WINTER

December

In the garden

My allotment has a very specific aesthetic: a bit ramshackle, sometimes a little overgrown. It is productive enough, but I always strive to make it better. I prefer winter to autumn, when I am plunged into gloom, the good intentions of last spring behind me. Bindweed has taken hold, weaving a string of lantern-like seedheads through the branches of my apple tree; couch grass is knotting itself around the roots of the currant bushes; and the leaves of the gooseberry bushes are spotted with mildew. I berate myself for my sloppy gardening and, after picking a few armfuls of chard, late courgette flowers and salad, I usually run away without doing much. Far better is a crisp, winter day when the plants have died back and I can see the skeleton of my plot emerge once again.

Gardening in isolation means bad habits can creep up on you. To stimulate better practice, I visit other urban gardens. A frequent destination is a market garden in Dagenham, east London, where in 2012 Alice Holden transformed the glasshouses and growing spaces of a neglected local nursery into a small organic farm (). It was originally funded through lottery money secured by Growing Communities, a not-for-profit social enterprise that runs a veg box scheme and sponsors apprentice growers. Costs are now financed through the sale of fresh produce. In summer, the greenhouses groan with cucumbers, tomatoes and courgettes watered with stored rainwater, while glossy beds of chard create a red and emerald carpet. I return from September visits with bags of mixed leaves – pak choi, mustard, rocket, frilly lettuce and sorrel – as well as multicoloured heritage tomatoes, feeling that with a little more dedication I too could make a garden such as this.