Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has a lot to answer for.

Whilst I’ve always been into Gardening and growing stuff – pretty much since I saw the failed attempts of both my grandfather (moved to Hockley because if there was a Nuclear war, they’d be safer 60 miles away than in the suburbs of London) and my Aunt and Uncle at self sufficiency (they’d moved to Sea Palling, bought chickens, ducks, bees, planted an orchard etc but couldn’t bring themselves to eat their livestock)  I’d only really dabbled before I left for university.  During my 2nd year I planted potatoes and tomatoes, none of which I saw bear fruit as is the want of students, I moved out.  The houses garden is probably now filled with potatoes which you can never get rid of.

The third year I moved into a much nicer house with even bigger garden, cooking apple tree & pears, rhubarb, herbs etc.

Fourth year I was brewing beer in my flat, growing herbs on the windowsill, I had no garden.

And in my final days in Norwich, my university town, I had a house with a courtyard – which I sucessfully grew tomatoes, veg etc.

When I moved back, I had no intention of growing stuff until I started watching river cottage.  The seed was planted.  Then I popped back to see my friend Kris.  He was still at university and was running a self sufficiency society.  They had managed to get three adjacent plots, got a poly tunnel, built a straw bale shed and got bees.

Back home, I therefore had no choice but to apply for an allotment.  After a lot of reading, I came up with the idea of making no dig beds – these are beds which could in theory rest on concrete – but in reality it rested on couchgrass – a war I’ve never completely won, though the no dig beds seem to surivive much better than the london clay they rest on.  My wife and I now grow all manner of fruit, veg and salad on our plot.  It’s very productive throughout the year and could potentially provide us with all our veg, but we’re lazy and occasionally don’t get down there for weeks at a time – usually during the long summer days when you’d rather be round a BBQ drinking beer…