little corner of heaven: the guided tour

As some of you, unfamiliar with the allotment tradition, have asked me about it, I thought you might like to see this fabled allotment of mine, so now, thanks to Roger's skill with Google maps and dotted lines, you can.

Picture 1: the serene environs of Bacteria Gardens. Here they are - the dozen or so streets of gardenless terraced houses and student flats, the steep hill rolling away to the little river Ouseburn, and on to glorious Jesmond Dene and Heaton Park,or, by taking a right turn which suddenly plunges you into an open grassy area where no roads or buildings are visible, our allotments. To reach them, we must trudge down this steep hill and along to the gate, and the return trudge after a strenuous digging session is often accompanied by loud puffing and groaning .

Our site, outlined in red, with the vaguest-looking allotments, is positioned next to the pigeon holders' site, with its cluster of crees and sheds. Most of the men in there seem to be named Alan, and the river sometimes bursts its banks at this point and floods the lower half of their site. The whole area used to have its own little village, with two pubs and a church, and much was eventually abandoned because of persistent flooding. One pub remains, recently refurbished so that new customers under the age of 60 and who do not wear flat caps and nicotine stains could be encouraged. The walls and ceiling are no longer brown, and while it is certainly much cleaner and better-lit, it has lost its charm entirely

There is another self-contained group of allotment plots at the top right. The gardeners there have clubbed together to build a gazebo; we don't have anything to do with them, for no known reason, unless, perhaps, we just aren't gazebo people. Maybe we are tumbledown hut people, neo-Neolithic types with low brows who wouldn't know what to do with a gazebo and a glass of chilled white wine.

Picture 2: a closer view. The plot outlined in red near the top is mine, although the picture was taken a couple of years ago, and some derelict cold frames have been removed, to allow the weeds greater freedom. Oddly, my beloved shed is near-invisible, as is any evidence of gardening activity on my part.

The largish polytunnel in the plot above mine is Suspicious Colin's, who builds it himself every year, grows huge leeks in it, which he invariably pronounces a deep disappointment (prize leek growers are rarely satisfied) and then gives up as the winter winds tear his sheets of polythene to ragged shreds that are left to flap forlornly till next Spring. Colin responds to any question, no matter how innocuous, with a shifty and alarmed look and an evasive response. This could be the mark of a chronically guilty conscience, or perhaps I haven't recognised my own unconscious imitation of a copper's nark, but it makes conversation challenging.

Eddie the Poisoner is opposite me, his tidy garden filled with bird feeders heavily vandalised by squirrels, and considering Eddie's state of health, the Grim Reaper hovering at his elbow and breathing hotly down his neck, it may be that the war of wits he wages on those squirrels is what keeps him alive. Not that he poisons anything except weeds, being a great softie with all wildlife, but he talks tough, and frequently encourages me to poison my weeds, hence his nickname. I am very fond of Eddie, and also, to my shame, secretly covet his old 5-tined curved fork specifically designed to dig up potatoes.

Roger's plot is on the opposite side, bottom right, also outlined in red. The end section of his plot is tangled riverbank, and the dog finds that it all smells very interesting down there under the briars, suggesting wildlife that appeals most to terriers. Roger grows woad, and other things that can be used as natural dyes, but before the knitters and weavers amongst you get excited, he doesn't appear to knit, spin or weave. Or, to my eternal disappointment, to paint himself and Tim blue in order to advance menacingly on Hadrian's Wall.

The other plots are held by a motley group of gardeners, some very experienced, with fine soil and serried ranks of cabbages, some so new that they haven't seen, as I have, the relentless march of the Jerusalem artichokes that someone planted some years ago and then shared. Another ten years of this insidious invasion, and the entire site might be renamed Jerusalem Gardens, with a bunch of defeated gardeners putting together J.A. recipe books and presenting a brave face to the world.

So, that's the place where we go to battle with Nature, wreck our fingernails, and replenish our souls. See how lush and green it all looks? Mostly weeds and brambles, perhaps all that stands between us and world domination by the artichokes, but a secret little patch of heaven between the city and the Dene. I love it.