The start

"Vegetable gardeners wanted" read the advert in the parish magazine, and visions of neatly-hoed rows of leeks sprang instantly to mind. We'd been after an allotment for some months, but communal veg gardens are like hens' teeth in the village. A quick phone call later to a potential co-digger and I was leaving a burbling message on the vicar's answerphone. Ah yes, I neglected to mention that the garden belonged to the vicar, and he would let us have it for just a small tithe as and when. It seemed ideal. Breathless plans were made, seed catalogues poured over, and we set off to meet the Vicar and inspect his (soon to be our!) vegetable plot. It is big and unused, and had a small bindweed problem that became a very big problem last year when a former veg gardener rotovated it. Muppet. Still, it was soil, and grow-in-able, with just a lot of digging to do before those leeks became reality.