In Your Garden: Lucy’s Bromley Allotment
STORIES
This little patch of land is our family allotment, where my husband and I have been growing vegetables and flowers for the past eight years. We applied for a plot on a whim, not really expecting to get one for years. Two months later, we were handed the keys.
Back then, we had very little gardening knowledge. The plot was completely overgrown, covered with weeds and clearly unloved. Slowly, with plenty of hard work, we brought it back to life.
We grow a wide variety of vegetables – courgettes, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, squashes and many more. But the heirloom tomatoes hold a special place in our hearts. Once you discover their incredible flavours, along with their beautiful shapes and colours, it’s hard to go back to supermarket tomatoes. It truly is a different world!
We work well as a team. My husband loves clearing and preparing the ground, while I enjoy the planning, organising and ordering seeds. We love the process and the full cycle – from starting little seedlings to big harvests in the summer.
Somewhere along the way, I also fell in love with growing flowers. It started with a single dahlia and a packet of zinnias. Each year I added a little more, creating a colourful border around the plot. From tulips and daffodils in spring, to cosmos, dahlias, zinnias and sunflowers in summer, I love watching the colours unfold through the seasons.
For me, every visit to the allotment is special. I could lose myself there for hours, enjoying quiet moments and watching plants grow – a kind of joy I never knew existed!
Our allotment is more than just a place we grow food, it’s a place of calm, love and connection, and as I often say – it’s my happy place.
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Follow Lucy: @lucyintheplotwithflowers