Introduction

I sincerely hope I am an above average father and husband respectively (don’t we all?). In income I am decidedly below average, but I won't  start on a downer. In all other respects I am average, standard, normal, boring even. If I have anything to say about gardening that is instructive it is because I am recycling information from others. I am certainly no expert or authority. This journal is not an instruction manual. It simply started by me keeping a diary of what I was doing in the garden. I was embarking on a year in which I was going to be serious about gardening – in my own limited sphere -  and I began to write down what I was doing. As I began to write I thought that this is the kind of thing that I would be interested to read from others and so I started to write as if others might read it. The result is what you see before you and I merely hope it is as interesting as I thought it would be for other likeminded folk. It is not a record of what is correct, just a record of what I did, mistakes and all. On some matters I realised my mistakes later on, other times I may not have, so please do not read this as a manual, just sit back and enjoy my attempts and failures and a few non-average opinions along the way. My garden and allotment will hardly win awards or justify an entrance fee and you won’t see them on the cover of a magazine. They are simply my spaces and I get excited about them. So this volume is the honest, average account of one bloke tending his patch and trying to make the most of it. The fact that I can write so much about my exploits is testament to the depth and passion of the subject of gardening.