This Allotment: Stories of Growing, Eating and Nurturing - Garden Museum

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This Allotment: Stories of Growing, Eating and Nurturing

To celebrate the launch of ‘This Allotment: Stories of Growing, Eating and Nurturing’, the book’s editor, Sarah Rigby, was joined in conversation by allotment historian JC Niala, chef Olia Hercules and writer Kirsteen McNish.

An allotment. A ‘10 pole’ space for the growing of fruit and vegetables. A health-giving, heart-filling miniature kingdom of carrots, courgettes and callaloo. A microcosm for our societies at large as people claim their ‘patch’ and guard it fiercely, but also of welcoming arms, gifted gluts and new recipes from across the seas.

They are places of resilience, resistance and freedom. They are blowsy dahlias, cricket on the radio, buzzing bees and the wisdom of weeds and seeds. This Allotment: Stories of Growing, Eating and Nurturing brings together twelve vibrant pieces from gardeners, food writers, novelists, horticulturalists, and historians in a glorious celebration of these entirely unique spaces: plots that mean so much more than the soil upon which they sit.

Image: JC Niala’s allotment