May 2008. Day one on allotment number 16. Neglected for at least two years but I was assured that there was ‘good soil’ under there. I wasn’t entirely sure why I wanted an allotment, it had been something grumbling away in the back of my mind for years now. Over six months of taming this small wilderness, taking a small crop of potatoes, leeks and salad I now know why. I don’t trust the supermarkets to provide me with good food. I don’t like them dousing it with chemicals, flying it round the world, trucking it up and down the country and wrapping it in plastic and foam. I don’t trust them to get food to me and mine in the event of a crisis. I don’t like making their shareholders richer at my expense.
So I decided to grow my own. I want to get us as close to self-sufficiency as possible, using these ten rods of heavy soil. This is northern Britain, with unpredictable weather. There’ll have to be a greenhouse and 
probably some polytunnel. One day there will be a chicken run for eggs, free-range meat and manure. The aim is to be organic, and we are learning from scratch. Complete novices at this gardening lark, we intend to chronicle the mistakes and lessons alongside the triumphs and harvests. There will be herbs, some fruit trees and colourful things – peppers and chilis – that depart from the traditional northern allotment stereotype of acres of the kind of thing your Granny used to boil the Bejazus out of. We want to try to stage planting and cropping so we’re not suddenly looking at half a tonne of some something in the kitchen and thinking ‘crap, leeks for ever’, maybe start a little allotment market in the close near the allotments.
Here’s the state of the allotment at close of play today. Bookmark us, stick around to see how the oats, beans and barley grow.
