Lifestyle| Lisa and Jason on their allotment.

{August 28th 2011}

On that summery day in August, Adrian & I visited our neighbours, Lisa & Jason, as they tended to their huge & bountiful allotment in Langley Green. As Adrian & I love taking photographs of people enjoying their hobbies and interacting with each other, it was an absolute pleasure. It was even more so because they gifted us with potatoes, cabbage & corn from their allotment. The difference in size, texture and taste is so obvious when their vegetables & fruit are compared to those bought from the shops. We’re afraid that we’ve been spoilt haha!

Don’t say you weren’t warned: this post will be sprinkled with several different ways of saying “big”, “huge” & “impressive” as those words (or similar) were our reactions to what we saw!

Lisa & Jason told us that they normally start their day on the allotment with a cup of tea & pain au chocolat whilst agreeing which jobs they would focus on as the allotment was so big. Their green chillies were impressive.Their allotment shed had several hanging rows of onions in new tights as onions are very  moist when first harvested so they need to dry out before use. As a complete novice to gardening or farming, Funmi had no idea so considers herself “taught”.Jason pulling out some of the carrots that they grow in manure-filled tubes; their produce is so huge that they are compelled to use luggage scales to weigh them.Jason illustrating the difference in size between a tube-grown Carrot (yes, pale cream Carrots exist, no they are not Parsnips) when compared to a pallet-grown (normal as in orange) Carrot. Talk about “inferiority complex” haha.Lisa hand makes their scare crows so she changes them annually with different designs; one of their many massive Beef Tomatoes.Corn ears of possibly the same Corns that they gave a few days after the shoot.Impressive Cabbages that were positioned just to the right of their allotment gate.Cabbage harvest.Jason is carrying one of his and Lisa’s allotment-grown cabbages. The sheer size of it (weighed over 9 kg!) means that store-bought varieties would cower in defeat, if they were able to do so.
These 3 bags of potatoes were a very small portion of all the potatoes they harvest. The texture of these potatoes when cooked was silken and taste, divine!Who said Cucumbers were not romantic!? We defy them.

Thanks to Lisa & Jason for enlightening us in most things allotment and giving us some of your delicious produce!