Charles’ Allotment

Time for a quiz: what do carrots, broccoli, garlic, raspberries and cauliflower all have in common. Wrong, they are not just mainstay within the diet of our vegan friend Michael, they are also the vegetables (and one pesky fruit) that have caused great existential angst. For those of you quite rightly questioning why I’ve been dumbfounded by such produce, I have to confess to you I’m now the not-so-proud successful holder of an allotment.

Motivated by a yearning for outdoor space during the pandemic, I decided to scour the internet for any available allotment spaces. It turns out, apart from bopping along to Joe Wicks and hoarding toilet roll, the rest of the UK (and London in particular) had a similar idea. So, a few years later the call up to the big leagues came my way: half a plot on the outskirts of Greater London. Now half a plot might not sound like a lot, but it’s some 125 square metres of land google reliably informs me.

Skip forward a few months with a wallet lighter from a small fortune being spent on fertilizers and compost, a light tan from the emergency watering trips to save the plants from June’s mini-heatwave and what’s the result? An SGM-FX London office that’s heard more gardening stories than Alan Titchmarsh and a shed load of mangetout beans. Now I’m sure there’s either a Jack and the Beanstalk or a Princess and the Pea joke in there somewhere so perhaps a reader wittier than me could shine a light on that.