Dave's blog

It’s funny how your allotment neighbours can have beautifully well tended plots that must take hours and hours to maintain; yet you never see them! I can go for three days straight working without seeing anyone on either side, yet neat rows of roots and leaves still taunt my tatty half rows. I work like a dog sometimes but the weeds still win at times and I feel I’m growing nothing more than a slug farm.

Just before Christmas, around the solstice, I wandered up to my little piece of land, dressed in my thermals to plant out my garlic. The old garden lore is to plant around the winter solstice and harvest around the summer one – plant on the shortest day harvest on the longest.

If you’re reading this as I’ve posted it (around February) don’t worry about missing the boat, garlic can also be planted in the spring.

With garlic in hand I arrived at my plot only to realise I should perhaps de-weed the area where I wanted to plant the garlic and clear the last of the now stringy looking broccoli.

I took my time, enjoying the feeling of being wrapped up warm in the winter air. The ground was quite cold and wet, so I tried not to disturb the soil too much as I pulled out the old broccoli stems. A bramble had somehow found its way in under the brassica net and I took a while untangling it, cutting my hand as I did so. I always get little nicks and scratches on the allotment and I’ve become so used to it, I don’t always notice if my whole arm is dripping with blood.

By the time the plot was cleared the sun was quickly beginning to set and if not for the moon it would have been completely dark. I broke up the bulbs carefully and started inserting the bulbs into the ground using my finger as a dibber.

Just over my head I heard the flutter of wings and felt a chill run down my spine. I looked up but couldn’t see what had made the noise. It was a little late for birds and it was quite a way to the train tunnel the local bats live in. I wasn’t used to being out in this light and everything had an eerie edge; the sound could have been anything, I reassured myself.

Half way through planting my first bulb I was pulled out of my daydreams by the sound of the shed next door being opened. The figure of a gaunt, pale man dressed almost totally in black emerged, holding a hoe in one hand and a wave in the other.

‘Hullo’ he muttered quietly.

I looked up and nodded.

He wandered over for a proper greeting.

‘You look like you’ve cut yourself’ he said smiling and moving his head towards my hand to investigate.

‘I know, I can barely see to plant all this garlic’, I said waving a bulb in front of his face.

He recoiled back and seemed to almost hiss as he did so.

‘Er, sorry, I’m really not a big fan of garlic’

I felt a little embarrassed by my actions, not everyone likes the smell of the stuff and I moved away from my plot to chat to him on his.

He told me he only came down to the plot at night, which is why I never saw him. He also informed me he actually had an allergy to all alliums, not just garlic. I felt even worse about my actions and thought I’d make it up to him by pulling up a couple of parsnips before I left.

We actually got on really well and even joked about the number of people who have worked the plot next to him and how it must be cursed. I remember talking to the allotment rep about the very same thing. People just seem to vanish without a trace from plot 33, no forwarding address, nothing, all very strange.

I dug up two of the biggest parsnips I could find and handed them to my new friend.

“Why thank you”, he grinned, “they still have a little of your blood on them”

I reached for the roots, “I’ll give them a little wash for you”.

He must have really wanted the parsnips as he clutched them to his chest at this remark, mumbling there really was no need, a little blood wouldn’t put him off some lovely fresh parsnips. He took a nibble at one of my offerings.

“Perhaps you should come at night again soon, I always like a little bite on the allotment”, he said grinning from ear to ear revealing a mouth full of bloody parsnip stuck to his protruding canines.