps us coming. If the crops fail, then no one is going to go hungry – it’s the sense of belonging, of sharing, of mutual generosity that keeps you trudging along in your wellies. It’s May. The spuds are well on their way, the fruit bushes blossoming, the salad sprouting and the asparagus finally giving forth. The rhubarb still sits among the grasses and keeps on giving. The winter, cold and hard, kept us in our houses, nothing growing. But now the soil is warming, and the plots are flourishing again.